I Lost Someone at ParkRun (And Didn’t Even Realise)

Emma Sutherland
Mar 29
4 min read

On Saturday, I lost someone at ParkRun.

That’s not a sentence I ever expected to write—especially as a tail walker. If you’ve never volunteered at ParkRun, the tail walkers are the people at the back. The safety net. The ones who make sure no one is last, because someone is always behind them. It’s a role I genuinely love. There’s just something about being there to enable others—to take the pressure off, make participation feel safe, and hold the space rather than take it.

And, if I’m honest, it’s also helped me get more comfortable with something I used to resist: being last. Because I used to hate it. Being picked last for sports teams at school—the leftover option, the quiet embarrassment. For a long time, being last felt like something to avoid.

Until I stopped resisting it. I’ve worked hard to reframe that. To see “last” not as failure, but as intention. As contribution. As a choice. Which is why what happened on Saturday caught me so off guard.

Partway through the run, another participant came up to me and said something along the lines of, “I think you’ve lost someone.” I smiled, thanked her… and carried on.

Because in my head, that just didn’t make sense. How could we have lost someone? We’re literally at the back. That’s the whole point. If we’re doing our role properly, that shouldn’t be possible. So I acknowledged what she said—but I didn’t really hear it.

It didn’t fit my understanding of how things worked, so I quietly dismissed it.

Two laps later, the walker in question caught up with us. He’d needed to stop early on—one of those completely normal, human “pit stops”—and it had taken him a while to get going again. Meanwhile, we’d just… carried on. And somehow, I hadn’t noticed.

Even now, I can still feel that moment of confusion. That slightly uncomfortable “hang on… what?” as I tried to reconcile what I thought was happening with what had actually happened.

But the part that’s stuck with me most isn’t that we lost someone. It’s that I was told… and I didn’t believe it.

The Blind Spot I Didn’t See

I care about doing things well. I care about people feeling supported. I take responsibility seriously—especially in roles like that one. And yet, in that moment, I had a blind spot. Not because I didn’t care. Not because I wasn’t paying attention. But because the information I was given didn’t match the story I already had in my head.

“We’re at the back.”“So… everything must be fine.”

Except it wasn’t.

And that’s the thing about blind spots—they don’t feel like blind spots at the time.

What This Has to Do With My Work

This shows up all the time in coaching and yoga teaching. You’re holding space. You’re observing. You’re supporting people from just behind their edge—close enough to guide, but not in the spotlight.

And most of the time, that awareness is enough. Until it isn’t.

Because sometimes:

A client shares something subtle or unexpected… and you have to stay tuned in, listening and challenging, rather than making assumptions
A student signals discomfort in a subtle way you don’t quite register
You assume everyone is where you think they are, because from your position, it should be true

And just like that, something gets missed—because we’re always seeing the world through our own lens and experience. Not through lack of care—but through quiet assumption. In both coaching and yoga, we’re not there to control the experience. We’re there to witness it, respond to it, and stay curious about what we might not be seeing.

Leading From the Back (Doesn’t Mean Seeing Everything)

I still love tail walking. That hasn’t changed. If anything, this experience has made me value it even more—not as a position of control, but as a position of responsibility and humility.

Being at the back doesn’t mean you see everything. Being experienced doesn’t mean you’re always right. And being told something—even casually—deserves more attention than we sometimes give it.

It also reminded me of something simple, but important: You’re not supposed to do it alone. ParkRun works because it’s a community. Because people look out for each other. Because someone will notice something you haven’t. And that was the case - the Run Director had been updated

The Takeaway I’m Keeping

I didn’t lose someone because I was careless. I lost someone because I assumed I couldn’t. And I didn’t correct it sooner because I trusted my own perspective more than someone else’s input. That’s the bit I’ll carry forward. Not guilt—just awareness. Because whether it’s on a ParkRun course, in a coaching conversation, or in a yoga class, the goal isn’t to be perfect. It’s to stay open enough to notice when something doesn’t quite add up… and curious enough to take a second look when someone (or perhaps your body tells you it doesn’t.

And maybe, for me, it’s also this: