shorts

Occasionally I have a good run of results, running-wise, perhaps a PB here or there or just a good couple of training sessions. It doesn’t take much before I’m going about calling myself a marathon runner, puffing my chest up with pride, looking down on mere “joggers” and generally making an arse of myself.

If there’s one thing guaranteed to puncture this illusion like a thumb-tack applied to a balloon, it’s a trip to the friendly local sportsware supplier. Particularly when it involves shorts.

Whoever it is who designs these things obviously doesn’t take into account persons of my particular dimensions.

I don’t ask much. I don’t demand “flattering” or “fashionable”, I just want to be able to run in reasonable comfort without causing members of the public to avert their eyes in horror and small children to run crying to their mothers.

It’s very distressing.

This is why I run in the same pair of shorts for literally years on end. My current favourites have been with me since 2005 and have done, at a reasonable calculation, somewhere over 5000km. They were once black and only had the regulation number of holes. Now they’re a sort of turgid brown, like the back end of a particularly filthy truck on the Western Ring Road and they have ratty holes in awful places.

S, I’ve been looking for some to replace the incumbents. For a while I thought a pair of Brooks shorts would do the job, but they fell at the first hurdle: splitting embarrassingly up the side.

Yesterday, I found it. The perfect pair! (you guessed it, the same type as my current pair). And only $23 on special. So I’m happy.

Running
After a few days off, doing an impression of Jabba the Hut and morbidly contemplating the state of my shorts, I hit the road today, looking to make up for lost time.

Having waited for the rain to stop, I set out, only to discover the rain hadn’t stopped at all. It had just taken a breather, prior to dumping a deluge on my head.

I did shelter for a minute beneath a Croydon shopfront, but by that time the damage had been done. Reasoning that I couldn’t get any wetter, I pushed on my way. 22km, including two loops of the Croydon Golf Course. It’s quite a nice place to run, I can’t believe I’ve not been there before.

When I finally made it home I looked like a drowned, muddy rat and felt like it too. On the plus side, my shoes will come in handy later in the summer if we need some water to fill the dams.

genius

As a blogger, one tries to do one’s best in the daily post, if for no other reason than it helps to pass the time. I like to think in my small way I have provided some diverting reading in the last 12 months, even if 90 percent of it has been fiction.

But there are times when one has to stand back and acknowledge a true master of the form. Frankie Valley is a blogger from South-East London, who writes very loosely on the topic of my English soccer team, Charlton Athletic.

Now, you might say provoking a bunch of mindless football hooligans into, er, spirited discussion is like shooting fish in a bucket. Not so. Frankie is a professional shit-stirrer, a veritable olympic standard smartarse.

And his barbs are not restricted to anyone in particular. He doesn’t discriminate. See today’s blog, about a Charlton player called Jerome Thomas who was arrested in a pizza joint in Bournemouth:

JT – a true working class hero

To quote:

There are some people that see Jerome Thomas as a free-wheeling show-boating spineless poseur who needs a good kick up the arse – but I couldn’t possibly comment….

And he’s one of our players!!

Running
A lunch-time run is scheduled today, in the good shorts.

As an aside, I note Em went out and bought two new pairs of shorts yesterday. Also, Jaykay claims to have about 50 pairs of coverings for the lower reaches of her body, including “running skirts”, whatever they are.

I am beginning to suspect I’m in the minority.

sicko

I own two pairs of running shorts. Actually, I own three but if it ever got to the stage I had to wear number three, I’d probably prefer to give it a miss.

Pair number 1 are somewhere around 2.5 years old and they’re my favourite. They’re black, New Balance and perfectly moulded to the unique and individual shape of my buttocks. However, they’re getting a bit scruffy. Well, so would you be if you’d spent 5,000kms wrapped around my bum.

Pair number 2 are also black, but they’re newer, made by Brooks and have the key pocket on the left rather than the right. They’re not really my favourite. I’ll wear them, but only when the New Balance ones are in the wash.

Today on my way back from the tan, wearing the Brooks shorts, my MP3 player decided to jump out of the little key pocket and go for a wander. Not my idea. If the MP3 player had have consulted me I would have advised against it, pointing out the only things nearby were probably a bit smelly and definitely unattractive.

Anyway, there are some things over which I have no control; though, in retrospect, I probably shouldn’t have run down Exhibition street at lunchtime clutching my groin.

You can get arrested for that sort of thing.

Running
I didn’t manage to run yesterday lunchtime, owing to a meeting that simply had to happen. I did run last night, despite struggling with extreme slothfulness. I ran again this lunchtime, including a couple of loops of the tan.

God I’m getting sick of that place.

shorts

You’ll be thankful to note, yesterday’s proposed change of editorial direction doesn’t seem to have much of a future.

I did try. I tried my whole-soul best to think of something erotic and running-related, but I just don’t see how it’s possible. The best I came up with was the idea of posting a picture of me in my new racy running shorts.

They are quite revealing, but erotic no. God no. Especially not after my lunch-time run. And you definitely don’t want to see them after a long run, what with the chafing and all.

So, back to whimsy. Whimsy, whimsy, whimsy.

Running
13.1 km (precisely) this lunchtime. It started at work and took in the delights of Carlton, Brunswick and alongside the cemetery. I did my little tempo session alongside the cemetery, ending up feeling a bit better than the inhabitants. But only marginally.