I Think I May Have Witnessed The Fattest Pigeon In Existance…

Obesity has occupied a significant portion of media attention in the past few decades. There is a lot of concern in relation to people’s expanding waistlines, something that has induced a lot of people to take up running. However, there is another obesity crisis lurking in the urban landscape – that of overweight pigeons.

The precise reason behind this explosion in pigeon obesity cannot be pinpointed, although I did once witness a highly intoxicated man drunkenly feeding an opportunistic pigeon Kentucky Fried Chicken late at night, something which may have played a factor.

Whilst running in the park earlier this week, I came across a small child feeding a group of ducks that had wandered into the middle of the pathway. It was a blissful sight that caressed my senses with the sweet scent of nostalgia. I had almost passed the child when the atmosphere suddenly changed. I looked around and spotted a pigeon approaching from where it had been lurking behind a vacated bench.

I had never seen a pigeon like it. This bird was the godfather of all overweight pigeons.

Now I have lived most of my life in an urban area and, as a result, have seen a lot of fat pigeons. But this was a mutant of its race. So shocked was I by its size that I have taken it upon myself to create a term with which to define this bird – Godzilla Pigeon.

I will attempt to give you some idea of what we are dealing with here.

This is a normal pigeon:

http://www.techweekeurope.co.uk

This is the image that came up when I googled the phrase ‘fattest pigeon ever’:

wandagomez.com

Not even this picture can do justice to the sheer magnitude of Godzilla pigeon’s bulging frame. Its feathers could barely cover its engorged body. Its neck had been almost totally consumed by its engorged breast. Two eyes and a beak squatted directly on top of its torso. It had, by the looks of things, lost the capacity to fly and instead exerted its dominance over the other occupants of the park with a debilitated waddle.

The small child abandoned his bread and ran terrified to his mother. The ducks scattered in Godzilla’s wake. Even a passing squirrel fled from its tyrannical presence.

I stopped running and watched in horror as the pigeon approached the bread and began to wolf it down at an alarming rate. I was displeased with Godzilla pigeon. It had consumed enough bread to last it for several lifetimes whilst the ducks looked on timidly from a safe distance away. I decided that I would use my running skills to scare the pigeon off. I would liberate the park from this fiend. I ran full-speed at the bird.

Godzilla pigeon did not move. It looked at me. It looked at me some more. Step on me, its eyes seemed to say. Go on. I dare you.

I was pretty sure that this pigeon could take me if any physical confrontation arose. So I backed off fast. Later, when I arrived home and my flatmate asked me how my run was, I did not mention that I had been ousted by a fat pigeon. I simply informed him that it had been ‘adequate’ and left to hang my head in shame in the privacy of my own bedroom.

The Perils Of Purchasing Snazzy New Running Kit

Last week, I bought some new running kit. I like my new running kit. I look good in it. I feel like Usain Bolt when wearing it. Only British. And Female. I enjoy standing in front of the mirror looking excessively fitter than I actually am, striking athletic poses and pretending that I’ve won an Olympic gold medal.

However, when I’m out jogging in my new running kit, I tend to feel an almost unbearable pressure to live up to my own athletic image. This means running at top speed when confronted with other members of the human race. I can’t possibly let them know that I’m not an athlete and am secretly only a jogger!

Unfortunately, this affliction has meant that I have found myself in some unfortunate situations this week, the worst of which involved a hill.

Picture this scenario:

You are at the bottom of the hill. The hill is far too big for your measly legs and unprepared cardiac system to scale. You decide that you will run half way up the hill and then stop, primarily, of course, to take in the view, and also to regain your breath. You are a quarter of the way up the hill when, to your horror, you spot another human being walking down the hill. You realise that this man is moving at a slower pace than you and therefore it is imperative that you will have scale a good three quarters of said hill in order to pass the man and retain an image of athletic perfection.

You start having the following series of thoughts:

Yeah, yeah, you watch me run up this hill, random stranger.

Actually, you can watch me sprint up this hill.

No, you know what? You watch me practically gallop up this hill.

‘Aint no horse gonna keep up with me!

I’ve totally been running at this pace for the entire length of my run.

I am fit.

I am healthy.

I am rearing to go.

My thighs are twinging.

My thighs are aching.

Wow, my thighs are BURNING.

Are they, like, actually on fire or something?

Ok, I’m going to have to stop soon or else my thighs are likely to spontaneously combust.

Jesus, my chest feels tight.

I can barely breathe.

Oh god, I think I’m having a cardiac arrest.

I am in so much pain.

I just need to get past your inconvenient presence, sir, and then I can collapse and DIE.

You may be close enough to me now to see the tears streaming down my face but, if I could speak, I would assure you that these are tears of pride. Pure, undiluted pride. I mean, look at me! Look how fast I’m running!

I’m going to hold my breath as a run past you in order to convince you of my undeniable levels of fitness.

Yeah, that’s right! You saw! I’m not even out of breath. I am so, so comfortable right now.

I know you just said ‘hello’ to me, and it was very nice of you, but I’m not going to respond – not, of course, because talking is currently a physical impossibility, merely because I am an athlete and athletes do not have time to converse with the public.

When, you finally pass the man reach the top of the hill, you adopt the following position:

http://www.phillyburbs.com

You find yourself praying that no more members of the public will walk past your fallen figure. You would, of course, explain that this is a special position which only the top athletes use to recharge their muscles after an intensive work out. But you’re so tired that speaking is out of the question. Instead, you just lie there in self-induced agony, wandering why on earth you took up running in the first place.

But at least you look good, right?

The Scariest Thing That A Runner Can Encounter In Spring

Spring. Such a beautiful time of year. The natural world, released from the barren grip of winter, once again becomes saturated with life. Fruits swell with promise, flowers release themselves from the confinement of their bulbs. All of nature is at peace.

Or so it seems.

In fact, the arrival of spring brings with it a threat to runners everywhere.

If you have ever run close to a body of water, you will have probably come across one of the most graceful and majestic birds in existence – the swan. When facing this creature, you may feel tempted to stop in your tracks and edge slightly closer in order to gain a better view of its serene beauty. However, I will warn you now, if you come across a swan between the months of April and June, do not under any circumstance approach the bird. If you value your health and general well-being, you will run in the opposite direction.

In between the months of April and June, swans experience some sort of severe hormonal trauma. This coincides with the birth of their offspring, which they instinctively want to protect. It is the equivalent of a year’s worth of severe PMS.
Symptoms include:

1. Heightened aggression.
2. Heightened hostility.
3. Heightened anger.
4. Heightened rage.
5. A heightened capacity to become generally pissed off.
6. The will to injure any unfortunate creature that strays to close to their aggressive, hostile, angry, enraged, generally pissed off being.

All of these things combine to transform this:

http://www.masspictures.net

Into this:

This is an image that would inspire fear in even the bravest of men. This swan is pissed off and hormonal. It is a creature at the mercy of its maternal instincts. It is deadly. Seriously, even Atilla the Hun would run a mile.

Aggressive swans are not a force that should be treated too lightly by passing runners. Let me demonstrate through the use of the following images.

Here is a swan taking on a goose:

http://www.peterloud.co.uk

Here is a swan taking on a dog:

http://www.norfolk.iwitness24.co.uk

And, finally, here is a swan taking on a full-sized deer:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk

Now, that is one angry mass of feathers.

However, I was not attacked by this ferocious creature. This week, on my run, I was attacked by a moorhen.

A swan is about a quarter the height of the average man. For those who don’t know, a moorhen is approximately 1/12th of the height of the average man. It is not a large bird. It would probably take at least thirty enraged moorhens to seriously injure an adult human being.

Nevertheless, when the excessively hormonal moorhen started to run towards me, I freaked out. Big time. I have never run so fast in my life.

The way towards improving my running times has been revealed. Evidently, I must steal a moorhen, bend it to my will and train it to chase after me whilst I run. It’s astonishing that I’ve never thought of this blatantly obvious solution before.

Or I could just stop eating as much cake, thus losing a bit of weight, therefore becoming light enough to run faster but, unfortunately, that doesn’t seem like a plausible option…

If You Want To Attract Members Of The Opposite Sex, Do Not Attempt To Do So When Running

This week, I was nearing the end of my run when I came across a member of the opposite gender.

Now, ladies and gents, there is attractive and then there is God On Earth. This specimen was included in the latter category. He was seemingly chiselled from the rock of physical perfection.

I always tend to despair when such encounters occur as, after forty-five minutes of running, I’m never looking my best.

This was no exception. It had, as usual, been raining. My hair was plastered to my head. Dirt had somehow splashed from the ground into my face. I looked like a drowned rat that had been dragged through a mud pit before having several tonnes of putrid lake water poured on top of its head.

When a lady considers taking up running, she is often allured by pictures such as this:

http://www.healthierfoods.com

I hate to break it to any prospective female joggers, but this is an unrealistic representation of women when they run. It is based off the presumption that:
A) Women do not possess functioning sweat glands.
B) The weather is in a perpetual state of nicety.

Now this, I feel, is a more realistic representation of what a woman can expect to look like after a considerable period of running:

http://www.sheknows.com

I, however, had taken dishevelled to the next level and probably resembled something akin to the next picture:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com

And, to cap it off, this man, this image of condensed physical perfection, had been placed before me, seemingly to heighten my own tragic appearance. Nevertheless, I couldn’t help but stare. In fact, my vision was so occupied by this eighth wonder of the world that I tripped. Of course, I tripped. Clumsiness runs in my family. It is a matter of genetics. I inherited this unfortunate quality from my mother, who once managed to fall over while getting into a hot tub, displacing the majority of the enclosed water in the process.

Through a series of several dramatic physical manoeuvres (e.g. vigorous arm waving), I managed to regain my balance and avoid a complete face plant scenario. In some deluded part of my mind, I indulged in the fairy-tale fantasy that the man would rush to my aid, scooping me into his arms and carrying me over to his valiant horse, which, of course, would magically appear, seemingly from nowhere.

However, this is the twenty-first century and, as a result, no such miracle occurred.

He looked over. He laughed. He walked on.

Be Careful What You Eat… Especially If You Plan On Running Afterwards.

This Wednesday, I decided to go out running in the evening after dinner.

Worst mistake ever.

Normally, I run in the morning in order to inspire a positive outlook on the remainder of the day. But I was pretty busy on Wednesday morning so I skipped my run. By 8pm, I was feeling restless. So I decided to go for a nice, relaxed evening jog.

I had eaten a relatively spicy chilli for dinner but that had been two hours ago and I figured (with my limited knowledge of the human digestive system) that I would be okay to run.

Firstly, I was ambushed by a mild stitch. But I blasted through this inconvenience and continued jogging. After a while, the stitch was starting to fade. I thought I was safe. How wrong I was.

It began with a slight burning in my throat. I coughed once or twice, swallowed hard. For a second, the burning faded and I continued to run. Then, the chilli-ridden meal that I had consumed earlier truly began to exact its revenge. It was like the fires from the pits of hell had risen to wreak havoc on my poor, unsuspecting oesophagus. It was digestive trauma like none I had ever known. I was coughing, spluttering, weeping, occasionally retching. I suspect that I started to resemble the chilli itself as my face took on an increasingly vivid shade of red. I had never looked so beautiful…

About three minutes later, a man approached me, looking concerned. I’m an asthmatic. As a result, I always carry my inhaler with me when I run. I think the man must have seen my inhaler and assumed I was in the midst of an extremely violent asthma attack. He asked if I needed someone to call an ambulance. I couldn’t believe that what was supposed to be a chilled jog had evolved into this. I turned to him and tried to say something along the lines of ‘Thank you, kind sir, for your help. It’s truly chivalrous of you but I think I’m beyond medical attention right now.’

Instead, I could only just manage to shake my head and croak the word ‘chilli’ at him, to which he extensively replied, ‘Aw babes, bad times,’ before walking away.

After about five minutes, the chilli attack died down and I was able to make my way home, thinking that I was not going to be cooking anything chilli related for a long time.

So – never, ever, I repeat EVER, eat anything vaguely spicy before going out running. That is the fundamental, mind-blowing moral of this tale.

The Chilli – A Runner’s Nemesis
4vector.com

Is It Just Me Or Are Dogs These Days Looking Increasingly More Ridiculous?

When I’m out running, I often come across several dogs. I have seen many weird and wonderful varieties in my year and a half as a jogger – from elegant, glossy-furred collies to those bull-dogs whose faces look as if they have suffered a high-speed collision with a wall. But what I saw this week was the strangest yet.

I was about fifteen minutes into my run and was making my way through the park. There was a woman a few metres in front of me, leading what initially appeared to be some kind of oversized hedgehog on a bright red lead. Interest flickered and I ran slightly faster, the distance between me and the curious creature decreasing with every step.

As I drew level with the woman, I realised that the animal was not a hedgehog but a dog, though it was unlike any canine that I had ever encountered in my life. It resembled a pompom, suspended a few inches above the ground by four stubby and extremely furry legs. Two black, beady eyes gazed up at me from the explosion of fur. It looked somewhat like this, but fluffier:

The woman leant down and released the walking afro from its lead. She produced a tennis ball from the pocket of her coat and threw it. I watched as the dog attempted to race after the ball but its legs were constricted by the great mass of fur that had consumed its body and all it could manage was a bumbling waddle. When it finally reached the ball, it struggled in vain to get a grip it with its miniscule mouth for several seconds. When such a mountainous feat was finally achieved, the ball consumed its entire face. The dog now looked a bit like this:

The walking cloud then struggled to return its prize to its owner. However, its eyesight was mostly obscured by the ball and it ran off at a tangent towards another person. It dropped the ball at this man’s feet, only to appear baffled when its restored vision revealed that the man was not its owner. The poor thing looked so confused!

When we were cavemen (you know, back in the day and all that), we used to run with magnificent tamed wolves. And here I was, running alongside what can only be described as a small furry marshmallow. Bit of a come down to say the least!

It was hard to believe that this creature was descended from the carnivorous wolf. The idea of the walking pompom embracing its predatory origins and chasing after, let’s say, a fox cub was mildly amusing to say the least. In fact, the fox cub would probably turn around and swallow the dog whole, only to choke on the great mass of fur.

However, I imagine that this dog has its uses. It would, for example, make an excellent foot-warmer if it sat on your feet on a cold night. I can also see how having such a dog would be therapeutic in today’s stress-filled society. Picture this: you’ve had a bad day, you’re stressed out of your mind, your head is pounding, you come home, you look at your pompom dog, it is cute, you feel soothed by its cuteness and you immediately feel calmer. It’s a win-win scenario.

Finally, and arguably most importantly, such dogs act as great sources of amusement for joggers like me!

Watch Your Step!!!

This week was incredibly uninteresting where running was concerned. In fact, the only thing I saw is definitely not worthy of gracing the pages of any blog in existence. But, as I promised myself that I would post every week, here goes.

This week, I saw some dog poo. Approximately 0.5 seconds before I stood in it.
It was one of those things that happened in slow motion. I could see my fate squatting on the path in front of me but could do nothing to prevent my unfortunate demise.

It was a beautiful day. The sun was shining, the birds were chirruping in the trees. I was immersed in pleasing sensations. However, after the aforementioned incident, all pleasant, appreciative thoughts concerning the weather were diminished. My mind was completely occupied by the foul substance that I had been misfortune enough to tread in.

If I had been certain that it was poo, I would have put all thoughts of injury aside and attempted to dive out of the way. But part of me thought that what was in front of me was just an unfortunately shaped patch of mud. For a moment, hope flared. I thought I was safe. So I allowed my foot to fall – a mistake that would haunt me for the next fifteen minutes.

I’m sure that the majority of people have suffered a shoe + dog poo collision at some point in their lives. When such misfortune occurs, it’s hard to imagine that such a cute furry body can possibly conceal such a substance. It was like having some kind of putrid chewing gum attached to my shoe. No matter how hard I tried to rid myself of its complete and utter disgustingness, it clung to the sole with its infinitely sticky properties. I must have looked slightly strange – walking along, dragging one shoe along the grass in an attempt to dislodge its unwelcome companion, as if the blood had ceased flowing in my leg, rendering it dead.

It was not, ladies and gents, my finest day.

I found myself forming a deep resentment for the owner of the dog whose excrement was now clinging so unforgivingly to my shoe. Sir/ Madam, if you are (miraculously) reading this, I understand that picking up your dog’s waste products may not be a particularly pleasant experience for you. But it’s kind of the rule. Exceptions may be valid if your dog decides to defecate in a highly-thorned bush where no human would ever dare to tread. But if your dog relieves itself right in the middle of a public sidewalk, then it is your duty, your obligation, to remove the substance from the path of ill-fated joggers such as myself. There is a reason why the government installed those bright red, highly noticeable dog poo boxes – so that my shoe would not have to go through such traumatic encounters!

That is all.

Turns Out, I’m Not Actually That Good at Running…

This Saturday, I was feeling good. I woke at 9am in the morning, the equivalent of the crack of dawn for a university student. I was feeling good. I ate Weetabix topped with honey and carefully sliced bananas. I was feeling good. I got dressed in my finest running gear. I was feeling good. I left the house and started to run. I was feeling good. It was, as usual, raining. That didn’t matter. I was feeling good. A car decided to drive ridiculously close to the puddle-ridden curb, sending a wave of cold water into my face. That didn’t matter. I was feeling good. I entered the park. Was feeling slightly less good (was getting slightly breathless) but I felt that I was running slightly faster than normal so, relative to normal, I felt good.

When suddenly, out of nowhere, a boy ran past me. Now, this wouldn’t have bothered me if the boy had been adolescent or even above the age of eight. But this cherub looked like he’d stopped wearing nappies barely two days ago.

I was suddenly feeling less good. In fact, I was feeling pretty bad. All I could think was – you are like two. Your legs are half the size of mine. How are you doing this?!!!

I comforted myself by thinking that the boy was some abnormal freak of nature. Obviously, this child was the next Mo Farah. However, this deduction was swiftly quashed as not one, not two but eight other small boys progressively made their way past me. I was being outpaced by some sort of infantile running club.

Just when I thought that my ego couldn’t possibly shrink more, a man ran past me. Initially, I was relieved that I had finally been overtaken by somebody who was taller than me. Then, I noticed that this man could not have been below the age of fifty. He was grey haired and more than slightly chubby around the edges.

The man, obviously some sort of instructor, shouted after the small boys. “Right boys! Now that we’re warmed up, I want you to do the next lap at your normal pace!”

By this point, I was considerably behind the running group. I watched, disbelieving, as the boys accelerated out of their ‘warm-up’ pace. I felt like a rhinoceros chasing a pack of cheetahs.

I guess I’m going to have to re-evaluate my perception of myself running. Before this run, there was still a small, extortionately hopeful and blatantly deluded part of myself that thought I looked like this:

When in fact I probably looked a bit like this (minus the crazed mob):

I feel as if I have been thrust from the ‘running’ category firmly into the jogging one. Still, despite the slightly soul-crushing nature of this jog, it did make me feel better. So bring on the next one!

Love, Love, Love…

I haven’t been running as much this week due to the fact that it has been raining. Torrentially. Every day. I know that I can’t expect much more, living in Britain and all, but this is getting slightly ridiculous. However, not only is the weather the very definition of miserable, it is also erratic and seems to be suffering from a severe case of bipolar disorder. In fact, the weather is downright treacherous. I will wake to torrential rain. Hours later, there will be slight break in rain. The sun will shine pleasantly through the clouds. I will don running gear, crack out the ipod, and tie my trainers securely, doubles knots and all. My hand will literally be on the door of the house… aaand the rain will come storming in again.

Anyway, the last thing anyone wants to hear is a Brit complaining about weather. It is winter after all. I should reserve my dissatisfaction for the summer. I had always thought that winter was the season in which wild animals of various sorts retreated to their burrows to slumber through the snow and ice, or, in Britain’s case, the rain. But what I encountered on one of my runs this week seemed to suggest otherwise.

I was running through the park when I spotted two squirrels frolicking in the field. They were chasing each other, occasionally pausing to nuzzle each other affectionately. ‘What a nice, romantic display of squirrel love’, I thought. Two squirrels, separated all summer by the time-consuming instinct to collect and hoard nuts, reunited for one last day together before the truly frigid conditions of late January and February swoop in. They were so playful and innocent that I couldn’t help but crack a smile, despite the fact that I was nearing the end of my run and my muscles were starting to ache. A lot.

Then, right before my unprepared eyes, they started doing something else. Something that could still be conceived as playful but wasn’t innocent at all. Suddenly, the cuteness of the squirrels diminished and they more accurately resembled the rats that feverishly breed and multiply unseen in the city’s underbelly.

My parents are doctors and, as a result, I have had constant exposure to the graphic front covers of the BMJ, which is doctor slang for British Medical Journal. Nothing that I had seen on the cover of that magazine was as graphic as this.

I’m pretty sure that this is the time of the year when squirrels are supposed to be conserving their energy, striving to make it through the cold season on the meagre supply of nuts that they managed to bury in the warmer months. They should barely have the energy to crawl from their nests in the morning, let alone prance around a field or engage in such X-rated activities. These, however, were some seriously energised squirrels. Their little bodies were vibrant with it. Such love. Such passion. Such unashamed indecency.

Needless to say, I averted my eyes in order to give the tiny lovers the privacy that they so evidently did not desire. I can only hope that they have gone into hibernation by the time of my next run.

A Post-Christmas Turkey

As with most holidays, for many people Christmas 2013 was most likely stuffed full of moments – whether they were as dramatic as the floods in the South of England or as simple as elderly relatives conking out after a bit too much bubbly.

I encountered the defining moment of my personal Christmas 2013 on my Boxing Day run. I’m not going to lie, it was a run fuelled by guilt. On Christmas Day, I had indulged in the traditional festive blowout. I had eaten so much that I felt like a hippo. No, an elephant. No, I’ll throw it in there, a blue whale – a blue whale that had been swept from the ocean on a tide of roast potatoes and cranberry stuffing and was consequently beached on the sofa, slowly collapsing under its own body weight. I needed to get back into the water, so I went for a run.
I was about fifteen minutes into said run when I ran past a woman who was walking through the park with a man, who I assumed to be her husband. In her arms was a live turkey. It was so strange, so surreal, that I was forced to stop in order to get a better look.

“Do you like him?” the woman said. “He’s gorgeous, isn’t he?”

Gorgeous wasn’t a word that I thought applied to the turkey, whose disturbingly reptilian head stuck out like a periscope from the mass of feathers that constituted its body.

Perhaps missing the slightly sceptical look on my face, the woman continued, “Thought we’d take him for a walk, you know, sample the air.”

I had a mental list of things that I thought I probably wouldn’t see in my lifetime. Things such as the Northern Lights or the Earth from outer space. A woman walking a turkey would have also made the list, if such a bizarre thing had ever crossed my mind. I asked the woman for what reason, exactly, was she ‘walking’ the turkey. It turned out that she had bought it with the intention of killing it on Christmas Eve. It was part of the ‘authentic Christmas experience’, she said. (I wasn’t aware that such a thing existed). However, when the dreaded hour had come, neither she nor her husband had been able to carry out the deed.

“It was looking at me with these sad, sad eyes. I just couldn’t bring myself to do it,” the woman said.

“I was looking at its bum,” her husband added, solemnly. “And I thought, I can’t stuff that. So we went and bought a Tesco chicken instead.”

I didn’t exactly agree with or, in fact, understand the man’s logic, but found the overall incident amusing. It got me thinking about all the interesting things I had encountered on my runs (probably more appropriate use the term jogs) over the past year and a half. I had been running on and off since I was fifteen but I had only consistently started since I enrolled at university – partially because I wanted to feel fresh and fit, partly due to my increased consumption of calorific alcoholic beverages. By running, I was able to drink (and eat) more without suffering with what I like to call ‘expanding waistline syndrome’. This, I have found, is one of the best things about running.

Another great thing about running is that it can be a source of entertainment- all you have to do is look for it. It gets you out and about in a world where all sorts of interesting and amusing things happen. I often like to be observant when running, mainly to distract myself from the sheer agony of the lactic building in my legs and the air burning in my lungs.

So I have decided to start a ‘Jog Blog’ about all of the interesting things I see while running. Who knows what my next run will stir up! Hopefully no more death-defying birds.