Distracted Dad keeps on running

I’ve just watched Youngest(TM) run through the playground. His whole being – legs, elbows, face, brain, eyebrows – is being applied to the cause; he is utterly committed. That much effort is normally only ever expended when you’re tr ying to get from A to B, but he’s running in a gradual arc, building up speed in a mathematically perfect circle. What comes to mind, is either one of those stunt motorbikes who race inside a gigantic Barrel of Death (I haven’t got broadband at this moment, I can’t look up the precise term) or perhaps a rower who’s lost an oar.

The Boy also hurtles around with abandon. His is less gurning effort, more the attempt at nonchalance, while obviously running as fast as he possibly can. Competitive, in as laid back a manner as he can possibly manage.

Youngest(TM) and The Boy – and most children, seemingly – run from one lamp post to another, out of Sainsbury’s and into the car, across the room, up the stairs, through NCP car parks, up wheelchair ramps, wherever, basically. They run for the sake of it, it’s their default speed. You even have to make a point of telling them to stop, you don’t often do that with adults.

Adults rarely run, except for the following reasons. I’ve been thinking about this, and here are the three main ones:

The Unexpected Comedy Run. I’m talking about that awkward, injury-inducing act of running for a bus, desperate when it’s yourself, comical when it’s someone else. This is energy expended in order to be able to have a sit down. And it often looks like it that is the prize they most seek. (You can transpose here, a train perhaps, or even when someone has a letter in their hand, and the postman is emptying the letterbox. Is there no finer example of Middle England slapstick comedy than these moments?)

The Politeness to Strangers run. This is that little half-skip, half-run when a driver has let you cross the road. An attempt at an ever so small speed-up – more a demonstration that you are in some way trying to speed up – that doesn’t make that much difference, but is an acknowledgement from pedestrian to vehicle. Another classic Middle England moment.

But the main moment is adults run to burn calories. Running, jogging, call it what you will. I’m very much a part of this. (I also run for buses, and do that half-skip on pedestrian crossings). Round and round the park I go, joining a pounding, non-talking, slightly out breath community of fellow calorie-shifters in their outfits of varied professionalism ( I go for what I call painter and decorator fleeing from a disgruntled client chic). Clockwise or anti-clockwise, that’s the only choice, otherwise we probably look like hamsters on a wheel. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy it. I miss it when I don’t do it. But I’m not sure – I might be wrong – that I have the same expression of sheer enjoyment on my face when I’m running that Youngest(TM) does.

C. Richard Hearn 2013
www.richardhearn.co.uk