I HATE RUNNING

DULWICH PARK CHARADE REPORT

The day was perfect – sunshine, no wind, relatively cool. The park was in full bloom and looked wonderful. The atmosphere was friendly and upbeat. Only the result was grey and dismal as the whole charade was exposed right down to its elite dri-fit socks. Modest, but steady progress at the gym does NOT translate IN ANY WAY WHATSOEVER into running ability on hard surfaces when you haven’t run on hard surfaces for months – no matter how excellent your socks are. After a great run in the gym on Friday which produced confidence and a real sense of moving forward, I thought the park run would be within easy-ish reach. It wasn’t. It was hard, it was demoralising and I didn’t enjoy it at all. Not one bit.

My 14-year-old running mate who hadn’t done any training whatsoever and hadn’t even bothered to put on a real pair of running shoes finished the three laps of the park in record time.

Halfway through the race, I was approached by two people with clipboards asking if I’d like to participate in a survey. When I explained to them that I was actually racing, they looked at me oddly and quickly backed away, relieved that they had narrowly avoided getting embroiled with some dangerously deluded loony who was obviously just sauntering aimlessly around the park.

This whole experience has thrown the running, its objectives, nay, the very tagline of this blog into turmoil and confusion. What now? What next? Can I take any more hilarity and humiliation? Can I be overtaken by Batman and people walking and still retain a shred of credibility as a ‘runner’? Tune in next week when I’ve probably topped myself.

Charade result: 2 laps out of 3. No goody bag or medal for me.

COMPETITION TIME

Try spotting this:

In this:

No? Well, neither could I – and it serves me jolly well bloody right. I went to the park to give the Nike+ kit a try and did not heed good advice about the sensor being bound to fall off if I only stick it under my laces and try to do a run. Yeah, yeah, know-alls. You’re not an experienced athlete like me and you don’t know the first thing about KIT. Only I know about KIT and sensors and running with hardcore KIT and sensors and swine-flu-like gadget crazes… Within 200 yards the sensor had of course fallen out of my cunningly devised lace grip (i.e, tucked under one cross of laces). Luckily (you would think), the nice Nike+ iPod lady tells you immediately that the connection between precariously positioned sensor and iPod has been lost and I immediately scoured the path and grass and litter and picnic champagne corks, scanned the charming children on BMXes for guilty looks and checked the sky. There was obviously some spooky interplanetary thing going on because the bloody thing was nowhere to be seen despite being very white and very red on a pretty green background. Obviously, this is an Apple design fault. The sensor should of course be equipped with flashing lights, emit a high-pitched screech and sail back to you in its own inflatable craft whenever it is lost in not-even-very-tall grass. Hrrmph and hrrmph again. Back to the drawing board, Jobs.

Apart from the sensor debacle, running in the park – something I haven’t done for ages – didn’t seem very easy and I’m getting seriously worried about the five-kilometre Dulwich Park run next weekend which is supposed to be a breeze and an easy demonstration of how far I’ve come in this charade. Pah. I did a bit more sans sensor, but was so pissed off that I went home after about 15 minutes. Without stats, there’s just no point.

Now for the competition tie breaker: Why is it all so effing predictable?

a) That’s not predictability, but stupidity.

b) Benidorm.

c) Elvis.