Week One
On a very sunny but deceptively chilly Easter Sunday morning, we had a small but enthusiastic early group. Bal, James and Raj had all had a couple of weeks with limited running so were all getting their legs back into it. There was a great effort by all but we really felt it at the end.

Even though it was tough, Raj and Bal joined us for the next session as well. We had a bigger group so split off as usual. I had a great catch up with Nancy, as we were glad to be back on paths after Cofton Park's grass and mud. I kept Angelina company as she switched groups having started with Roy and Tony. We had all of our new and returning runners back again. It was particularly pleasing to see that Rekha is recovering well enough from her back injury to return to us. After the usual bickering as we stretched by the Boathouse, it was good to get a sunny selfie before rushing home to get stuck into those eggs!

Week Two
We were running a bit late this morning so on the way over we bumped into Isla and Chloe before catching up with Susan on the way down to the boathouse. Dad took James and the others over to the other side of the park while I ran around the lake with a big group. Raj turned run leader has she decided to extend the run with the excursion over the small railway bridge and back; while I stuck to the lake with Susan (although we added quite a few hills along the way).

Started with a fresh faced selfie which reminded Roy of On the Buses when we were trying to encourage others to smile. After he pulled out a remarkable Blakey impression, we got ourselves warmed up. We took a little trip around the community garden on Roy's request. Angelina managed to do her first long, pain-free session and I think she enjoyed it a lot. Selina has learnt very painful lesson of eating too close to a run and not stretching after a run over the course of this week. However, it was great to have a fun run in the mild sunshine. 

Congratulations to Sarah for completing her first marathon and to Wendy for supporting her all the way round, despite injuring her ankle on the morning of the Manchester Marathon. 

Week Three
On Saturday at Perry Hall parkrun, Susan ran for the first time and loved it. Tan took almost 2 minutes off her PB, Mateen got another PB, Angelina enjoyed a pain-free, quick run and we all enjoyed a run in unexpected sunshine.
At the first session on Sunday, John was unfortunately suffering with an injury so we swapped roles for the session and he led a keen group of runners around the lake with Chan.  As a result, I got to catch up with Jyoti and get a shock when I asked one of our new runners, Zak, about his ambitions for the parkrun we both run at. Around the lake, his mom settled in with our lake group and we all met back together for a good stretch.

Later on we were joined by Vin, who took the impetus to rejoin us after a good while and I shared a brilliant run and chat with him and Tan, who recovered well from her PB run and we all forgot about running for a half hour and felt great to have got so far without realising. James brought Esther to absolutely smash her personal best amount of laps of the lake. Roy and Tony took a very quick group over the other side of the park including the return of John Morris and another new runner, Andy. 

Week Four
At Perry Hall parkrun it was PB central, Mateen did nearly a 1 minute PB (after getting a prize for recording the 3000th PB at Perry Hall last week) , Fiaz nearly got a PB after a long time, Mr. PB Aman getting closer to 30 minutes and Susan getting an honorary pb for remembering the barcode! Tan and Kerry also set some impressive benchmarks as I learnt an important lesson about hydration. I had a bit of an odd and embarrassing moment on the first lap. I got really disoriented and must have thought we were on the second lap, I went the wrong way past the marshal and I was shouting at the leader to follow me. Took me ages to realise that I was wrong. So I knew something wasn't right and I stopped, went home and recovered.
Later on we had an amazing 25 runners out in the glorious sunshine. John was still feeling the injury on his leg so he took a huge group around the lake adding in some extra hills around the side as they saw fit. I took the group over to the other side of the park and we all run strong having a great run and chat all the way through the varying undulating paths that it has to offer. Chan was dragged to The Other Side by Nam, who was doing some awesome running,  heading out with the other group the first time and showing her strength all the way round and keeping up in good style. We thought of Tonia as we felt the heat and remembered that she would be running a marathon in Blackpool at the same time.

Later on we found that we had peaked for the day but were joined by small but friendly group. Jyoti and Andy joined Roy as they stretched out their running but kept all around the lake as there weren't so many of us. I ran with new runner Kam and Harbans, who brought her along to get to know us. Sheila ran excellently, keeping herself motivated around the lake and building her fitness back up.
All that was left to say for today was well done Tonia and everyone else who was marathon running today.

It was a very special Saturday morning as we did a volunteer takeover at Perry Hall parkrun. Many thanks to all of the Boathouse Runners who took part and you can read my run report here. 


Week Five
​It was a very youthful early group this week as Samantha and Isabella rejoined the group. It was a rather gloomy start as I regretted not bringing my gloves but we soon warmed up as I joined Tony to negotiate the paths where the Vaisakhi celebrations were being prepared. John and Chan led a great group around the lake and we all met up to do our usual, essential stretching.

Later on we had a run leader for each runner as we set off. I joined Tony and Roy with Nancy, Angelina and Saleha while Tonia kept a 1:1 session going until Ed and Millie joined in around the lake. We sheltered under the canopy of the Boathouse roof to shelter from the drizzle as we wound down our run at the end. 

This Thursday (May 3rd) at 6.45pm at the Handsworth Wellbeing Centre, there is a special one-off run organised by Run Birmingham. Come along to run with us, share your love of running a maybe bag a free t-shirt with their new logo! 

We welcome everyone who can join us on Sundays, and please do mention us to people you think may benefit from joining in. If you are busy, don't worry you can drop in or out any week that we meet to suit you - you're always a Boathouse Runner in our eyes. We hope your running is going well and we will see you again hopefully very soon. Keep running, keep talking and keep smiling!

Thank you all again,

John Hayes. ​

When I look at this picture I am transported back to a different version of myself. This is April 2014, and I had just been asked by my Dad, our neighbour Rachel and their friend Tonia, to get involved in helping with their idea for a run in Handsworth Park. At this point I hadn’t run at all in around three or four years, and that last spell of running was for my usual period of about 8 months, ended by a break for the usual minor cold which would typically bring my running journey to an end, with a feeling that I didn’t want to go back to square one in my fitness after pausing for a couple of weeks. This was a cycle of behaviour I had repeated countless times from my teenage years onwards, after encouragement from my dad to get started, and variously running solo for the most part in bouts afterwards. I was at the heaviest I had been ever in my life. In the weeks and months leading up to this I had begun to be aware that I would be out of breath and on the verge of passing out, seeing white, when climbing up the stairs at home with my children. Perhaps it was the still keenly felt loss of my younger brother 2 years earlier; the impetus for setting up the run and therefore organising a running group on Sunday mornings, which would become what we know as Boathouse Runners, and the knowledge that my children need me to be fit, active and alive, that focussed my mind on this spring morning. I came along to do what I had signed up to in general, arrange the paperwork. So I was there to welcome the people who had responded to our call to get out and get fit, I was there to sign them up and keep everything safe while they all went off to run. That was probably how every week would go.
But something didn’t feel right as soon as Tonia and Dad took them all out around the park and I stood there at the Boathouse. It immediately felt like I was missing out. However, I had said to myself after giving up on running the last time, I’m out. I never keep this going. What’s the point? I always feel so low after giving up, so I’m not going to start again.
Standing there at the Boathouse I saw something I wanted to be involved in and it swallowed up the negative thought I had been consumed with. I didn’t know why at the time, though I didn’t question it. I said nothing about it to anyone, grabbed some old kit on a quiet day at home and went out to see what I could do on my own, without anyone seeing that I was going out running. I was going to wait until the next Sunday but I didn’t want to embarrass myself by collapsing after a few steps in the park. So I took off gently on a route in the local area I had done many times in the past. Luckily there are a lot of connecting side roads near my house meaning there are lots of options to turn and give increasingly long running distances, but the ability to go into a side road every so often to shorten it. I really didn’t know which of my turnings I would take and I was incredibly relieved to find that it wasn’t the first choice, which would have made it not quite a lap of the lake. I passed my second turn feeling fine to continue and then felt a bit of fatigue as I approached the third so I was quite content to take it. Feeling that this would be a fair distance for a comeback run I then remembered that it had a bit of a hill, just as I started to hit it. I then remembered how I had felt just about every time I had run this hill in the past, having that ‘That will be enough running now’ feeling. Only this time I was struck by a different feeling, a different voice in my head. Most of the time I used to walk at this point, recover and run later on, which I felt like doing now. I told myself on this occasion, ‘just physical pain’. I kept running. I felt great, I mean I felt awful and I could have stopped and stopped again some more. But I got home, no stopping. I felt great, unlike any run I had done before. I had been thinking about my brother and the physical pain I experienced was inconsequential when compared to the loss of my brother, so the pain shrank and became nothing. I took this private triumph and kept it in my head, and then returned to the park on the following Sunday.
Looking at the picture four years later, I feel very grateful. I have been to nearly every week of Boathouse Runners since, I have taken a Run Leader qualification, I have met so many people living near me and near the park to run and make friends with. I have set and achieved running goals, ran a marathon, lost weight and I can keep up with my children without passing out. I am keeping their father healthy. But I couldn’t do it on my own, precisely as I spoke of earlier, when I was running by myself I would give up. Eventually. Now though, I have to be out running on a Sunday. I don’t want to miss out. I want to run and talk with my friends every week, I want to know how everyone is. If I don’t keep running, I won’t be out running with my friends on Sunday. I then made a really good friend in Chan who got me to do the marathon goal earlier than I thought I would, and we made Saturday morning at parkrun and Thursday night at Clem Dench unmissable as well, alongside friends we felt we had known for years although it had only been weeks.
Though my running journey is personal, as all of our running journeys are, it is interdependent. I can present all of the evidence of my short lived running journeys to show that I thrive on running with others. I have not given up, for the first time I have continued running for over a year, now it is coming up to 4 years since that photo was taken and I am still running. For that I am grateful to each and every one of you who have joined us by the Boathouse on a Sunday morning, I run because you run. It has been a privilege to get to know you and be a part of your lives for all of these years.
I get so much out of this I find it hard to describe myself as a volunteer, but I am every Sunday. But I am not the only one, I can only get out because of the people I love who look after the children. I am very lucky that they give me their time so I can get out - they volunteer for me. This was never so clearly illustrated than the time that marathon training was added to the list of their voluntary duties for the week every week. That’s a lot of time to give up when you add a 3-4 hour Saturday morning run to the 3 hours given over to Boathouse Runners on a Sunday. Never forget the people who get you there, especially those who give up their time to make it possible, some of those people are with us, running, and some of them may be at home, making it possible.

I hadn't realised (as I have neglected this blog for a long time) that I began the idea for a Boathouse Runners newsletter here. So, after a few years, I am going to bring you a summary of the running we do on a Sunday and some of the other things I get involved in, for those who don't get the emails which I send out for the group, starting with the month just passed:
​
Week One
Cancelled session. We weren't to know at the time that it wouldn't be the only one this month.
However, this hasn't stopped Sarah, Wendy and Tonia from marathon training. You can sponsor Sarah as she continues to raise money for Birmingham Children's Hospital. (https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/sarahsmarathon4kip)
Week Two
It was great to be back out running this week in the Park after the snowy conditions called us off last week. We started with a really big group with a very mixed set of runners getting warmed up around the lake in our usual manner. We caught up with Raj and Balbir as we went around the late clockwise unusually, as we had started our warm up by going to catch Isla and Chloe. We split up into two groups as usual and I had a great run around the lake alongside Chan who was keeping everyone happy and talking. John and Tony took their group over to the other side of the park and we all got together by The Boathouse as usual to stretch.
Later on we had a smaller but perfectly formed group and again I stayed by the lake as Tonia made the right choice to give today's run a miss due to illness. Saleha had the good fortune of joining Roy and Tony for a long stretch on the other side of the park and was put through her paces, Angelina joined them for the beginning part over a few hills. I had a great social run around the lake with Saroj. We had a great run and talk with Ana, kept circulating well to stay with Harbans and Angelina joined us after she left the other group behind. After stretching to make sure there were no aches and pains left, we all took our journeys home. Hopefully all the mothers went home for a good pampering.
Week Three
Perry Hall parkrun on Saturday had some of the toughest conditions I've experienced. Very cold indeed with a strong wind on the back of the loop which stopped your breath. Angelina did her first as a run for an incredibly long time, pacing herself with Kerry, who was taking on her first parkrun. It was great to have Fiaz back with us too!
Congratulations to Fiaz, who completed his Leadership in Run Fitness (Run Leader) qualification this month. He has been very much a Run Leader in waiting even though he's still in his first year of running. Hopefully you will see him on some of our Sunday mornings as he is very inspiring and will really add a lot to our group, as he already has as a runner.
Our running sessions were cancelled this week. What is it about Sunday mornings and snow recently? It was very cold due to the wind and the snow was quite deep in places. Even so, Isla and Chloe came out at 8.30 and I made sure they got home safely.
Nancy and Kirby braved the snow and freezing wind for 10am running around the park, so I obliged them. It was windbreaker weather as well as covered in snow.
Week Four
What a difference a week makes, a sunny and mild start to Sunday running. We had Kimberly joining us for the first time, she ran with great determination around the lake and we hope to see her go from strength to strength over the weeks as so many of you have already done. It was great to have Aman back with Mateen, who has been unwell over the past few weeks. Like many of us will have to do from time to time, he got his running back on track today with a good show around the lake including some hill work.
While I headed over to Cofton Park with Nancy for the (punishing, muddy, cross country) Headway Easter Run, I left Tony, Tonia and Roy with the 10am session. We were inundated with runners who had set their clocks correctly into BST. A new family turned up to run together, inspired by the daughter's teacher Susan, and came along to find out more from the great reports she had been passing on about Boathouse Runners. Looks like we're top of the class, thank you Susan! In the beautiful sunshine, Saleha was chased up the hill by two young men, Finn and Maxim, and she beat them to the top. Go Saleha! There were lots of new people this week and some more returning runners. We hope to see more of you as the days get warmer and the nights get longer. Let's just get through hopefully the last visit of the Beast From The East and onto some Spring and Summer sunshine running.
Can you help?
We could still do with a couple more people to help with our volunteer takeover at Perry Hall parkrun on 28th April, mainly to give out leaflets and cheer runners in. Send us an email if you can spare an hour or so to let others know about us.