Paul Deighton finds out about why thousands more people are now jogging in Scotland

Type of event:

Sport

Date:

2 December 2009

Place:

Lagoon Leisure Centre
Paisley
PA1 1NB

Full details:

Alistair Currie, jogscotland Manager:

968 are significant numbers, they are the 3 numbers that represent Usain ‘Lightning’ Bolt’s 100m time at the Olympics in Beijing, officially it was 9.683 seconds and then rounded up to 9.69 but I am sticking with 968 for a reason, as that is the number of days to go before the flame lights up over London’s new Olympic Stadium. So it was today (December 2nd), with 968 days to go, that I got to meet Paul Deighton, the LOCOG CEO in the Renfrewshire town of Paisley.

We had been asked as part of Paul’s visit up to Scotland to bring together one of our jogscotland groups to meet him and share a little bit of the story behind the jogscotland initiative.

What better place then for us to go than to our award winning Group of the Year for 2009, the force that is the Renfrewshire Jogging Buddies?

I’m not sure what he was expecting but when he was asked to do some running on the spot with the, mostly, female group for the assembled press pack the laughs and whoops of encouragement seemed to spur him on to even greater heights. One of the ladies reckoned that he was practising his ‘Highland Fling’! He was made an honorary ‘Buddy’ (the name given to the people of Paisley) for the day for being such a good sport!

The jogscotland vision of changing behaviour and mobilising the population through physical activity is shared by the team at London 2012 and also at Government level in both Westminster and Holyrood. We relished the opportunity to be involved, in some small way, in the great opportunity that London 2012 has given for everyone in the UK.

To have the greatest sporting spectacle in the world on our shores is amazing and for me will almost certainly be a once-in-my-working-lifetime chance to be connected to a home Olympics.

Munich 1972 was my earliest memory of the games and I recall watching on TV the great Soviet sprinter Valeri Borzov, 100m and 200m winner, who I found out years later was reputed to have had a shot of vodka as part of his preparation before each of his Olympic triumphs.

Ever since then the Olympics have held a special magic about them for me. I never made it as a competitor, (the closest I got was competing at the GB trials in ‘84 and ‘88, when Britain ruled the world in my chosen middle distance events and to make the GB team entailed being in the top 3 or 4 in the world!) but I really hope to make it to London 2012 as a spectator.

Launched in 2002, jogscotland has seen over 20,000 people benefit from the accessible and beginner-friendly programmes that we operate in around 350 groups in local communities all over the 32 local authority areas in Scotland.
As we say, ‘If you can walk you can jog and if you can jog you can run’. By taking things gradually and progressively we have encouraged and supported literally thousands of people into adopting a healthier lifestyle.

And it is not just about the physical benefits of being active it is also the mental and emotional wellbeing that comes from being part of a group supported by our trained Jog Leaders.

As well as our community programme, we also have junior jogscotland groups in around 1,200 primary schools and 5k events around Scotland that cater for all ages and backgrounds. We know that as 2012 approaches more and more people will see being active as an important part of their everyday life.

On a personal note I am looking forward immensely to visiting the emerging Olympic Park as it is near my old running territory in East London, where I lived for 5 years. I spent many an hour running along the banks of the River Lea where the Olympic Park is coming to life and past the old disused Hackney Dog Track, close to where the stadium is now rising up in all its glory.

Walking the walk, or in our case ‘jogging the jog’, is something that is really important to the success of our work. With that in mind I was delighted that the London 2012 visit to Scotland also gave me the opportunity to catch up for a run and chat with Chris Daniels, the Head of London 2012 Activation for Lloyds Banking Group, who was up for the business conference that also formed part of Paul’s itinerary for the day.

I was also pleased to hear that Paul incorporates running into his keep-fit regime, some of the Jogging Buddies were keen to take him on over 10k - let’s see if he takes them up on the challenge!

Comment on this event