‘Make sure that children are kept within an arm’s length of their adult’. 

These words were reverberating around my head as I set off at Pocket parkrun in St Neots on Saturday.

Despite warnings of not going out too fast, my son, Logan, shot off like he was being chased by someone ready to force feed him vegetables.

Like most children (and let’s face it, most adults), Logan doesn’t pay much attention to pacing, or vegetables for that matter.

I had to catch up with him as quickly as possible to ensure he didn’t get in the way of other parkrunners but as the path narrowed it became more difficult.

I stepped out to my left to try and find a bit of room to get to get to him.

Crack. Oh no.

My ankle had buckled on the jagged trail and suddenly I was hopping in pain and shouting after Logan to wait.

Fortunately, he heard and waited as I limped towards him.

‘I’ve hurt my ankle mate... we’re going to have to walk for a bit.’

He let out the kind of whine dogs make when they’re desperate for a walk.

I started to trot again, and I managed to do a loop of the course before I had to stop.

Logan’s eyes filled up and I felt incredibly guilty, but I couldn’t risk doing any further damage than I had done already.

Being chastised by Logan for stopping him from getting a PB and sitting on the side of the course inspecting the damage was a low moment.

Putting weight through my left ankle was painful and initially it felt all too similar to the time I broke the very same ankle in three places after sliding on a conker in 2019.

‘What on earth have I done?’

My brain went into catastrophe mode.

‘That’s it – that's Barcelona Marathon and any other grand plans you have for the first half of the year over.’

I limped back to the car in a foul mood, weighing up whether I needed to go and get an X-ray.

Despite the pain, there was no swelling, which I took as a good sign and, fortunately, every day since has seen an improvement.

At the time of writing, I haven’t done any kind of running, choosing to get on my bike to try and let the ankle completely settle.

I think it’s okay – there's still a bit of sensitivity in the area and I’m going to have to be careful coming back to running.

I was probably due a ‘down week’ in terms of training but it’s less than ideal so early into the training block for Barcelona.

Hopefully, it’s been a lucky escape but it brought home how vulnerable running can be. One misstep and all the grand plans I have for 2025 were almost out the window.

I’ve been telling myself not to overthink it though and enjoy the few days off running doing other things before getting back to it gradually.

I’ve done so much strength and conditioning over the past 18 months to try and get to the bottom of the niggles that were cropping up.

But you can’t plan or legislate for everything.

It’s not like I’m ever going to say to my son: ‘Sorry mate – you can’t run parkrun today in case Dad hurts himself...’

I’ve promised Logan that we’ll be back again soon on the hunt for a PB... we might just have to wait until we’re at a parkrun with the kind of terrain that’s more suited to my chocolate ankles.