The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner.

I was a good cross country runner as kid. This may have had something to do with my reedy frame: my ribcage exposed like an anorexic glockenspiel. I must have had large lungs though, as I left all the fat tossers gasping in my wake. The lard arses tried short cuts and everything but they still couldn’t catch me.

It’s a good thing that I was good at cross country because I was utterly shite at all other sports; particularly the team ones. I was hopeless at football. I could dribble around in circles for ages but as regards passing the ball or heading it I was decidedly sub normal. I didn’t mind cricket so much: at least I could mooch around as a fielder, crushing insects with my shoes and fantasising about Michelle Sparks in her tight running shorts.

Rugby was perdition. Our games master was a perverted little sadist who delighted in making us play rugby when there was a good two inches of permafrost. He also enjoyed whipping our bare arses with a wet towel when we emerged from the showers. He liked to play gospel songs on his acoustic guitar and was a big cheese in the local Pentecostal church. These days he’d be arrested by the paedo police and incarcerated for a good ten years, but no one had heard of that sort of thing in those days.

Thankfully I grew up. The consumption of beer and burgers bulked out my frame somewhat and I discovered the joys of hanging around snooker halls all afternoon.

If I tried cross country running these days I’d need to carry an inhaler and an oxygen tank.