I volunteered at a running event this weekend.
Not raced.
Not trained through it.
Not chasing anything.
Just standing on the sidelines, watching people come and go, lap after lap, hour after hour.
And for the second year in a row, I walked away with that familiar feeling I always get from these events.
A mix of tiredness, gratitude, perspective, and a quiet reminder of why running has mattered to me for so long.
Before last year, I hadn’t been there for a couple of years. Life can do that to you.
Work, health, energy, other priorities quietly take over, and something that once felt central slips into the background without much fuss.
Being back last year as a volunteer felt like reconnecting a loose thread.
Being back again this year, and feeling much the same way afterwards, confirmed something for me.
This wasn’t a one-off feeling.
It was a reminder.
What You Notice From the Sidelines
When you’re not running, you notice things you miss when you’re focused on your own race.
You see the hesitation before someone comes through again.
You hear the doubt in their voice when they ask how much time they have left.
You watch people do the mental maths of whether they can manage just one more lap.
And you realise how little of this is about speed or distance.
It’s about decision after decision to keep going.
Encouragement Without Consequence
As a volunteer, you get to encourage without consequence.
You’re not risking injury.
You’re not pushing your own limits.
You’re simply there, offering energy back into the system.
The same energy that running communities quietly give to us when we’re the ones out there hurting.
I wasn’t running.
But I didn’t feel separate from it.
When Running Becomes Part of Who You Are
And that’s where something shifted for me.
For a lot of us, running becomes more than an activity. It becomes part of how we see ourselves.
So when we step away, whether through injury, exhaustion, or life simply getting louder, it can feel like we’ve lost something bigger than fitness.
Not just momentum, but identity.
Standing there this weekend, I realised how fragile that story is.
Because even without a bib, without a training block, without anything to prove, I still felt connected to the effort, the struggle, the humour, and the shared understanding in that space.
I felt part of it.
Everyone’s Still on Their Own Journey
Some people out there would go on to achieve things their past selves would never have believed possible.
Some would stop earlier than they hoped.
Some wouldn’t make the start line at all.
And none of that changed the respect or the sense of belonging that surrounded them.
That matters, because a lot of people quietly disappear from running when they can’t participate in the way they used to.
Injury happens.
Energy drops.
Life gets busy.
Confidence fades.
And somewhere along the way, a subtle story creeps in.
“If I’m not training, maybe I don’t really belong anymore.”
What Volunteering Taught Me
Volunteering last year challenged that story.
Volunteering again this year settled it.
Running has always been bigger than the act of running.
It’s about shared effort.
Shared understanding.
Shared humanity.
You don’t lose your place because you’re sidelined for a while.
You don’t stop being part of it because your body or life has asked you to pause.
Sometimes, staying connected looks like cheering instead of racing.
Encouraging instead of pushing.
Remembering instead of proving.
Staying Connected Counts
That’s one of the reasons Runners Gateway exists.
Not just for people who are actively training, but for people in the in-between seasons.
The ones starting again.
The ones waiting for their body to feel trustworthy.
The ones who still love running, even if they’re not sure how they fit right now.
If you’re reading this from the sidelines at the moment, here’s the quiet truth I was reminded of again this weekend:
You don’t have to earn your way back.
You don’t need to be ready to belong.
You were never out in the first place.
Sometimes the most powerful thing you can do is simply stay connected.
And when you’re ready to move again, even gently, you’ll find that nothing was lost along the way.
