RANDOM REMINDER

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30879, 12 October 1965, Page 36

RANDOM REMINDER

WHIPPING BOYS

There can be little doubting the advantages to be derived by middle-aged men from regular exercise, and in particular, jogging. Figures prove it. It is anything but a mild form of eccentricity, and anyone unwise enough to suggest that it is runs the risk of being arrested by policemen, taken over by business magnates, punched by boxers, thrown by wrestlers, kept in by teachers, misreported by journalists —for the gentle drumming of hoofs through the streets of Christchurch comes from a widely representative, large and growing group of burghers. It would be foolish to suggest that jogging, in its initial stages, is easy for gentlemen whose waistlines have spread as rapidly as their investments. But there comes a time when puffing to the nearest lamp-post is a

thing of the past, when the mileage, and with it the benefit, grows. Many joggers and runners hunt in packs, but very often a man has to go solo. And when, after a year or two, it becomes commonplace to reel off 10 or 15 miles at a time, company is needed, for conversation. Until that time, it is strictly limited, and confined largely to tarry oaths. But there is a man we know who is an accomplished and prodigious runner, although his hair has turned to silver. And he has devised an eminently satisfactory method of defeating any hint of boredom about this business of running. About the time he has 10 or 12 miles behind him and is beginning to warm up, he simply pretends he is no longer alone. It began, as far as we can make out one night when he imagined he had a

particularly obnoxious cousin running beside him. He put on the pace a bit, and he could see his cousin suffer and falter and fail. After that it was easy to whistle up just whoever he wished. So as he runs he exerts the presure on a good many notabilities—a few fapious figures among the military and episcopal dignitaries are among his favourites. “How do you like that?” has asks them, as he sprints away at the start of the fifteenth mile. They don’t. So he is never short of company, and he always wins. It is a very satisfactory state of affairs. But, we asked him, isn't there the probability of him getting tired of running Major-General X and Archbishop Y into the ground? That could be, he agreed—but he says he has a whole huddle of headmasters on whom he proposes to start