I spent 20 years haunted by my PE teacher’s words
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I was nervous – my heart was racing, and I began to sweat. It was 2021, I had just arrived at my first ever parkrun, and I hadn’t even broken into a jog – but my mind was racing. Would my fellow runners be just like the sporty kids from school, but now all grown up? Would they have swishy ponytails and the effortless ease of athletes who always belonged?.
![[Isabel takes a photo in a park with a parkrun sign that reads 'Charlton' behind her]](https://metro.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/image-379f.png?w=646)
Worse, would the marshals be like my old PE teacher, rolling eyes at me for daring to try and drag my big bum around the course?. I was relieved to arrive and see that I couldn’t have been more wrong. I was surrounded by so many different bodies and it made me feel right at home, like I blended in, rather than sticking out like a sore thumb.
![[Isabel takes a selfie smiling while running in a park]](https://metro.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/image-1d35.png?w=646)
Since getting into running and fitness in 2020, spurred on out of desperation by the suffocating confines of working from home over lockdown with two young kids, I’ve plodded the city streets for hours, run around country lanes, been to high end fitness studios and budget gyms – but nowhere has made me feel better about my body than parkrun.
![[Isabel takes a selfie in her flat, holding a mug and smiling]](https://metro.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/image-c6bb-e1736178178820.png?w=646)
On a typical Saturday morning in south London, I see every body type under the sun (or, more often, clouds), from sinewy old men to curvier women like me and everyone else in between. The reason my heart raced when I went to parkrun, is my association with enjoying sport and being thin goes way back.
![[Isabel in the park, running in tight shorts and a vest]](https://metro.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/ED7F5115-D9E8-4344-A0B6-E2D051F40756-c4f7-e1736181741854.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=646)
Sadly, the biggest bully at my comprehensive school wasn’t another kid, but a teacher — the school PE teacher. When picking teams, she told boob-sprouting, hip-hiding 11-year-old me to ‘go and stand at the back with the other chubby ones’ at the very start of year 7.
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