I am trying to get back into running after letting it all slide a bit after the Marathon. There's a night time 10k race in London next month that I think I'm going to enter, so that should give me something to work towards. Not that 10K should be all that difficult after having done over four times that distance. But it's a start. But like my hero Paula Radcliffe I am going to just stop running the minute I realise I'm not going to finish in the top three. So I'll probably only have to do 100 metres or so.
I managed a couple of miles quite comfortably today which is encouraging. At one point I passed a woman and her (I'm guessing) 7 year old son. The boy, presumably inspired by my own impressive running performance decided to race me up to the next junction. He sprinted by me quite easily. He was fast. But I looked at him wisely. He was only doing 30 metres and I was in the middle of a 2 mile run. I wasn't going to sprint for this little bit. If he wanted to race then he could do the entire course with me and then see who was best.
In any case when he got up to the junction he had to stop and wait for his mum so she could help him cross the road. I didn't have to do that. I can cross the road on my own. So who is best? Me or this small boy who can't even cross the road at a quiet junction without his mummy to help him? It is me. I am best. I sneered at the presumptuous idiot as I went by. Yeah, so he may be fast, but he's never going to get anywhere in the world of professional running if he has to wait for his mum every time he needs to cross a road. Unless he can train his mum up to be equally quick and then he wouldn't have to wait for her in dangerous situations. Luckily his mum was fatter than me, so I am still the best. Easily.
Had Aesop been alive I think he would have turned this incident into a fable. The story of the wily and swift young boy and the fat, plodding 37 year old man. It seemed the boy was better at running until his fatal weakness was exposed to the world. He was a little pussy. So the fat old man was able to prove his superiority. And also being much bigger than the boy he could also punch him and then run away. His mum was too far behind to catch up and too fat to run. It would be the perfect crime.
I didn't do that though. Because for some reason punching an audacious child is still against the law in this country. The law is an ass.
