The Park Run Family
Dads and daughters,
Mums and sons,
cousins, dogs, uncles,
the DNA of family runs.
Pain on the dirt track.
I can hear my brother’s breathing,
the drone of cars on the road,
but you turn the corner,
it goes quiet,
there’s just
air.
Then-a cow’s moo,
the pong at Gate Two,
bad thoughts go round in your head,
I might wee, I might poo,
I might just
stop.
Thoughts spiral like genes.
Pushing a pram,
axels rattling on pebbles,
tunnel vision,
time slips in the gravel,
you claw it back
in the tarmac.
Baby squealing at the start,
wanting to go faster.
Knees crack,
hip burning as hot as the sun is,
look back at the line of runners
all along Grandstand Road.
Poo that smells like grass
in the heat,
avoid it on the track,
do a shimmy with your feet,
dog pulls you back.
The feeling of running past people,
the feeling of being overtaken.
One week the cows stampeded.
Every limb aching.
Today, I didn’t hear the skylarks.
Cheering, endorphins, cooling down, elated,
for these five k, we’re all related.