Your first thought, on watching an Instagram video of Ben Ritson’s progress as a runner between 2019 and today, might be that the guy has a highly impressive T-shirt collection. There’s one that says ‘Runderman’, with the Superman logo, another that features Batman’s mask above the words ‘Wonder Ben’, one with a Mario Land mushroom that he encourages fellow runners to tap for a ‘power up’, and one that simply says ‘Running makes me…’ with a drawing of Mr Happy.
There’s no arguing with that. Ben, now 26, is smiling broadly in every clip, displaying a love for his local parkrun that might not necessarily have been expected from a young man with autism. ‘Me and our other brother Aaron were running a lot before Ben started,’ says big sister and self described ‘sidekick’ Emily, 45. ‘Ben used to come and cheer us on at races but I don’t think he ever really believed that he could do it. He was mainly into computer games.’
But Heaton Park parkrun in north Manchester had a bib you could wear that said ‘My first parkrun’, and Emily thought Ben would love to try it on. When asked about what he thought about that first attempt now, Ben replies: ‘Fantastic. I loved it.’
‘He didn’t find it too hard,’ adds Emily. ‘I just let him lead. If he wanted to walk, we walked. If he ran, we ran. We ended up doing it in about an hour.’
Today, 109 parkruns later, Ben’s finish time is down to a bit over 33 minutes and he’s desperate to ring the bell they hand you if you get a new PB. The online video that races through his past five years of running shows obvious significant weight loss, down from 17 stone. ‘He did really struggle with food, but through running he now makes much better choices with his eating. He’s recognised that if you eat better, your running feels better,’ says Emily. ‘His whole lifestyle has changed through it.’
Parkrun seems to help Ben to cope better with a number of things that his neurodiversity makes more difficult, such as crowds. When Emily did her first London Marathon in 2023, he didn’t enjoy attempting to spectate. But Heaton Park’s Saturday morning 5k typically has around 800 runners and he loves being a popular regular. ‘I like cheering people on,’ he says. Emily explains that if they try a training run in the week, ‘He tires so quickly.’ They tried the Couch to 5k app but kept having to repeat weeks. ‘But on Saturday mornings, he’s in his running gear before I’m out of bed, waiting for me to get up and help with his shoelaces.’
The familiarity of the routine has helped his confidence and independence. Having initially always run accompanied by Emily, Aaron or their mum, one Saturday he took off and ran ahead. ‘He seemed confident enough to carry on running by himself, so we just left him. When we finished, he’d already got himself scanned, had come back and was cheering everyone on the course. We’d never shown him how to do the barcodes, we just usually did it with him. Now he does the same thing at the gym: scans himself in, “See you later!” He wouldn’t have done that before.’
Branching out a bit further still requires a lot of discussion, but Ben is now trying even more new things. ‘We did the RunThrough 5k at Media City in Manchester, which was his first proper event where you get a bib and a medal,’ Emily says. ‘He was really excited about it, but when the day came, he took a lot of encouragement to get going. Then he realised it was basically the same as parkrun, and now he says he loved it.’
Next up: the Bradford 10k, which will be Ben’s second attempt at that distance after the Yorkshire Coast 10k on Scarborough seafront in October 2024. ‘It hailed during that one. Ben had to take his glasses off and couldn’t see so I was thinking: “He’ll never want to do this again,” but we’ve already signed up for another one.’
He’s started taking swimming lessons too. When he’s not doing sport, Ben goes to a daycare centre called Brierley, run by the learning disability charity Aspire, where he works in the café and learns to cook. Emily is a teacher in a school for children with special needs, a job she came into from being Ben’s carer. They have found a solution to getting more runs into his week by joining Manchester’s MileShyClub, a charity running and walking group for beginners whose slogan is: ‘No one gets left behind’.
‘He was only doing parkruns every week, always wanting to know if he’d beaten his record and feeling a bit disappointed. He’d kind of plateaued,’ says Emily. ‘When we joined MileShy at the start of 2023 he did Couch to 5k with them, made some good friends, and is now in the 5k improvers group, running with the speedy lot. All of his PBs have come since joining MileShy.’
When we speak, he’s in his MileShy T-shirt, ready for the evening’s run already. Have you ever loved anything as much as running, Ben?
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Not even Sonic?’ asks Emily.
‘Yes.’
‘Okay, maybe playing Sonic.’
Instagram: @ em5_runner @mileshyclub
