My own parkrun and magpies on sheep heads
My Twitter timeline this morning was full of people going off for a parkrun, so I decided to do my own parkrun in honour of Juneathon. Except it wasn’t going to be in a park and it wasn’t going to be with other people but it was going to be a 5k. So, you can call it a 5k if you want to, but I’m sticking with parkrun, so there.
All was going well until I got to the slopey bit that goes up to the little shop and because I’m planning on doing the Great Kent Bike Ride tomorrow, decided I should rest and walk up the slopey bit but then I thought what if I was doing an Ironman? Would I walk in the swimming bit because I had to get on a bike after but then I thought yes, I probably would but there’s not much chance of me doing an Ironman anyway because a) I can’t swim; b) I’m too scared to cycle faster than 10mph; and c) I’ll probably never do a marathon because I keep whinging about how there’s nowhere to train round here.
Anyway, I stopped being a wimp and pretended I was an Ironman and ran up the slopey bit then got on the trail and there was a man running towards me and I wondered how long most runners wait until acknowledging the runner running towards them and I usually keep my eyes down until they’re right near me and then I look up and smile and say hello or grunt or whatever I’m capable of doing at the time and then there was another runner coming towards me when I was going through a gate and I thought oh no, more running etiquette dilemmas – do I stand here holding the gate open for her or just go through it? and it’s not the type of gate you can hold open for someone anyway and so I went through it and hoped she didn’t think I was being rude and if she had done the same to me, I wouldn’t have thought she was being rude but anyway, she smiled and said hello so I don’t think she was too bothered and then I went past the sheep field and there was a sheep with a magpie on his head and he didn’t look too bothered, he was like ‘yeah, I’ve got a magpie on my head, so what?’ and then I got back to the house and I’d only done 2.94 miles and I was determined to do 5k and so I carried on and it took until I’d done 2.97 miles to get past the house and I went up the road a bit until I did 5k and then I walked back.
Job done. Innit.
Haha now all I have is an image of a sheep with a magpie sat on his head. Maybe they were plotting something…
I also have the same dilemma when approaching another runner. In the end, I think it is enough to spread a little good cheer regardless of how we do it.
Same here, although if i’m in the mood, I crack a surprised face at something on their body like somethings wrong just to see their reaction and makes me laugh every time 😀
I just prefer to be ignored. I don’t acknowledge everyone in the street normally, I am English after all, so just because I’m involved in the same activity I don’t see why that should change.