Santa Run

Normally wearing red makes me distictive in a crowd of runners, should anyone bother to be there to cheer for me. Today I was to be annonymous as the other 2000 Santas that spewed around battersea park.

Though I thought it would be impossible to find anyone I did quickly bump into Simon and Ian (always wearing a headband) and was really impressed with my own facial recognition ability.

The Santa suits were one size fits all and so had to accomodate for the largest potential runner. The waist of the trousers was at least 60 inches, my trousers were going to fall down in a busy park on a saturday morning.

It was quite difficult running while breathing in fluff. I didn't manage to keep the early promise of shouting "HO HO HO" all the way round. Ben obviously went for it from the start and was quickly out of view, Ian and Simon followed. I felt no need to be competitve in a Santa race or indeed any race nowadays.

I was a pedestrian 2 laps and I was amazed to be lapping people after 3k. They must have travelled 0.2 kilometers in 12 minutes. The best part was seeing a guy almost cry as he realised that he lost his timing chip and was running back and forth to try and find it. History will never recall him as having run the Santa race, his life would effectively be ruined.

All I really recall from the race was trying to spot Katie (who had the great idea of wearing a red coat so she was easy to spot) who was taking pictures. I didn't see her at all. I finished in 25.36 and was 35th place which suprised me as I thought there were 100's ahead. We later were refused entry to Harrods in Santa suits which was a shame. Surely they would do no business if it were for the person I was dressed as.