Have I mentioned I am on Twitter?
Not in the past two hours?
Well, I am Twitter’s very own Purkinje Ninja. At least until Denis Noble decides to join and wants the name, in which case he can have it in exchange for answering a few questions about The Music Of Life.
But I digress. A few days ago I tweeted this:
Righteousness aside, this subject is quite close to my heart.
I run a lot, and mostly on the streets of my lovely South Manchester suburb. I run in lycra short and tight tops, since I have a lot of weight to shift and get hot very quickly. It’s very common to see me flash past in a lycra triathlon onesie, which incidentally is my favourite piece ever of workout kit.
When I run past people who are not running I always get very extreme reactions. Kids seem fascinated. Sober men are fascinated too, but in a different way – the lycra, the hips, the biology (so said the boy scientist). The reaction from the inebriated folks stood outside pubs deserve their own blog post (some day).
Women? Well, women just shoot me evil looks. Big, disdainful, haughty evils. The size of the evil is always directly proportional to the apparent lack of fitness of said female.
If she is also in the middle of smoking a cigarette, the sheer size of the evil look will cloud the sky, bring on thunder and the sound of spooked horses.
Why? No idea. And no time to ask them, I have a marathon to run in 5 months and I am out doing something I enjoy. I do care a little bit though, since I posted that tweet the other day. It makes me sad, I guess.
Fast forward to this morning, when I woke up really early and pondered riding my bike to work in time for a treadmill session at 6AM, when the gym opens.
Instead I went for a street run, because it was just the most perfect morning. It was quiet, and yet I ran past a lady stood at a bus stop, I smiled and she shot me an evil. Oh well.
I got home, picked up my stuff, put an old fleece over my sweaty running gear and cycled to work in the sun singing “Yellow Submarine” in the worst Italian accent I could muster (did myself proud).
I got to work, parked my bike and discovered that I did not have my ID card. The one that opens the door to my office, but more importantly the door to the gym.
You know, the gym. The place with the showers. Where you go to stop smelling and start resembling a human being that can go to work next to other human beings. That place.
I pondered cycling home and back to the office, but that would have taken too long and it would have exposed me to the worst of the traffic.
I pondered asking reception / security, but even at 7:20AM there are too many people that I don’t want to see me in my sweaty glory.
Eventually, in the glaring morning light of the empty car park, against the silhouette of the smokers’ shelter, two shadows darkened my path – SMOKERS! With ID cards! That opened the gym door!
I put up with them squinting to recognise me in my sport sunglasses, helmet and old fleece, borrowed an ID card and ran inside to get change, ever so grateful to avoid a very smelly day.
So there you are, I need to re-direct my righteousness or better still silence it altogether.
I have always thought that the moral high ground is a lonely place. But today I discovered it can also be very smelly.
