Tues 8 Feb 2005

I seem to be in a perennial state of catch-up these days. Since the last written-up run (the Almeria Half), I’ve run 6 times. Some excellent adventures to report too.

Talking of catch-up, I’m reminded of the first of two strange things that happened during my 15 mile slog up and down the canal on Saturday.

Just as I arrived at the bridge that takes me down to the towpath, I noticed another runner, a plump, balding middle-aged guy just 20 or 30 yards away, heading towards the same bridge from the opposite direction. Ten or fifteen seconds after I’d started along the path, the man got to the bridge and set off along the canal behind me. I turned round and saw him – white tee-shirt over his generous belly, girly leggings, woolly bobble hat.

I ignored him at first, my latent defeatism assuming that even this oversized plodder would catch me and overtake soon enough. But he didn’t. I heard his laboured footsteps behind me for more than twenty minutes and more than two miles. I found it unsettling. Not for the first time, I’ll quote that chilling stanza from Edgar Allen Poe:

Like one that on a lonesome road
Doth walk in fear and dread,
And having once turned round, walks on,
And turns no more his head.

Because he knows a fearful fiend
Doth close behind him tread.

Why didn’t he overtake me? Or fall way behind? But he just stayed there, a few yards behind me, like some foul phantom. Crunch, crunch, crunch on the gravel path.

Eventually, I’d had enough. This guy was getting to me. Another quarter mile or so we would come to a gate across the path, and here I would stop and let him overtake me. So the gate duly appeared, and I stopped and waited. The footfalls got louder. Now they were CRUNCH CRUNCH CRUNCH.

And there he was.

Except it now wasn’t a "he" at all, but a rather fetching young woman in her twenties in matching red shirt and red lycra shorts. She grinned at me and said "Hi! Lovely day!" as she vanished through the gate. Watching her pretty, shoulder-length blonde hair bobbing away across the field in front of me, I marvelled at the extraordinary power of running. What other activity, apart from excessive narcotic usage perhaps, can turn a fat bald bloke into a lovely young woman? What greater endorsement could running have than this?

Two miles further on, another strange thing occurred. With 4.6 miles gone, I was relieved to reach the water tap by the canal visitors’ centre. Apart from the canal itself, it’s the only free refreshment available for miles along the canal, so I tend to stop here for a slurp. Today I had an energy gel with me, and this seemed like a good opportunity to squeeze the stuff down my throat.

So I sucked the life out of it, had a glug or two of water, then looked round for somewhere to dispose of the wrapper. A few yards away was some sort of shed or out-building with the door ajar. Through the opening I could see a rubbish bin in the far corner. So I jogged through the doorway to the far corner and threw the wrapper in the bin.

Hang on! A second later, I fished it out to check the calorific intake. Then I chucked it in again, turned round and retraced my steps.

"Aarrggghhhh!"

SHOCK!! There, in the opposite corner, behind the door, were a couple of wooden chairs and a table, and beyond them was an old armchair, and sitting in the armchair, watching a small portable TV, headphones clamped to his ears, was a long-haired guy, 30-ish, wearing a holey blue jumper. That’s all I recalled apart from the look of fear on his face that (I suspect) pretty much matched my own. I just carried on running, out the door, through the gate and back up the towpath.

It was only then that I started to see the funny side. Just imagine it. You’re sitting at home one Saturday morning. You’ve settled into your favourite armchair to watch the preview of the rugby, and you’ve even put the headphones on to enhance your privacy, when suddenly, bang! The door flies open and a sweaty, half naked, fat bloke rushes in, rushes over to your bin, rummages around in it, then turns round, yells at you, then runs out again looking quite deranged.

I completed my 15 miles without further incident.

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