Phoenix Heights
How Chris Pratt breathed new life into Ogmore Phoenix running club
A running club that is on the rise
FOR A PICTURE of dedication to a task, look no further than Chris Pratt’s Instagram post of February 12. Even while isolating, the 50-year-old Yorkshireman still managed to don his gear (complete with natty head covering) and run a daily 5K – 57 laps round the garden, down the side passage, round the car in the front driveway and back.
That was just one running challenge of many for a man who seemingly can’t step out of his front door without reframing it as an epic contest. Last year, he took a major virtual challenge down to the wire, completing the 874-mile distance from Land’s End to John O’Groats with a half marathon on New Year’s Eve. He bounced almost directly from that into another virtual run, ticking off the 870 miles of the Wales Coastal Path. He can at least cover some of that one for real, having been based in Bridgend, South Wales, for the past three decades. When we speak, he’s a quarter of the way through, but itching to get back into real-life running with his club, Ogmore Phoenix Runners (OPR).
He took over as chair of the club in 2017, rebuilding it with a name change and fresh outlook, following what he tactfully describes as ‘a bit of turbulence’ in an organisation that was set up in 2012. Since then, the club has been a magnet for awards from Welsh Athletics: Volunteer of the Year for Pratt in 2018, Development Club of the Year for Ogmore in 2019 and, in 2020, Inspirational Club of the Year. Pratt’s been made an ambassador for Asics FrontRunners and even got to do a TEDx talk about the club’s achievements; it was called ‘Building a Community Through Running’. Naturally, he began his presentation by calculating that you could do a marathon if you ran around the circumference of the red dot on the TED stage 13,421 times. He didn’t actually do it, but you can bet he considered it.
The Inspiration gong came from all the activities Ogmore has organised to keep its members going during lockdown: a full year’s worth of virtual parkruns, elevation and distance challenges such as a run to Berlin, virtual relays and various contests based around the club’s phoenix logo. ‘It was all the things that a lot of clubs were doing, but really working hard at presenting it well to the members and getting them engaged,’ Pratt explains.
‘We also had a support network set up, so it was about the community aspect of the club as much as it was about the running. We realised that we can be much more than the sport we’re providing.”
We talk over Zoom, where clever use of a green sheet allows half of his room to look like his normal office – complete with this lifelong rocker’s electric guitar – and the other half to show a tempting digital view of the Welsh countryside. Pratt has put in the effort because he hosts so many video chats with the club members. ‘It is like having two full-time jobs,’ he says of the combination of his club work and his (semi-furloughed at time of writing) day job making pub gaming machines. Is his other half annoyed? Not really – she’s the club’s social secretary.
Pratt insists that he hasn’t shown any remarkable leadership abilities or hunger for giant undertakings in the other parts of his life – he manages just two other people at his business – but running seems to have awakened something in him. He started at 40, when he got a place in the 2011 London Marathon, and mostly ran alone until he joined a club in 2014. ‘I did two races in 2012, but 34 in 2015, after I’d joined the club and discovered what it could bring to me,’ he says.
That was the year in which he decided to take on 15 half marathons, among other challenges. And in 2019, he completed 19 marathons. ‘Being in a club is what opened my eyes to what running could do. My passion now is in getting that message across,’ he says.
Ogmore Phoenix is now approaching 400 members, despite not having a physical base. A welcoming ethos includes a section for walkers and a Couch to 5K programme that is called ‘Zero 2 Hero’. That progression can lead the keenest runners to a next level: ‘Legend’. The glow of group experiences has been kept alive even when people have been unable to get together. ‘The sharing of photographs and stories makes everyone feel like they are still together, and as you grow, it’s self-perpetuating, with everybody reaching out to everybody else.’
For Pratt, a return to the London Marathon is the next big personal goal, part of an ambitious scheme to join the 100 Marathon Club. As club chair, though, he’s especially looking forward to the return of the Snowdonia Marathon. ‘It’s become a pilgrimage for us. We line the final corner – gazebos, flags and all that – and cheer every last runner in. People see us and think, “I want to be a part of that.”’
‘BEING IN A CLUB IS WHAT OPENED MY EYES TO WHAT RUNNING COULD DO’