Gordon Chree: I joined the inmates at the first parkrun held inside HMP Dumfries

The meeting point for Jessiefield parkrun feels much like the other 71 in Scotland and probably like thousands around the world.

There are volunteers in hi-vis vests, participants waiting to take part, start and finish signs and cones marking out the turns on the course.

But this one is different – we are surrounded by high fences, barbed wire and CCTV cameras.

This, at HMP Dumfries, is Scotland’s first prison parkrun.

On the outside, these weekly 5k events can make a huge difference to participants’ physical and mental health and it’s the same here.

The parkrun philosophy of “it’s a run, not a race” means everyone taking part can focus on their own personal achievements.

At Jessiefield, the regular first place finisher was overweight when he started his sentence but since the parkrun started has become faster and faster.

“It’s been great for my confidence and showed me I can push that bit harder” he told me.

The event attracts up to 20 runners each week and around seven to ten volunteers.

Run director on the day, Natasha Hyslop – a physical training instructor at the jail – said: “We never struggle to fill the volunteer roles. There are plenty of prisoners willing to help so they can feel part of something. It gets them out of a cell and into the outdoors and there’s a real sense of community.”

The driving force behind bringing parkrun to the jail is fellow physical training instructor Danny Dunglinson.

He told me: “We’d had a running club for prisoners and a couch to 5k programme and then I heard about some jails in England having parkruns. Our first conversation with parkrun was in May or June and we were up and running by September.”

There’s a real sense here of the importance it can play in rehabilitation.

Stuart Pomfret, head of offender outcomes at the jail said: “The men are taking part in something that works the same as it does on the outside, so this gives them something they can carry on when they’re released. It’s a positive and consistent thing for them to do.”

So what was the experience like?

One of the significant differences from a regular parkrun is the course.

The 5k is usually made up of an out-and-back, or one, two or three laps.

But here limited space and a need for a compact course around the prison garden mean participants must clock up 12 laps to reach the distance.

And with a hill part of the route, this is a demanding layout – it felt steeper every lap!

The course was on a mixed surface, some solid tarmac and other parts round the edge of the lawn becoming a bit muddy.

The thing that came through was the strong sense of camaraderie – with the men urging on each other (and their three invited guests including me) as the run went on.

Thankfully volunteers were counting our laps and relaying how many we had done each time across the line to ensure our own counts were correct.

There were a range of speeds on display as at any parkrun, but everyone completed the full distance, and everyone was encouraged all the way to the end.

And then, as at any parkrun it was a case of collecting a finish position token, having your personal barcode scanned and awaiting a result.

Like any other parkrun those go up on a public website but prisoner names are anonymised.

That doesn’t mean they’re not interested – making progress and getting a personal best was a clear sense of pride among the men.

More than half of them – 11 out of the 17 inmates taking part – clocked a PB this time.

The first place finisher clocked 20:40 – more than four minutes quicker than he was in the first run just seven weeks earlier.

“I’d never really been a runner before that, but now I’m doing something to be proud of”.

For me, having run at all of Scotland’s parkruns plus a number in England, Denmark, the Netherlands and Germany, this one will stick in the mind for a long time.

Many lives, including mine, have been changed for the better by parkrun and the inmates and staff at HMP Dumfries are now starting to see positive changes too.