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Former Longlevens rugby player Mark Deacon celebrates milestone parkrun with a PB

Author: Roger Jackson, Posted: Thursday, 6th November 2025, 12:00

Mark Deacon, centre, has recently completed his 200th parkrun

Former rugby player Mark Deacon marked his 200^th parkrun by setting a new PB.

The 65-year-old completed the 5K at Plock Court in 24 minutes, 33 seconds, beating his previous best, set some six months earlier, by 19 seconds.

“I was very pleased with that, I’m trying to improve all the time,” said the ex-Longlevens second row who played 486 first-team games for the club.

Deacon has become a regular on the parkrun circuit – he runs mainly at Plock Court – and he said: “I was getting older and fatter, I started in 2019, there’s a gang of us from the rugby club who started running together.”

These days he also goes to the gym five times a week – his younger brother and ex-Gloucester rugby player Andy calls him “a machine” – and he continued: “I’m in the best shape I’ve been for quite a while, it’s good fun.

“It’s very different from playing rugby because you’re part of a team in rugby, running is much more an individual sport.”

Deacon, a former Beaufort School pupil, played between 600 and 700 club games for Longlevens before retiring in his mid-40s.

He still watches the club play – his brother is director of rugby – and he certainly has no intention of stopping running.

“If you stop at my age, you never start again,” he said. “I’ll keeping going for as long as I can.”

Other Images

Mark Deacon, right, in the Highnam 10K

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Former Longlevens rugby player Mark Deacon celebrates milestone parkrun with a PB

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