Mythic Beasts is too fast for the youth of today.

At about 6pm this evening I’d just finished loading up a car to take some more servers to the data centre and rescue a customer who’d broken their server. As I did so a person with a black hood pulled over their head opened the back door of my car, grabbed my laptop bag and made a run for it.

Unfortunately for the opportunist, I’m a passable distance runner and I happened to be wearing the new running shoes which I’m breaking in. So I chased him hoping my stamina would lead him to tire and eventually I’d catch him.

Despite his apparent age advantage and his head start, after 225m (I measured it afterwards) it was obvious I was going to catch him so he dropped my laptop and continued to run away. I took the bait and retrieved my laptop rather than catching him and beating him to a pulp which in many ways would have been more satisfying.

Reflecting on the experience I have to say that was a lousy performance on the thief’s part, it should have taken me at least a mile to catch him. Why would you go into the smash and grab robbery business without learning how to run quickly first? As a result I’ve made a small donation to the Cambridge Parkrun because it’s nice that someone is attempting to do something to improve youth fitness because it seems they bloody well need it.