Both chances to run with lots of people. However, in the Park Run, I’ve usually been a straggler. It’ll be exciting to be amongst crowds of pink and glitter. A bit like the Bigg Market on a Friday night, but with less broken glass hopefully. I’m going to take the Race for Life especially as a rehearsal for the Great North Run atmosphere - and try and write a poem while I run. I’ll experiment with using my iPhone as a Dictaphone I think... Will put the results here when I’m done. Meanwhile here’s a small cross poem about a hazard lots of runners have to bear.

Run    

The window of the white Cortina is wound down at speed,

and the car screeches off in a cloud of laughter

as a boy bellows; "Run, you fat cow!”.

I think; Perhaps it was because they’re disenfranchised youths

enraged by a time of low unemployment and few educational opportunities.

Or, because they’re cut off from sources of power and pride

now traditional models of family and home are under threat.

Possibly because they’re maligned and discriminated against young men

at a time when masculinity is in question and the only outlet

for their identities  is to impose them on others.

Probably because they’ve experienced violence, abuse and aggression

and are projecting anger outwards towards helpless targets.

Maybe my running symbolises a freedom and purpose that they are denied,

and they denigrate anything that represents their own thwarted ambition.

Then I think, actually,

perhaps it was just because

they are knobs.