Hey, I also met Sirpoc by accident the other day after a parkrun. Took a chance and tried to ask him for training advice, expecting something normal like “run more mileage”, “be consistent.” or "run SubT".
He looked at me as if I had insulted his ancestors.
“Training advice?” he repeated, slowly, like the words tasted strange in his mouth.
“Advice is for people who still believe they can control the outcome.”
He motioned for me to sit on a nearby curb, which he called “the throne of honest runners.”
Then he sat beside me with the grace of a man who has completed exactly one threshold run that day and knows it was enough.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a perfectly room-temperature Mars bar. Not chilled, not melted, just absolutely optimal. He held it vertically, like a scroll.
“You see this?” he said.
“This is the universe’s most efficient form of racing fuel.”
I started to protest, something about 1:0.8 and timing, but he raised a hand.
“The Mars bar demands silence.”
He broke it in half. The snap echoed like a starting pistol.
“Every layer represents a principle. Caramel is patience. Nougat is discipline. Chocolate is load management.”
He handed me one half.
“Do I eat this now ?" I asked.
He chuckled.
“Eat it when the run chooses you.”
Then he stood up. I only then noticed he was wearing an immaculate pair of Chinese supershoes, Li-nings, I think, so white they looked like they were forged from Nick Bester's tears. They weren’t tied. They simply respected him enough to stay on.
“Sirpoc,” I asked, “why singles? Why only singles?”
He turned his head slowly, like a monk who had spent years meditating on only that question.
“Two runs in one day splits the soul,” he said.
“You become two people, and neither can PR.”
He stepped back onto the pavement, took a deep breath, and said:
“Doubles create doubt. Singles create destiny.”
Then he paused, gazing at the horizon.
“You will know enlightenment,” he continued, “when the miles run you.”
Before I could respond, he walked toward the sunset — no warm-up, no stretching, no strides, just immediately at marathon pace.
His pint glass, which I swear he did not have seconds before, glowed a soft amber as he raised it in farewell.
The Mars bar wrapper he left behind fluttered on the ground like a sacred relic.
12 weeks after, I PR’d a 5K by 47 seconds by only doing vanilla NSA.
I don’t know if Sirpoc is a coach, a prophet, or a carbohydrate-based deity… but I have never questioned singles again.