Southampton, 1987
I'm 12 years old, standing on the main road at the end of our street, a couple of minutes from my house, near the stop where I catch the bus to school. I'm waiting for my dad.
He's running the half marathon. Running is everywhere in the 80s, and my dad has caught it like half the country. When he comes past he's in the full kit of the time: short shorts, a running vest, socks pulled up almost to his knees, and trainers you'd now wear as a fashion statement.
Then Mum and I jump in the car and drive into town to catch him again near Southampton Common, closer to the finish.
Some kind of superhero
To me he's Superman. How does anyone run 13.1 miles? I'm the kid who gets picked last for sports at school, or close to it, every single time. I don't think my body can do anything like that. Thousands of people are running that day, and I'm still in awe that a human being can do it at all.
My dad died of cancer in April 1998. He was 50.
Stepping into his shoes
Fast forward to 2015. I'm on the start line of the Southampton Half Marathon with number 3169 pinned to my vest.
I'm not nervous about the distance. I ran my first ultra the summer before, a race called the 100 mile run, over four days. It turned out to be 107 miles, which I was not happy to discover. I wasn't going to stop at 100.
What I feel is excitement. I've left the short shorts at home, thankfully, but for one morning I get to step into my dad's shoes. I'm running round the city I was born and raised in, a city I left for university in 1993. I've been back plenty to see family, but I haven't called it home for more than twenty years.
There's the usual race-day question too: how will I do today? Don't ask me my time. I genuinely don't remember, and it isn't what this was about.
The bridge and the stadium
I can't tell you the route either. Two things stuck.
The first is the Itchen Bridge. We run over it twice, out and back. It's built high so ships can pass underneath, which makes for a horrible climb. As a kid I'd walked it, cycled it, and been driven over it more times than I can count. Back then it cost about 10p to drive across, and someone sat in a little booth taking the money. That was a job. I used to watch cyclists push their bikes halfway up, hop on at the top and ride only the downhill bit. Running it twice, I understand them.
The second is St Mary's Stadium, home of the Saints. When Dad ran his race there was no St Mary's. The Saints were still at The Dell, where I went as a kid with my dad, my brother, my granddad, uncles and cousins. Running past the new ground, I'm thinking about the old one.
The medal
I don't remember crossing the line. I remember what happened just after it. I filmed a short video of myself. I'm in tears. I kiss the medal and say, "This one's for you, Dad." That's about all there is to the video, but you can see on my face how much it mattered.
A half marathon was a fraction of what I was running by then. Later that same year I ran my first 100 kilometres in a single day. It didn't matter. This one was special. This one was for Dad.
Why it mattered
Looking back, that race was about closing a loop. I'll always have Southampton in my blood. As they sing at the Saints, I'm Southampton till I die. But after losing Dad, and some of what happened before that, I wasn't at peace with the place.
Today I am. That isn't all down to one race. A lot of it has happened in more recent years. Running its streets for my dad is part of that story, and these days it's a city I love spending time in.
A place of reference
Here's what I'd want you to take from it.
Your past is a place of reference, not a place of residence. Making peace with it is what lets you build what comes next, and sometimes that happens in ways you don't expect. Mine came in a running vest.
The 12-year-old who got picked last couldn't imagine running his dad's race. A few years later I was running much further without thinking twice. Then in 2016 I got injured, and I haven't run a long distance since. Life changes, and you adapt with it.
So notice what you can do today that a younger you couldn't. Tying your own laces, or making your own breakfast. Somebody once did all of that for you.
This week, pick one place, person or chapter you've been keeping at arm's length, and take one small step back towards it. It might be a visit or a phone call. You might be surprised by what it gives back.
