One Small Step – Book Review

One Small Step¹ is a book about running, isn’t it? So, how does it come to be featured on this blogsite? Well, that’s because it is a book about community.

One Small Step, authored by the founder of parkrun, Paul Sinton-Hewitt, is a book about the building of community using running as the building blocks. It is also, and a bonus, the autobiography of a remarkable man.

The book is almost 300 pages long, yet it is not until you get almost to the 200^th page when Paul writes of the first ever parkrun (at the time known as the Bushy Park Time Trial). Paul spends most of the first 200 pages writing of his life and experiences growing up in the apartheid era in South Africa.

In many ways it is possible to read Paul’s childhood and teenage years as difficult, even sad and depressing years. His mother was mostly absent, both physically and emotionally. His father was no better. He and his brother and sister spent much of their educational years in boarding schools or orphanages. During much of this time Paul was bullied. Running allowed Paul to find some relief from these times. He grew to enjoy the activity.

These experiences, as an isolated youth, and growing up in the apartheid system, left Paul with at least two guiding values that he later brought to parkrun – fairness and inclusivity.

That first time trial in Bushy Park (in south-west London) had thirteen participants and five volunteers (including Paul). Twenty-one years later this small beginning has grown to more than 2,000 events in twenty-three countries. A total of almost 400,000 attend these weekly events with 10 million parkrunners being registered worldwide. Each parkrun is attended by volunteers who marshal, give out finishing tokens, record times, and administer the background practicalities. Each week, almost 50,000 people globally take on one or other of these roles.

Paul’s two values alluded to above (fairness and inclusivity) are reflected in the events. Participation in a parkrun (no matter where in the world) is free and no-one is turned away. Many who turn up walk the 5km route, whilst others participate by being wheeled in their pram. Although each participant is provided with a time, the accent is on participation rather than competition. The smiles and laughter before and following events attest to this being a community event, rather than a sporting event.

One Small Step is highly readable and engaging. Paul’s background and life experiences are honestly, and almost painfully, revealed. By giving the reader this insight into his life, Paul allows the reader to appreciate how this worldwide phenomenon came about, and also why it enjoys so many enthusiastic participants each week.

At the end of the book Paul relates an endearing story of being a parkwalker (one who walks as a volunteer toward the rear of the field to accompany others) and his engagement with a 5-year-old girl and her grandmother. It was the girl’s first ever parkrun. At the end of the 5km the grandmother said to Paul, ‘Thank you, from all of us.’

Paul’s reply was, ‘It’s been my pleasure. I enjoyed every step of the way.’

The reader is left in no doubt that Paul wasn’t referring to just that parkrun on that day.

Notes:

1. Paul Sinton-Hewitt, One Small Step: The definitive account of a run that became a global movement, MacMillan, London, 2025

Gaia’s New Year Resolutions

Today is the day that traditionally people write (well, at least think of writing) a New Year’s Resolution list. I started thinking of some for myself whilst walking along the beach this morning. Then I wondered, what New Year Resolutions might Gaia make?

In Greek mythology Gaia is the personification of the Earth. In the 1970s Lynn Margulis and James Lovelock proposed the Gaia Hypothesis. This hypothesis (aka Principle, Theory, Paradigm) recognises the entire planet as a synergistic, intricately interwoven and entangled, self-regulating system. This theory posits that each and every part of the Earth are co-dependent upon all other parts in a complex way that is impossible to fully comprehend, let alone describe.

As I strolled along the beach (one of the Earth’s many ecosystems) I wondered what resolutions the Greek personification of Gaia might come up with? If, as some suggest, humans are the Earth’s way of expressing herself through consciousness, then maybe I could come up with some possible Gaia New Year Resolutions. Here are some possibilities:

1. Make alliances with those humans who are the original human inhabitants of places to protect those places from exploitation, extraction, pollution, and destruction. Some places to start would be; the Amazon jungle, the Taiga (or Siberian boreal forest,) the Congo rainforest and all it’s inhabitants (including the chimpanzee and bonobo – humankind’s closest relative,) and the Atacama Desert.
2. Attempt to remove the massive dams impeding many rivers and disrupting the lives of many fish and other aquatic creatures that depend on the smooth flow of the rivers.
3. Try to plug the bores tapping oil and gas beneath my surface. Many humans are doing this with perilous results. Perhaps I (Gaia) can somehow seal these bores.
4. Continue to create beauty where and when I can. Rainbows, spring flowers, sparkling waterfalls, Auroras, moonlight, rolling waves are all spectacles and wonders I can craft.
5. Endeavour to ease the plight of hundreds of threatened species, some of whom I know will become extinct very soon.

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly,

6. Convene a meaningful and all-encompassing conversation with the majority of my human inhabitants. The topics of this conversation will be to spell out the unhealthy and inconsiderate manner in which many humans are treating me and all those who depend upon me. I (Gaia) would also like to suggest to these humans that if they were to slow down, be mindful, consider others, reduce their dependence upon gadgets and trinkets, then they would find greater peace and harmony within themselves.

These are some of the possible Gaia’s New Year Resolutions that came to my mind while walking along the beach. There are, no doubt, dozens of others. You, the reader, may come up with a few more.

I know that these are my personified resolutions of Gaia, however, it may be worth all of us considering, on this New Years Day, what the Earth might like for herself.

The final resolution above – a conversation between Gaia and us humans – might be a way for us humans to approach the way in which we live. Perhaps before we do something, individually and collectively, we could sit down and converse with Gaia.

Conversations with Gaia reminds me of Council of All Beings workshop that is utilised in Deep Ecology retreats. The workshop is ably and fully described by Joanna Macy and Pat Fleming in the book Thinking Like A Mountain.¹

How about we all add this resolution to our New Years Resolutions this year: To hold meaningful and all-encompassing conversations with Gaia.

Notes:

1. John Seed, Joanna Macy, Pat Fleming, Arne Naess, Thinking Like A Mountain: Towards a Council of All Beings, New Society Publishers, Philadelphia, 1988