PRACTICE PROFILEDANESTONE MEDICAL PRACTICE


PARKRUN APOSTLE


Jim Killgore meets a PM whose life was transformed by running and now wants the same for her patients


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RACEY Thom had decided to take stock of her life. This was 2013 and she loved her job as a senior receptionist at Danestone Medical Practice in Aberdeen. Over the years,


though, her weight had crept up to 20 stone and she felt now was the time to start thinking about how to change her unhealthy lifestyle. “I started with diets and that worked well to begin with. Then my


sister said to me: ‘Look, Tracey, I think you need to do some exercise. Come and join me at parkrun on Saturday morning’.” Parkrun is an initiative that organises free, weekly 5km timed runs


at over 850 locations in the UK and around the world, mainly in public parks, attracting over 140,000 runners each week. The events are coordinated entirely by local volunteers and are open to people of all ages and abilities. Participants can run, jog or walk the set course. “I had done some netball at school as most girls do but had never


done anything in the way of running,” says Tracey. “To be honest when I first went I was petrified. The thought of turning up somewhere new, everyone in lycra. I was the least likely person to be running.” But she did turn up at the Aberdeen seafront that Saturday morning in January 2014. “I walked and jogged the whole thing, out of breath most of the time. But the encouragement I got from everyone there was amazing. I could tell even from just the first day that it was for all abilities: from the fast runners at the front doing the 5km in 16 minutes to those walking at the back taking 50 minutes or sometimes over an hour to finish.” “From that day onwards it has been the one constant thing I do


every Saturday in my week – and the friendships I have developed over the years have just been amazing. “That was the catalyst for me to get into running. It was a few


weeks before I could run the whole 5km. But eventually I was able to improve, get a bit faster, run a bit longer. That created an appetite to go further, so I started signing up for 10kms and then half-marathons.”


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NOT JUST PHYSICAL Parkrun has similarly transformed the lives of many people across the UK and last year this prompted The Royal College of General Practitioners and parkrun UK to launch a groundbreaking initiative that could see thousands of patients being “prescribed” outdoor physical activity. GP practices are now being encouraged to develop links with their local parkrun and become certified ‘parkrun practices’ – signposting patients and carers to parkrun, particularly those who are the least active and have long-term health conditions. Research published recently in the Journal of Epidemiology &


Community Health found that sedentary lifestyles are linked to more than 50,000 deaths per year in the UK and a total cost to the NHS of around £0.8 billion in 2016-2017. Adults are recommended to get at least 150 minutes of moderate exercise or 75 minutes of high intensity activity per week to reduce the risk of chronic health conditions. An estimated one third of men and half of women do not achieve this target, and one fifth of men and a quarter of women are physically inactive – achieving less than 30 minutes of moderate activity per week. Parkrun is seen as one potential means of encouraging patients


to achieve more healthy active lifestyles. Professor Helen Stokes- Lampard, RCGP Chair, said: “Small, often simple, lifestyle changes can have a really positive impact on our health and wellbeing, so anything that encourages patients to live better, and move more is a good thing. Parkrun is a diverse, fun and free way of getting our patients up and moving about, and empowering them to make basic lifestyle changes in the best interests of their long-term health and wellbeing.” And the benefits extend beyond physical fitness, with parkrun


offering isolated and lonely patients the opportunity to socialise, make friends and become part of a welcoming, supportive community. A recent report stated that loneliness could be as harmful to health


SPRING 2019  ISSUE 20


PHOTOGRAPHS: NEWSLINE MEDIA


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