Perusing the shelves in the mens department of M&S I happened upon some bottles of aftershave. Being the freeloader that I am, I removed the top of the sample bottle with casual nonchalance (is there any other type) and sprayed some on my wrist and proceeded to wipe it across my chin. I inhaled deeply all the heady perfume. I walked off in a fragrant cloud of volatiles. When the effect wore off and I came to, I realised that my old reliable bottle at home had lost all its pazzazz. I checked this when I returned home and having had my suspicions confirmed, I found myself back in said store buying the overpriced fragrance and binning my 14 month old half bottle of whatever it was called....something like Caddisfly....or Spinmonkey or something. Lee Mack does a great sketch about perfume adverts. Anyway, where is all this going?
It was the Royal Signals Relays on Saturday. Clubs only. 4 men to a m50 team. Probably the biggest event for North East clubs other than perhaps the Elswick Relays at Easter. It was wet. It was windy. I had shaved 'specially first thing to ensure my chin was as dynamic as possible, and not forgetting to 'splash it all over'. I was in the team and on the third leg. It's a two lap affair around a lake in a park. Just over a mile per lap. I was happy to be running and decided on the gloves and arm warmers, but no tights, just shorts below. I have some new trainers. They are a metrosexual pale blue. I was quite keen to get them mucky and had a lap or two warm up playing in the puddles.
Anyway, after the first lap (leg 1) of the race we were in 7th place and there was a one minute gap from our first leg runner to 3rd place and the dizzy heights of a podium place. After 2 laps the gap had widened. Paul W went off on the second leg and pulled one minute back on the runner from Crook AC who were 6th and within reach. I readied myself at the start knowing we were not in the medals, but that I needed to do something decent. As Paul finished, I set off into the headwind. It took ages for me to get into any sort of pace and my heart rate and breathing were all over the shop. I passed the lad from Crook at the end of the first lap, but regretted it when I realised he could spend the next lap tucked in behind me. Thankfully that didn't happen, and during the second lap I passed Mrs Mac who was in the womens vet team. With my initial hard effort out, I found myself dying on the way back and tried to look strong as I came in to hand over to the 4th runner Neil. I knew that I hadn't run very well, however. Catching my breath I did a couple more laps in reverse to support Neil before heading back to the tent. We finished 6th. My time was 14:09, almost a minute down on previous times. However, everyone else's times were also down, so no big deal. And as I got changed and wiped the slaver off my neck, I knew that even if I wasn't the fastest, at least I smelled the part. You won't , however, find me facing down a buffalo and burying bangles and jewellery in the desert with my shovel. In the words of Derek Zoolander, I am slow but happy to know that I'm still ridiculously, ridiculously good looking.
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