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Runforever By Jog Leader Paolo Maccagno https://runforever.org.uk/
Every Wednesday I go to HMP and Young Offender Institution Grampian, where I have two groups of around 20 dedicated runners committed to improving their health through the inspiration and benefit that running can provide. The running programme that we’ve followed these first few months follows the NHS Couch to 5K and allows everyone to be able to run for 30 minutes, or approximately 5K. On 7 June we had a celebration event, where prisoner-runners ran together in a team for 30 minutes. The event emphasised being a “finisher”, as marathon running does, rather than winning the race, and promoted running as a collective experience of a team. At the end of the run there was a celebration with party and cake shared with runners, members of the Runforever running club, prison staff and of organizations helping with the project - Shmu Aberdeen Community Media Organisation, Families Outside, and International Futures Forum. When I entered a prison for the first time in Milan in 2009, I went there to attend the theatre performance Maratona di New York by Edoardo Erba, which was held inside the theatre of the prison itself. The performance showed two men running in preparation for the New York marathon and talking to each other on existential topics like absence, void of meaning and trauma. As I was walking out of the prison, I wondered in excitement: “What if I run marathons and take what I learn from the ‘wall’ of the marathon, to people spending their life within the walls of the prison?” I then realised how the parallel between the two walls could open a healing path for prisoners. Since the beginning of 2013 I have been organising projects based on marathon running inside prisons.
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jogscotland magazine | Summer 2023