There are many things in life that don’t make sense

There are many things in life that don’t make sense:

• Throwing bread in the back garden to feed the sweet, little birds. The birds then fly round the front and shit on your car!!
• Parking your car in an empty car park and coming back to have the only other two cars that have arrived parked either side of yours!!
• Pensioners who shop on Saturdays and the ones that are always impatient while queuing!!

Since this is about running and course measuring:

I had been looking forward to the St Annes 5k for the last few weeks, well, up until the Monday before the race. That Monday, as I was starting nights that evening, I decided on a solo run that afternoon - something I very seldom do. I set off and, within minutes, the heavens opened but this did not bother me as I love running in the rain. I went up to the park, did a lap around it, then home which was seven miles, give or take a metre. I felt good and ran at a fair pace and I loved the rain. Straight into the shower, a couple of hours in front of the telly, then off to work. The next morning I had the start of a cold - a bad throat. We have a cupboard full of lotions and potions but the door was never opened. I went to work that Tuesday night feeling rougher than a cat’s tongue. The Wednesday morning it was time for the Night Nurse but the magic cupboard had none in! The poorer relation Day Nurse was used which is the difference between the day and night shift in Amsterdam’s human filled windows. (Come with us later in the year and see what I mean!) As soon as I got up at 09.30 I went straight to the chemist for the green boxes which house the Night Nurse. Note the time - I got to bed 06.15 and up at 09.30!! That happened every morning that week. Next door is having a conservatory built so every morning the ‘radio playing workmen’ turn up and tune in. By Friday I think I could not have felt or looked worse. Though I was tempted to forget the 5k and take up Captain Barlow’s offer of getting plastered in Poulton I stayed in Friday and Saturday.

Forgetting about my pathetic attempt to run well and my excuse, the one thing that puzzled me was the times that others ran. Alex is very consistent yet he, and several others, were around 20 seconds down on what they ran at Horwich. Now, when you are in the ‘donkey derby’ like me, times are all over the place but at the sharp end? Now I know the course is 5k and I don’t think for a moment it is short. So what am I getting at? Well, I will tell you. A much smaller and wiser man than me once told me that the Clitheroe 10k was a PB course. At the time I thought he was talking ‘pants’ but I soon found out he was right. So compared to Horwich’s 5k, the St Annes 5k is slower. Who says so? Look at the times - that’s who. But I’ll be back next year, shifts permitting, to prove I’m wrong.

Written by: George Kennedy

Submitted: 8^th July 2007

Edited by: Brenda J Earnshaw WRR Editor