I have a half marathon coming up this coming weekend and so I figured it would be a good idea to hit the track to bang in a final speed session to tune up and also to build confidence.
The session was nothing too crazy but just a small ladder workout consiting of an 800m - 1 mile - 2 miles - 1 mile - 800m.
I left work especially early so I could get to the track before anyone else was using it and when I arrived and was warming up, there was just a young kid doing some 300m repeats. Great, this will do me!
Into my 2 mile run and I start to notice a bunch of older folks coming onto the track and at first I thought, good for them, nice to see the track getting used. Until I realised that these rude fu*ks just started jogging on the inside lane. Seriously, how can supposed fellow runners not be aware that when warming up, use the outside lanes especially when someone is trying to do a hard workout. After my 2 mile effort, this coffin dodger waltzes over to me and says, it's Sheila's 50th birthday today so she's running 50 laps of the track and there will be quite a few people joining her.
Indeed there were, as more and more smiling shufflers proceeded to join her plodding around at what must have been around 12 min/mile pace until there were about 50 of them. All of them hogged the inside lanes and by the time it got to my last 800m, I was forced wide into lane 6. People looked at me with complete bewilderment as though I was running bollock naked simply because I was running at some kind of speed and with some kind of effort.
This to me sums up where our sport is at: the reputation of elites ruined by PED junkies and the remainder is being hijacked by joggers who know nothing about the sport except for how to raise money for charity and fan their own ego by shuffling around a track for 50 laps.
At least they had a charity bucket at the track gate so they're doing their bit for charity and Sheila can boast at her next committe meeting about how much they raised.