Conwy: Emotional return to running for Mark Davies

At the Conwy Parkrun, about three-hundred athletes, volunteers, and marshalls welcomed a surprise and a quite remarkable return to action by Mark Davies, an award-winning international fell and mountain race runner, who miraculously survived a life-changing hit and run accident in January last year.

The news of Mark’s horrific accident triggered shock waves around the running community nationwide and came within weeks of him receiving a ‘Special Achievement’ prize at the Conwy Sports Awards in North Wales for his incredible performance at the Swiss Peaks 360 ultra race, together with some other outstanding results in similar mountain challenge races and fell runs.

Mark Davies makes an emotional return to running at Conwy Parkrun.

Mark has spent a considerable amount of time during the past nineteen-months in specialist hospitals, and rehab, trying to rebuild his mind and body, with the dream of eventually being able to work, walk, and hopefully run normally again!

At the RSPB Nature Reserve, and supported by friends, relatives, and club colleagues from North Wales Road Runners, he eventually realised his ambition to at least jog again, and finally made his parkrun debut on a very heavy and puddle-filled 5k course.

Although Mark still has a long way to go in his determined bid to rebuild his world, his unexpected and incredible performance at Conwy was an important step in the right direction, and he so was pleased to finally complete his run at a steady pace, which he eventually finished in 246th place overall in 36 minutes and 35 seconds as a highly respected VM45 athlete.

Mark Davies makes an emotional return to running at Conwy Parkrun.

After the parkrun, Mark bravely confirmed details of his ongoing fitness battle: “Where do I start. I had my knee rebuilt at the back and side when I came home from Heywood hospital after eight months in Stoke hospital. I thought a new knee would be fine once it was heeled. How wrong was I?

“I thought I would just start up again. Little did I realise that I was going to be like a child learning to walk again. I thought it was just a lifting my foot problem at first, but it’s still a problem now, with not being fit enough to run.

“Parkrun was a great help as a first run-out and I have been running around the block about four or five times a day since May when my brace came off my leg. As for the future. I just plan to keep trying to run again, and hopefully being able to run the Dragons Back race again in two-year’s time.

“I can't work anymore as my right arm hardly moves, and that is my main arm, so all I have left is my running. Switzerland is a thing of the past for me now!”