As my leg is now feeling a bit better, I decided to run home from work last night. Whilst sat at my desk yesterday I watched the weather getting worse and worse. But I braved it and I went out and I did the six miles in the rain, rather stupidly perhaps.
It wasn’t too bad until I got to the other side of Hyde Park (although the sight of sad wet deck chairs was rather depressing) Then the heavens opened and it poured down. It was at this point that I proposed my new running hypothesis - the collaboration between umbrella size and annoyance. The bigger the umbrella (golf usually) the more the chance of being battered. Tourists with their cheap small umbrellas (which were more often than not inside out, but at least families could keep track of each other by spotting the matching style and colour) whilst dithering and getting in the way a bit – were generally harmless and could easily be swerved around. Every time I ran past a person with a golf umbrella I was dicing with death. The size of the umbrella means it takes up the whole of the pavement, so I would have to either a) run in the road (risking being hit by a car) b) do a sort of duck and under of the thing (risking being hit in the eye by the metal bits) or c) jump over the top (this option failed rather dramatically, I don’t recommend it)
Tourists watched me open-mouthed as I ran past them, I like to think that this was because the were so amazed by my running style, but I suspect it was because I was soaking wet and looked rather pathetic. I suppose that as it is nearly September now that this weather is going to continue so I better toughen up and deal with it, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it.
I suppose looking at the positive side it meant the run was out of the way – if I had travelled home the usual way, I would probably talked myself out of going out again into the rain. Lets hope the weather is a bit better for my next outing…
