Conal rallies Wakefield runners
Conal Beban loves running now that he has a functioning kidney and wants others to join him. Photo: Anne Hardie.
Two years ago, Conal Beban was recovering from a kidney transplant and began running for his health, but wondered how on earth people did it because it was just so hard.
Yet now as a regular runner, he is organising a weekly Wakefield running event.
A few months after Conal was donated a kidney from his good mate, Andy Bryant, he began running under the guidance of a retired friend, where he ran for a minute, then walked for five minutes and continued that for an hour. As someone who had never run more than 200m in his life, it was challenging.
“I thought, how do people run? This is awful. Anything under 200m I enjoyed, but everything over 200m I sucked in. I really didn’t enjoy it.”
The goal was a 5km run at the World Transplant Games in Perth last year which he completed with his kidney donor, as well as a 10km leg of the Buller Marathon.
“Now, running is quite therapeutic and the only time you can pay someone back for a transplant is by taking care of it.”
Next is the Christchurch Marathon in April where he plans to run 10km and also fundraise for Ranui House where he stayed after his transplant operation. So far, he has fundraised close to $5,000.
After that, the next running goal is the World Transplant Games again which will be held next year in Germany and he plans to enter the 5km run and other events.
In the meantime, he has decided to organise a weekly running event in Wakefield. Most Saturday mornings he heads out on a 5km run along part of the Great Taste Trail and he started thinking it would be good to have a regular community run where people could run or walk each week.
“You’ll get a few regulars and some that pop in from time to time and hopefully enjoy it,” he says.
“Maybe people who haven’t run before and have a fitness goal will use it as a way to get them started.”
Conal says runners can participate in events every week in Nelson, but the only running event in Wakefield is the Wakefield Roaster in January.
He thought about a parkrun which is an organised event with timing and volunteers, but says the logistics of setting them up is quite challenging.
He prefers the idea of a casual running event where runners and walkers know that every Saturday at 8am there will be people at the starting point to head out along the trail.
If runners want to time themselves, there are plenty of apps they can use to do that, he says.
He has put his suggestion on the Wakefield community Facebook group and has received good feedback, so now it is a matter of getting the runs started.
He hopes it will be an event for members of the community to get together and enjoy a run or a walk along the trail.
“If people are new to Wakefield and don’t know anyone, it might be a way of getting to know people.”