h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I am just going outside and may be some time...

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Is there a challenge going on? And is it on the Isle of Wight?

Good luck!

Rather you than me...

One has to admire the modern masochist

It was a 24-hour solo & team trail race at Wasing Park in Hampshire, on the Mainland. Essentially there's a 5-mile unlit cross country route and you see how many laps of it you can do in 24 hours, camping when not running. I was in a team of 6, which meant that about every 3 or 4 hours I'd have to go run a 5-mile lap, which meant I didn't get much sleep.

There were about 3,500 runners doing it, including at least one partially sighted/blind runner running with a guide. Of course you usually see a number of blind runners doing road races like marathons etc, but a cross country course with numerous trip hazards like tree roots, stray branches and very uneven ground? That shows that the human spirit can achieve anything.

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I'm impressed. Sounds interesting.

That's Dmitri-ese for "Put it in the Post!!", isn't it ?

Absolutely!

Are you sure post readers aren't fed up of me yet?
Last time I put something in I got accused of ranting...

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'The h2g2 rant' is an honourable tradition, and I have written them, also... We can't always be sweetness and light, or the readers will confuse us with 'Reader's Digest'.

And heck, if you sent something in every week, it would be welcome.

One day I may rant about dinosaurs...

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Be careful what you wish for – yesterday I sent into a dull, drawn out account of Endure 24 that'll ensure that I'm never ever asked to send anything to <./>ThePost</.> ever again – except for SuperMarket, of course

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Just because you endured pain and punishment for 24 hours doesn't mean we have to!

Bluebottle, you accompanied that account with an excellent photomontage, and helped fill up the Post for 18 June, so you're very much in our good books.

Besides, somehow people would rather read about the torture of exercise than the torture of knitting...

That's because knitting is no torture.
It's fun.
And allows you to make plush toys and pompoms.
Does running allow you to make plush toys and pompoms ?
So there.

Aha. One of my 3 readers for the knitting articles...

Running is a natural instinct – as soon as a child can walk, they'll try and run.

Knitting, on the other hand, is clearly a cult. It requires learning ritualistic hand movements accompanied by unearthly ceremonial chanting such phrases as 'Knit one purl one knit one purl one knit Ron Perlman...' and so forth. Practitioners of this perverse rite ritually wear strange garb that mark them out as different from normal beings; scarves and bobble hats. And the implements they use to perform these sacraments are needles, devices that conjur up images of backstreet tattooists and drug dealers (not to be confused with The Needles, Isle of Wight, obviously).

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Many a true word...

You know where that is ending up, Bluebottle...