Today I am in a bad mood. In a bad mood with running and in a bad mood with life in general. So here are some things that annoy me about races and/or race day. This is going to be quite a long list but I may come back and add more things to it later. Like I said. Bad mood.
- People that start in the < 45 mins section before the race, then start walking after 1km.
- People that overtake you then move in front of you and slow down. This is a valid team tactic to hold up rivals in order to give your teammate an advantage in F1 but it defeats me as to why this happens so often in provintial races.
- People pushing buggies on the racing line. (Yes Parkrun guy, I'm looking at you).
- People racing in luminous yellow t-shirts - they look like distance markers and that can be annoying! Distance markers can seem to get further away from you FIGURATIVELY - that's what they do. But they shouldn't be literally running away from you.
- Races that start in the afternoon. That's my whole day and half my weekend. Thanks.
- People cutting corners. Or worse, people running the straights off the course. This happens all the time at The Meadows Self Transcendence races.
- People lobbing their water cups or bottles as far from the course as they can. Someone is coming round to collect these - why make their life harder my having them first have to FIND your discarded, plastic, drinks receptacle?
- People spitting/snot rocketing/disposing of water cups or bottles without looking behind them first. Ignorant.
- Being told I am “almost there” 6.5kms into a 10km race. I'm looking at you Cumbernauld 10k marshall!
- Being crowded out on a wide path. One girl did actually apologise for doing this to me once but said I was, and I quote, "a good windbreak". Well that's alright then! And she wasn't that skinny herself!!
- People that sprint past you at 6km. Where the hell were they?! After 1km or at 9.5km, yeah, fine. But where have they been the last 25 mins that they are suddenly so much faster than me?
Maybe one day I'll do a list of things I love about races and race days, but that day is not today. The rest of this week isn't looking good either.
