Innocence

As I sit here in the Station Officer’s room in Battersea I wonder whether this blog has had its day. It started as an idea as I was running with my pal, Jon Vann in 2007. We would meet at our rendezvous for our run, invariably early in the morning and often after having consumed a significant amount of alcoholic beverage the evening prior. Discussion often got round to the race blogs, which at the time were fewer than today, and how they contained a mine of information regarding routes, times, kit etc. We’d laugh and remark how a blog written by either of us would contain detail of how much wine we’d drank the night before and how severe the resulting hangover was.

Subversive Running began after Doc McIntosh launched Brian’s Running Miscellany on the world. I told him I was thinking of writing something a little more alternative and he replied:

‘I’d read your subversive blog.’ And so it was born.

Now I feel less inclined to write frivolously (I’ll not labour the reason why) and the amount of running I do would result in few posts.

But while I ponder the future I have a story that I would like to share with you that made me smile at a time when smiling is a bit of a rarity.

There I was in the 1.25l Bad Boy returning from Tesco with my three youngest children. They all knew Dario and remembered him as ‘the funny man that could work out which day we were born on.’ They had heard of Dario’s death from ex-wife/partner (no.3) and were firing questions at me regarding the detail.

After explaining to them that he had died while running in the mountains Charly asked if his life might have been saved if a doctor had been on the scene at an early stage. I explained that a medical professional was with him but specialist equipment was needed to help, if it was at all possible.

After having a mumbled discussion with my son, Ewan, Charly said:

‘Me and Ewan know what should have happened. If the government had put a doctor with his equipment in a little hut on every mountain in the country Dario might have been saved.’

I smiled at their innocence.

‘Yes, you’re right, that would have been helpful,’ I replied.

Laters.