“He says it’s a cult, but it’s not true” was the – somewhat sheepishly self-aware – justification from a middle-aged lady about why her brother was slightly grumpily stood to the side of the starting area not wearing sports kit.

To be fair to her brother, people religiously getting up unnecessarily early one day a week to put their special clothes on to go to a specific place to hear a specific welcome text from a specific person at a specific time to take part in the same repetitive activity which is mostly an individual effort but benefits from the community feel …. he may be onto something!

So, amen, hallelujah, āmīn, Om and other sayings out of the way, here I was, at 8am, in (a very scenic) Delta Park in Johannesburg.

It’s often hard to know how dangerous cities are based on Foreign Office warning but I think most people agree that Johannesburg isn’t the safest place on earth, so the parkrun was a welcome opportunity to run without feeling too worried about my personal safety.

They start parkruns earlier here to avoid the heat, but they probably need to start them a couple of hours even earlier because it was already 26-27°C in the shade (so like 34°C in the sun) this morning and it felt HOT. Johannesburg was, admittedly, in the middle of a heatwave so even the locals were struggling, but still. I had initially pencilled in doing the parkrun then doing another 10k or so by visiting the botanical gardens after the parkrun but not. a. chance.

In terms of setting, Delta Park is a very pretty “open” park: it reminded me a little bit of the large hilly commons in London such as Brockwell Park, though maybe with a few extra palm trees here and there.

The parkrun itself is quite large by European standards, with around 650 runners every week. Doing my pre-run planning, I had initially wondered why runners were “so slow”: 22 minutes would often be enough to finish third or fourth which, even in Paris with our 65 runners, wouldn’t be enough for Top 5.

Well, I’d soon have my answer.

After the usual short friendly briefing (sermon), we were off, first past a huge palm tree and then along some dirt paths. And, huh, these were actually pretty narrow deer tracks, not large paths. As an expert trail runner (…), I know that it’s important not to get caught up at the back of a line or you’ll never make it out of it so, like everyone, I set off a little too fast. Within fewer than 500 meters, the heat hit – fuck me – and my heart was already at over 170bpm. Oops. Let’s not die.

I switched down from sixth gear to second gear, and I then had a bit of respite with both wide and downhill paths for a little bit.

The course is essentially a loop of the park which, on paper, is easy and simple enough but, for an otherwise very well-run event, it could probably benefit from a few more arrows for those unfamiliar with the paths. I never got lost, but I did have a few moments of hesitation in some corners in the first kilometre or so after I’d been dropped (which, clearly, cost me like 5 minutes by the end).

After that, well, it’s a loop. What goes down must go back up so … bugger. Especially as we went back up higher the starting/finish area. The climb was around 70m over just over a kilometre which, in normal circumstances, would probably require a defibrillator for me in any case but, with the heat, nope, it wasn’t going to happen. I got to about 2km before I needed to run/walk for the next kilometre or so. It was just too hot.

I had medium hopes for this run to test my standard as I’d just run a 38’21 10k the previous week but the heat was and is my nemesis, so I quickly gave up.

Once we reached the top of Mount Everest, it got a little easier with a flatter segment. I caught up with the 10-year-old who’d dropped me on the climb (git) and stumbled my way downhill towards an inglorious finish (and a lot of water).

As I crossed the line, a young man commented on my parkrun t-shirt (which I think is quite a rare one: a relic, as we might want to refer to it, on a par with the Shroud of Turin) and complimented it. Then another one did too. And a woman had already done so before the start.

Three compliments in an hour. Mmm. I normally get one complement every three years, if that.

Maybe this is a cult after all …

Time: 25’33 (19^th/ 584)

Speed

Sun

Difficulty

Scenery