It’s now day four of Blogging 101 and the assignment is to picture my audience (a person or group) and write specifically for them. I usually write with runners in mind. After all, this blog originated as my musings on a long slow journey to a Comrades finish.
I’m a country runner though, as opposed to a town runner. You may wonder what the difference is. We do have roads out here, albeit dirt roads, but there are lots of other differences.
We don’t run with a club and therefore there are no time trials. No problem. What we do have is the occasional bull squeezing through a fence, making a menacing noise with his nostrils, clearly intent on showing me who’s boss. The resulting sprint would have impressed Usain Bolt. I have also had to flee from an enormous pig with an anger problem, UP A HILL! So there is no lack of encouragement to go faster.
We don’t have garages for handy pit stops either. We have to make cunning use of ditches and long grass, all the while checking for malevolent wildlife. This is excellent training for those long ultras where there is never a handy porta-loo when you want one. The townies are at a definite disadvantage here.
We also have the most fabulous scenery, unmarred by buildings or traffic. I would love to run with my camera and share a picture from every run but I really need to concentrate on getting faster and that ain’t gonna help. My current focus is “don’t walk unless death is imminent” so stopping to take pictures may detract from that!
Please indulge me while I share a few pics from country runs taken before the “don’t walk” era:
