Alpha Male

Tuesday 24 May 2011

It's been suggested to me that I try something new. Like running.

I'll have you know that for the past few weeks I've religiously been an attendee at the newly formed David Lloyd Epsom Running Club (I have, after all, got time on my hands). If I had access to my former posts I could direct you to proof of this running but since I've deleted everything I can't.

I should have considered the result of deleting everything before I made that rash decision. It occurred to me yesterday that the only place that held a copy of my appearance on London Tonight where I informed Ben Scotchbrook that 'I'm not guilty of any acts of piracy and have never sailed the high seas in a galleon' was within the pages of this blog.

Anyway, like a lone Krispy Kreme Donut in the near vicinity of Vanessa Feltz, my former posts have gone. So I'll tell you about my last run out with the David Lloyd Epsom Running Club to prove that I do, occasionally, run.

Believe it or not I'm something of an elite athlete at David Lloyd Epsom Running Club. This is if you accept that elitism is an acceptable concept when applied to one's immediate surroundings only. A bit like accepting that Peter Andre would be intellectually elite if he were caged with the apes in London Zoo. You see my elitism doesn't come from being a sub-three hour marathon runner but from being club mates with a load of well-to-do but very nice women who run purely to fight the flab.

That was until last week when a fella that I know in name only arrived at the David Lloyd Epsom Running Club. Steve Wynder is something of a local celebrity because if he enters a race you know that the winner's medal is going home wrapped around his neck. But I'm a geezer that's spent a whole life time proving that it's possible to have ambition by the truck load while being in possession of ability that would fit in a thimble.

So Pete the coach sets us off on a 2.5 mile warm up circuit of Horton Park. Yours Truly is setting a fearsome pace at the front (I know, I know....warm up....the clue's in the name) and Mr Wynder is on my shoulder. There's no letting up in my Kenyan-like running and I'm starting to think that I've missed a trick here. Forget ultra marathons, my star is obviously set at the 5km distance.

Then around a mile and a half into the 'warm up,' Steve breezily says to me:

'So do you come running with this lot often?'

While I'm convinced this isn't some cheesy chat-up line I'm without the ability to inform Steve that I don't swing that way. Mainly because I'm demonstrating the near collapse runner's art of breathing out of my arse. I take a gulp of air and in one exhalation manage to say:

'I'm gonna let you go, Steve.'

'Oh....OK,' Mr Wynder replies and changes out of second gear showering me in grit and dirt as he belts off down the track.

The rest of the session includes sprints and intervals and I manage to slot myself in among the women and keep well clear of Steve Wynder. Then the final task is set by Pete which is for Steve and I to run two laps of a mile circuit while the women follow Pete up and down the track.

I manage to stay with Steve for the first circuit and as we finish to start the second he informs me that he's gonna run back to the gym as he's got a lunch date in London. I bid him farewell (while really thinking: 'thank fuck for that') and crack on with circuit number two.

As I arrive at the end of my second circuit Pete's there with the women.

'Where's Steve?' asks Pete.

'He said that my pace was so fast he couldn't manage a second circuit so he took an early bath,' I lie unconvincingly.

Then we all skip off back to the gym with me in Alpha Male status. As I said above, immediate surroundings and all that.

Laters.

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