Prescribing parkrun

Another successful Southport parkrun over and I was putting away the course signs when I noticed 15-year-old Ellie holding on to a metal lamppost with one hand and spinning round and round and round. It made me dizzy just watching.‘She always does that when she’s happy’, her mother told me: ‘With her autism it can be hard to tell sometimes but she loves running through the park, particularly when the sun coming through the trees creates dappled shade on the paths. I’d first noticed Ellie at the start of this year - it was hard not to, her big, pink noise-excluding headphones made her easily spotted. Her parents running and walking alongside her were clearly working hard to keep her from becoming too agitated among the 400 or so other runners and walkers. Ellie’s mother told me how proud she was that Ellie’s feisty, determined spirit and fierce independence had meant that she could now complete the 5k course by herself.