Parkrunners Podcast
Parkrunners Podcast shares real stories from the global parkrun community—runners, walkers, and volunteers whose lives have been transformed by movement and connection. Hosted by Catherine Stenson, each episode celebrates courage, belonging, and the quiet power of showing up.
Parkrunners Podcast
Valentine’s Day Special: James & Lynne Love at parkrun (Cusworth Hall) 💛🏃♀️🏃♂️💍
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What if your Saturday morning 5k didn’t just change your fitness… but changed your whole life?
In this Valentine’s Day Special Edition of The Parkrunners Podcast, I’m joined by James & Lynne Donaldson — whose relationship has been beautifully shaped by Cusworth Hall parkrun. From dating, to getting engaged, to an unforgettable moment that still makes me smile… they even spent their wedding day morning at parkrun.
This episode is pure parkrun magic: warm, joyful, and full of those little community moments that turn into life’s biggest milestones. We chat about the role parkrun played in bringing them together, the support and smiles of the Cusworth Hall community, and why parkrun becomes so much more than “just a run” — it becomes a place you belong.
Whether you’re running, walking, volunteering, or cheering from the sidelines, this one’s for anyone who’s ever felt the power of parkrun connection — and the love that grows from showing up, week after week.
🎧 Press play for a feel-good story of love at parkrun… and love for parkrun.
In this episode, we cover:
- How Lynne & James’ parkrun journey began at Cusworth Hall
- The moment their relationship turned into “something more”
- A parkrun engagement (yes!) and what made it so special
- Why they chose to start their wedding day at parkrun
- The community spirit that makes parkrun a catalyst for connection
💬 Tell me your story: Have you found love at parkrun — or a deeper love for life because of parkrun
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Hi there, and a warm welcome back to the Parkrunners podcast. I'm Catherine Stenson, I'm your host, and this week is our Valentine special. And today's episode is all about love at Parkrun. I'm joined by a brilliant couple from Cutsworth Hall Parkrun in the UK, whose relationship has been woven through Saturday mornings, Finnish funnel chats, and the unmistakable Parkrun community magic. I think it's going to be warm, funny, and properly heartlifting. So let's go and get introduced to Lynn and James Donaldson. Lynn, I'm going to start by asking you to let our listeners know where you and James are joining us from today.
SPEAKER_03Hello, we're joining from Doncaster in Yorkshire in the UK.
SPEAKER_02Fantastic. And James, um, I know that you and um your lovely wife Lynn had your beginnings at Parkrun. Can you share with us how how your love of Parkrun ended up um, you know, enabling you to meet your now wife Lynn?
SPEAKER_00It wasn't uh part one that got us together, it was actually the Doncaster 10K.
SPEAKER_01Right. Okay.
SPEAKER_00It was an online dating thing. My profile had a picture of me with my Doncaster 10K medal and t-shirt. And uh I was online and the chat basically went, I've got one of those as well. Look. And that that started the whole conversation around uh oh, you like running. It was and just like the one in thing brought us together to start off with, and it was the it was the Doncaster 10K initially.
SPEAKER_02Move from the Doncaster 10K to doing park run.
SPEAKER_03So we we obviously met online, so we had a a date, we just met for a walk one afternoon to see if we wanted to do anything else, and we thought, oh, this is good. So we went um afterwards we agreed to see each other again and we decided to go to part run, didn't we, together? Yeah, because we both have done parkruns before, so it was like, right, I'll meet you at part run next week, and then it was deciding which one.
SPEAKER_00It was kind of a it was because we we're sort of relatively new to the the dating game again, if you like, after a couple of fairly long marriages, it was it was kind of it's a public place, plenty of people around. It's a neutral place with plenty of escape routes, James.
SPEAKER_02That's really funny. Like a neutral place with plenty of escape routes. Clearly, you didn't want to escape because parkrun has obviously been a place that created a very close uh relationship that has ended in the two of you getting married. But before we hit that, I'd love you, James, first maybe to tell me where whereabouts you did your first park run?
SPEAKER_00I did my first park run in Scunthorpe, obviously in the UK. Um at the time I was living in Gainesborough, and Scunthorpe was my nearest park run.
SPEAKER_02Got it. And Lynn, what about you? Where was your first park run?
SPEAKER_03My first park run was in at Sandal Park in Doncaster. Um, and that was back in 2013. But I didn't go every week then. I used to do probably four or five a year.
SPEAKER_02Just for the benefit of our listeners, both Lynn and James have clocked up 207 parkruns each, if I'm correct. And Lynn, you've also you've also got a um volunteer count of 81. And James, 23 for you. So this clearly has become a weekly habit.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so and Cussworth Hall has become your new weekly park run.
SPEAKER_03I think um when was it in 2020, 2021, when park run had to close due to COVID, we sort of everything all started back up again and we'd missed it that much that we just we've rarely missed any of that. Sho you we went for so long thinking we'd really like to do part run, but there wasn't one. And then obviously when it all started up again, we was right. Well, we need to go every week then. Well that's yeah, make the most of it.
SPEAKER_02That's what we do, it's like we have it, isn't it now? Yeah. Um a very healthy one. I'd love to ask you, James, if um that's okay. Can you just tell our listeners what was the what was the early parkrun dates like um with with Lynn?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I'm 53, Lynn is 51, and uh we've had a couple of reasonably long marriages, and you get back into the dating game, and it's it's testing the water and all those kinds of things, and we'd met up and we'd we'd had a couple of dates, and we'd it was Rubber Valley park run, it was a it was a rainy, cold, horrible February. And uh we were sat in the car and we'd done park run, we were both soaking wet, and Lynn turned to me and said, you know what, I'm not really feeling it. I'm not getting the butterflies. Uh I think we ought to call it a day.
SPEAKER_01I can't believe you're telling everybody. This is this is a very, very good concitement.
SPEAKER_02Going, James.
SPEAKER_00Down in mine, we're in Rotherham, so it's a 20-minute drive back to Lynn's house where my car is in in Doncaster for me to drive back to my home in Gainesborough.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00It was a very long, very quiet drive back. But um there was something, something between us that you know, you normally get the block and the delete and the wrote your separate ways. We we never spoke about it, but we never blocked each other, we never diluted each other. And after about a month, I was home and I just randomly messaged Lynn, yeah, and she messaged back and said, Oh, that's I was hoping he'd get back in touch. That kind of conversation. Lynn, it was like, Oh, shall we give Father another go? So we did.
SPEAKER_02Lynn, obviously, on that earlier parkrun date, you weren't feeling the you know, the vibe, but what point did you start thinking, hey, this is promising? Oh gosh.
SPEAKER_03Um I think I think the the thing for me was we were going on we went on parkrun dates, and then we'd go on a date midweek, and it was all just a bit too much for me, and we had a had a break, yeah, and then I thought I I quite miss him, and it's nice to go to parkrun with someone. Yes. We don't actually run round together. I'm a much slower runner than James, but is it always at the end waiting for me? Yeah, um, yeah.
SPEAKER_00No choice, you've got the khaki.
SPEAKER_02Oh yeah, it is it is very nice to you know go to parkrun with somebody, even though it's obviously a super friendly place because there's always people to chat to, if not at the start line, certainly at the finish funnel, as we know. James, if I could move us now to um talking about your proposal because I saw on parkrun blog that you had this all set up to take place on another parkrun date, and I believe that date was September 2024. So you met in 2019 five years of dating and having fun and doing regular parkruns, and you're thinking, hmm, I'm gonna make this a bit more of a commitment. Talk to me.
SPEAKER_00So you get the it's it's the usual, I would assume I've only ever done it once before, the usual proposal pressure. So uh it's so to make it memorable, perfect in inverted commas, as perfect as anything can be. Um so I'd want to several scenarios in my head. Um, shall I do it on holiday? Um thinking, probably not, that's probably too far away. Part runner brought us together, part runner does split us up briefly, part run brought us back together again. It's got to be part run. The people that the people that we wanted to share, other than direct family, our friends were at part run.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_00I knew that Lynn would want to share the experience, that the the occasion at part run. So I went and I sussed it out and I thought I could do this at the start. And then I thought, I give it a week, and I thought, if I get down on one knee in front of 200 strangers, she's gonna absolutely kill me. Yeah. So then I went back the next week and I thought to myself, I can do this at the end. And then I watched her coming over the line, she's she's sprinting down the finish, and she's concentrating on tokens, concentrating on stopping her watch, sweating buckets, and I'm thinking, if I do this at the end, she's gonna absolutely kill me. So then I'm looking around and I'm I'm I'm I saw it a couple of weeks, right? I knew that there was half a dozen people I knew wanted to be there.
SPEAKER_01First week, one of the ladies is on holiday. Second week, one of the ladies is at work.
SPEAKER_00Third week, somebody else is doing something else entirely, and I'm thinking, this is just never gonna happen. This I'm thinking, though it there is no perfect time to do this. I've got to just bite the bullet. And after three, maybe four, maybe five weeks, it was one morning, the sun was shining, there was a blue sky, and I knew from our conversations, I knew it was Lynn's favourite spot to go for a dog walk, to go for a coffee, just to sit and just look out because Cussworth Hall's on a hill, and there's you can see the the sky and the clouds, and it's a really nice place just to contemplate life, the universe, and everything. I was I was running around, I'm thinking, right, where, when, where, when. And I got to the I got to the top of the hill just before you come down the hill at Cussworth Hall, and I pulled up, and I'm thinking, this is it, today's the day. And uh there was three or four three or four Marshalls. You know, you get certain spots where there are good applause spots for Marshalls.
SPEAKER_02Yes.
SPEAKER_00It was a good applause spot for Marshalls, and I pulled up and they looked at me and they're like, What are you doing? So I says, You might want to get your cameras out for this. I'm going to propose with because Lynn was tailwalking, weren't you? I was. Lynn was tailwalking, so I knew she would she would be lasting. Um so I says, You want you might want to get your cameras out for this. Um when she comes around, I'm going to propose. Well, Lynn knew something was gonna happen at some point that year, but we're only in September.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00So she comes around the corner, she gives me this look like, what are you doing? Have you hurt yourself? Have you fallen over? What's wrong? There's got to be something wrong because you never wait for me here. In front of my ugly, I got down one knee and I said, Will you marry me? Fortunately, she said yes.
SPEAKER_01That is so special.
SPEAKER_02James Lynn, I'd love to ask you what was going through your mind um, you know, in that moment.
SPEAKER_03I was completely shocked. I wasn't expecting it that day at all. I I was absolutely gobsnacked, yeah. Um I remember walking round the corner and James had stopped, and I thought, oh no, what's he done? Has he hurt his leg? Is he what's he pulled up for? Is he injured? And then he just got down on one knee, and my heart just sort of stopped, and I was like, oh, but it was yeah, a really, really nice surprise.
SPEAKER_02Just paint the scene after you've said yes, and James has got up off his knee, um, and you have to continue to the finish line. Did you walk there together?
SPEAKER_03We ran round, didn't we, holding hands and telling everybody we saw. I think there were um volunteers crying and every um it was roughly, everyone were just so happy, wasn't there? It was oh, it was so nice.
SPEAKER_00I'll never forget the. The proposal sports about is about half a mile in.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00It's about half a mile in. So uh I had another two and a half miles of being told off.
SPEAKER_02James, it sounds like it's a very um like beautiful gist at where you've painted it there with views over over Doncaster. So I'm sure that was a very giddy two and a half miles that you enjoyed together. I'm sure you must have got many cheers, hugs, and claps. And it's it it must have been incredibly special.
SPEAKER_00It reinforced what we knew about Park Run and the our commun our community of runners and our parking family, as we call them.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And um, I mean that's that's true. I think we don't we don't necessarily need a special occasion to see the lovely connection that there is there every week with volunteers and runners, walkers, um joggers alike. So it's a very happy place for for most people. So I'm gonna I'm gonna skip now to wedding day parkrun because you have the whole journey from the dating, the engagement at parkrun. Talk to us about whose idea was it to do parkrun on wedding day morning. Well, we booked the wedding, didn't we?
SPEAKER_03I think first. Yeah. Um, which we wanted a s a very small wedding. We've got teenage children and whatnot. So we didn't really want a midweek wedding, so it had to be a weekend, and we were trying to work out when we could do it. So we booked it for this particular Saturday in um January, and then a few days later, I think we were we were just sat down one night and we looked at each other and said, Do you know what? We're getting married on a Saturday. We could we could do partnering on our wedding day, and then that was it.
SPEAKER_00How do we make that work?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it was a there was no doubt that we were gonna do it.
SPEAKER_00It was a it was an absolute non-negotiable.
SPEAKER_03Our families thought we were crackers, and we still do.
SPEAKER_02So it's lovely that you both were totally aligned with doing that, and um because that makes it very easy. So, James, can you tell me how did you make it work in terms of timing, outfits, nerves, the guests? Like, just what was what was that morning like for both of you?
SPEAKER_00It was it was military precision. Everything for it's a really good wedding venue. So we knew that they would be spot on reliable. We only have a small group of guests, so we knew they would be reliable. So the rest of it was on us. We knew we get up at this time, we get to part one at this time, leave one, leave part one, don't get don't get emboiled in the in the emotion of it. It's got to be bang, bang, bang, on, on, on. So we knew everything was timed within five minutes. We had five minutes really wait, yeah, on on sort of finish, pick up our stuff five minutes, leave in the car to the venue. It was bang on military precision.
SPEAKER_02Military precision and Lynn, please tell me and the listeners, what did you wear to a wedding day park run?
SPEAKER_03Well, I I didn't wear a wedding dress for the park run. I think I just had my normal running leggings. We had a sash, I think that said the bride, and um I did have a veil with a white t-shirt and a white t-shirt on, but I just thought, oh, I'm not wearing a wedding dress.
SPEAKER_01And I I'd invested in I'd invested in a tuxedo t-shirt.
SPEAKER_02I like it. So it it paints a nice picture, you with the veil, white t-shirt, white slash. So nobody was in any doubt what you were up to that day with the tuxedo t-shirt. Um, I hope you can share a picture that I can um put on uh social so people can see exactly how special um you looked and how special that day was. I guess like one question that's occurring for me is if you could bottle the feeling from that day, like how would you describe it?
SPEAKER_00Joy Yeah. Joy, joy, the the joy the joy of the day, the joy of sharing the day with our part one family, the exhilaration you get from your running in dolphins, that whole just just uh that whole communal joy that the part one brings condensed down, distilled, reinforced, and put out into the world.
SPEAKER_02Lynn, how about you? If you could bottle the feeling you had on on that day of your wedding, tell me how how that was for you.
SPEAKER_03It was it was lovely. Uh everybody was genuinely so happy for us, weren't they? People who don't normally speak to a part run, they were coming up saying congratulations, and um yeah, it was it was lovely. Every everybody was just so pleased and happy and enjoying the wedding cake.
SPEAKER_00Running running around, doing three miles around Park Run and having people tap you on the shoulder as you as you do your 80 second miles going, congratulations, well done. But complete strangers just running past you going, well done. But whole, again, the community, the the family feel of what Park Run brings.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's such a warm feeling of support on a special day like that. Even strangers wish me luck, it is it's a very um heartwarming feeling. James, this one's for you. Um, what would you say to someone who's maybe single and nervous about turning up to parkrun alone?
SPEAKER_00Do it. There's there's nothing to fear. Um you're not alone. There's probably another 200 weirdos all there with you on a Saturday morning. All do it all. So you're not running alone, you're going in, you're running on your own in a group of 200 people.
SPEAKER_02That's an that's a lovely way of thinking about it, actually. Running on your own, doing your own thing among a group of 200 people or however many are at the parkrun you go to. And Lynn, what what's the one thing you love most now about doing parkrun together? It's just the routine.
SPEAKER_03I mean, we we get there in the morning, we say hello to all the volunteers, or we're quite often volunteering myself now. So it's just you we have like a little chit-chat, and then um part runs about to start, so we give each other a kiss. I'll see you in a bit, and you run off with everybody else. I jog round on my own mostly because I'm quite slow, but it's just a nice feeling, it's dead. Jog round out in the fresh air, and and yeah.
SPEAKER_00I think it's our time. So we're up, we're on, we're out, and just the two of us. We drive to part run, it's only 10 or 15 minutes, but we put the way put the radio on in the car. It's just the two of us, it's our time. We have a chat, we get to part run 20 minutes before the staff, and we we meet our friends and we catch have a little catch-up, but essentially we're together, there's just the two of us, there's no distractions, there's no work to worry about. Everything's done for the week. It's the start of our weekend. It's our time. Before we go, I don't I don't know how it started. Every every part run that I've remembered and we've done hundred and odd together, we just give each other a little squeeze and a little kiss and say, see you at the end. See you at the end.
SPEAKER_02So I have just a few very quick questions um, you know, um for the wrap-up round. What's your favorite music to run to, Lynn?
SPEAKER_01I just listen to the birds singing. Um don't run to music.
SPEAKER_02I like to hear the birds. Brilliant. James, favorite post parkrun treat?
SPEAKER_00It's got to be the bacon sandwich.
SPEAKER_01In the coffee. Yes.
SPEAKER_00Another another non-negotiable.
SPEAKER_02Lynn, who's more likely to say, shall we just go for a coffee instead of trying for a P B? You or James?
SPEAKER_00Oh. Um Well that that's a little that's a lot of pattern pattern curiosity. So I get more pleasure out of if say my average pace is a 30 minute park run.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I would get pleasure out of running a 33, 34-minute park run with two or three friends having a good chat, than running a 29-minute park run and going for PB.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and and and that's that that typifies um what parkrun does for people. It it does really help people prioritize their friendships, the fun they have um on a Saturday morning. Yeah. For most people, it's far more important than the PB. And if you were both to um have a like a dream parkrun, a bucketless destination, where would you both like to do a park run together?
SPEAKER_01Bushy.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, bushy. We'd both like to go to Bushy. We might see another one. Yeah, I really hope you do decide to come to Bushy. And certainly I'm there every Saturday. I would absolutely love to um grab a coffee and a bacon sandwich afterwards. Yeah. So if if you get to plan that this year or or whenever, I'm sure we will both be maintaining our parkrun habits. Lynn and James, thank you so much for sharing your parkrun love story with us for this Valentine's Day edition. And congratulations on all of your um achievements um in terms of not just the running but your parkrun dates, parkrun engagement, and finally a parkrun wedding day. Thank you very much, James, and thank you, Lynn.
SPEAKER_00Thank you.
SPEAKER_02Thanks for joining us on the Parkrunners podcast. I'm Catherine Stenson and I love sharing stories from our amazing parkrun community. So if today's conversation has inspired you, why not share it with a friend? Or better still, bring them along to your next parkrun. Now, don't forget to hit follow so you never miss a new parkrun story. Until next time, keep moving, keep smiling, and I'll see you at the start line.