Chris Pascoe’s Fun Tales

I’d let the leaders pull away, then dive through my hole in the fence

Lastweek I wrote aboutmy less than glorious performances formy school football team, Add to this, the fact (regular readers may remember) I managed to drown on a rugby field, and you could be forgiven for thinking my sporting achievements were somewhat disastrous.

However, therewas one sport that my school PE teacher thought I excelled at, and that sport was, of all things, cross-country running. In fact, my teacher believed me to be in the school’s top three cross-country runners, but the reason for thatwas… I was cheating.

Inmy defence, I didn’t cheat to gain any accolades, just to avoid having to run anywhere. Our cross-country course started at the school and meandered off through a large wood bordered by fenced-off houses.

The wood happened to be one I knew verywell. I also knew that if you sneaked through a hole in a certain garden fence, it enabled you to cut out two and a half miles of the three mile course, bringing you out just round the corner from the finishing post.

So itwas that every Tuesday I’d make an exceptionally fast sprint start to each race, making sure to stay just behind the school’s top two runners, whowere only in first-gear-jogging mode but already leaving the pack way behind. Aswe entered the woods I’d stop sprinting, let the two leaders pull away and dive through my hole in the fence, into somebody’s back garden. Then I’d sit behind a bush, often joined by a very nice resident cat whose collar informed mewas named Brian (see, Iwas visiting cats in their own homes even back then) and count down 15 minutes.

At the 15 minute mark, Brian and Iwould sneak carefully through the garden, down the side-alley and wait for the leading two runners to hurtle past us. I’d then wave cheerio to Brian and start jogging after them, and very shortly cross the finish line in third place. It wasn’t that I actually wanted to finish third; itwas just that the huge gap between the top two and everybody following made third position the only unobservable place I could rejoin the race.

Nobody behind or in front of me had seen me sincemy sprint start, nobody saw me again until I crossed the line. Nobody except Brian.

Cheats never prosper of course, and this fact was brought home to me when, to my horror, Iwas selected for the school cross-country team. I didn’t even know we had a school cross-country team. What’s more, our first race was away from home, where therewas no hole in a fence in the woods.

Needless to say I finished last, with a time that exceeded existing school records by over quarter of an hour. Every other runner was back in the changing rooms when I finally staggered over the finishing line, fell gasping atmy PE teacher’s feet andwas sick on his shoes.

He never picked me again. In fact, I don’t think he ever actually spoke to me again…