Nick Paish, 62, suffered a stroke in December 2019 that damaged the right side of his brain.
That meant he could not control the left side of his body properly.
Last year he had to learn how to walk again and decided he would work towards running a half marathon.
"I was doing all I could to stand up on my feet and I thought what would be a good idea would be to put some sort of a goal out there to make myself to stay consistent."
He was preparing for it with his occupational therapist who he saw once a week and by running a 1.2km loop around his neighbourhood.
At the moment he could manage a "joggy trot". His goal was to walk in a way people would not be able to tell he had had a stroke.
The progress he had made gave Mr Paish believe he could keep going and push the upper limit of how far he could run.
"I’m not actually running this 5km as a race.
"I’m more or less treating it as a training run and it will also give me a good baseline to look forward and make plans for my further training because I wish to go further than this."
Mr Paish said when he first had his stroke he found it very difficult because there were a lot of things he could not do, like using the toilet on his own or driving.
"You think basically if I can't do that, then I’m not a real person."
However, running was improving his overall outlook to life reminding him of how active he was about 20 years ago when he used to run regularly.
"I’m treating this as an opportunity to get back something I lost even before my stroke."
His main aim was to become useful to somebody and running was a step towards doing that.
"I’m trying to visualise that as my home run back to me.
"If I ever get back to how I was 20 years ago I’ll be getting back more than what I lost."
