Humble Pie - Story of an Olympic Athlete

So today I had a very strange experience - I'll start by saying that sometimes it's easy to get trapped in a cycle of complacency when you're a fast runner; I mean I can turn up to a marathon, not try, and still come 28th.

Well today I was driving home for Christmas and decided to stop off and do Markeaton Parkrun in Derbyshire.

There I am, standing around at the front, trying to keep my warmed up state after jogging to the start line.

I look over to my right, and see a guy who looks like he might be fast, but no real danger.

I look over to my left and see a girl who looks familiar.

I look over to my left again and I'm almost certain I've seen her before.

I look over to my left for a third time and start chatting non-nonchalantly: "you look familiar", "don't know why".

I look over to my left for a forth time: "are you from up north?", "yeah I'm from Leeds", "ah, that's probably why you look familiar, me too..."

3 - 2 - 1 - GO!

About 2 minutes into the run someone shouts "Go on Jess".

Shit. I thought I was just imagining it, but I'm running ahead of Jess Learmonth, Olympic Triathlete.

All I'm going to say is, that while I was leading at the start, she thrashed me in the end. When I spoke to her at the finish line she didn't seem out of breath and even told me she was hungover.

Yeaaaah.