perving on a man's legs

I spend quite a lot of time gazing at other runners calves. Male of female, I tend to notice calf muscles. I like a shapely calf and can usually tell how much a race is going to hurt me by looking at the calf muscles of a runner I'm going to pass. I usually get it right; not always, but usually. As I came across the bridge this morning on an otherwise unremarkable commute to work I spotted a guy in front who had massive calves. Proper add-500m-to-the-run-if-you-need-to-run-round-them calves.

I ran past and then stopped, feeling compelled to share my admiration and find out how he got them. As I turned around it became clear that "the gym" was going to be part of the answer because compared to his calves his chest was fucking gargantuan. Yep, plenty of gym plus a lot of cycling. He seemed happy enough to chat, I apologised for being a weirdo and made my way into work.

Fast forward nine and a half hours and I left for another mostly unremarkable run home. Again the bridge supplied the only interesting bit. I eased past a guy who was running a little slower than me. I don't like sitting on a person's shoulder so I tend to speed up a bit and go past, backing off when I've put a decent distance between us. There is one time when I'll sit on a person's shoulder and that'f if it's someone I've overtaken on the bridge who then overtakes me back. Game on. It's called the "commuter Olympics." So I sat right on his shoulder, hearing my inner Barry the Baptist egg me on.


I overtook him again, this time making sure I kept my foot down a bit, and I dodged a weaved between the tourists to get off of the bridge before him. For the record, it is 1.5km between the steps at the northern and southern ends of the bridge deck.

It did occur to me that getting involved in a race, even a very little one, might not be too smart on day 12 of Janathon. But he had a sun visor on and it wasn't sunny, one of those bottle belts and compression shorts and I didn't think any of it was strictly necessary. I always like "beating" geared-up guys while I'm in my whatever-was-on-top-of-the-pile-this-morning gear.

Janathon total - 267km