Santa Dash

There's nothing like making a fool of yourself to take your mind off things for a while, and this morning I had the perfect excuse with the Santa Dash.

I didn't know when I entered it whether I'd actually be around today, but I thought it was worth signing up for and making a decision closer to the day. As things turned out I was around, so thought I'd turn up and see what happened.

It was only a mile, and I needed to pick my santa suit up when I got there, so I decided to do a longer run into town first. That led to me dragging myself out of bed at 7.30 after another wine and dvd fuelled night in, and waking myself up with a bracing 12 mile run in the rain.

By the time I got to town the rain was stopping, so I picked up my suit and met up with a load of people from running club, which is where the fun started. Seeing a large group of santa-suit clad people, we got accosted by all sorts of press photographers, and did silly runs up and down Briggate for them. Apparently normal running didn't look as good in the photos as exaggerated long strides. Or that's what they claimed anyway, maybe they just wanted us to look stupid...

After that, it was the warm up. 120 santas doing star jumps and the like. Not to mention the dogs who had turned up in full costume (with their owners), and the truly bizarre "dance" by the sponsors. And then the dash. We decided that we'd run together as a club, rather than anyone racing it (which would have been hard in trousers that seemed to be sized for a sumo wrestler, and beards that gave you a mouth full of fluff whenever you attempted breathing). I have no idea whether it actually was a mile, it felt a bit short (or maybe it was that a mile just does feel short these days?!).

And then, having run in, I had to look on jealously as everyone else changed into normal clothes to go to the pub, while I had a choice of santa suit or running tights. mmm. And after the pub all the other santas had dispersed from town, meaning I got more than a few funny looks on my way to the bus stop, and then on the bus home.

But I don't care, it was a good laugh, it got me out of the house, it got me a bit of a chat with friends over a pint or two, and it got me the fear of being spotted in the papers looking like a bit of an idiot...

PS - can you guess which santa I am?!