Monthly Archives: April 2014

The Scariest Thing That A Runner Can Encounter In Spring

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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:

Into this:
www.popgive.com

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:

Here is a swan taking on a dog:

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

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

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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:

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:

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

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. :\