<\/p>\n
Many runners spend their entire lives trying to run a 5k under 20 minutes. P. Burton Morgan, now 42, achieved this goal in just 18 months, despite being a “middle-aged mother who didn’t exercise at all for 20 years.” I want to hear more RW <\/em>We sat down with a runner and a poet to talk running clubs, recovery, and rhyme…<\/p>\n “After 10 years of no exercise other than raising children and reaching for cake, I started running on my own, mainly for my mental health. For my first run, I literally just put on a pair of trainers that had been sitting in the back of the cupboard for 20 years. I mean, 20 years ago they were great trainers, but they had completely degraded by this point. I just put them on and ran down the lane and into the woods without even stretching, probably too soon. After 10 minutes, I thought, “I can’t keep doing this anymore.” So I walked a little and then started running a little. I think I’ve been running and walking all this time without even realizing it. <\/p>\n “Then I did a parkrun in about 24 minutes, and everyone was like, ‘Oh, that’s actually pretty fast.’ I looked around and thought: teeth<\/em> Are they cool people in red vests? \u201dA friend said he was from the Frome Running Club. That was last July, and at that point I was thinking that my next poetry show would be about running. So I joined a running club primarily for the show’s content, but soon I was competing in races and earning points for the club. I then won a charity slot in the London Marathon to run for the NSPCC. Now I want to run in 3 hours and 15 minutes. <\/p>\n