Day 4, and I have been
continuing my journey to infiltrate the species known as ‘Enthusiasticus Runna”,
more commonly known as the morning jogger.
The joggers are known
to operate at all times of day, but this particular species is known for its
early rising. It often wears bright plumage at this time of year to stand out
from the darkness, presumably to advertise its presence to nearby cars.
Sometimes they can be found with earphones in; our working theory is that this
reduces the number of operation senses, and thus reduces the chance that their
body works out what they’re doing and tries to put a stop to it.
The main mode of
transport of the species is a medium-pace run. On the cut-out-and-keep speed
charts that come with the paper version of this blog, it lies somewhere between
“Stationary” and “Light speed”, which will hopefully give you an idea of the
speed of travel. Despite this very narrow band, there do appear to be various
sub-classifications within this species, as they frequently vary in pace, as
well as the distance travelled.
I have been attempting
to blend in with these creatures. I possess my own brightly-coloured coat with
which I hope to mimic their appearance, although the mornings have been too
warm to use this thus far. With the oncoming darkness early on in the day, though,
it may be worth wearing this soon lest I have an unfortunate incident with a carnivorous
van in a dark street.
I have also invested
in earphones, and a suitably-researched soundtrack. After spending a
considerable amount of time deciding what the sounds of the wild are most
likely to be, the designers evidently concluded that thudding basslines and
electronic sounds were the ones most likely to blend into the background noise.
My audio guide Chad
has been talking me through some of the rituals that they go through as they
begin their activities. They seem to begin with a “Warm-up”, which is enthusiastically
announced. This appears to resemble a walk, except that… no, actually, it
really does seem to just be a 5 minute walk.
After this, my
induction into jogging begins. At this stage I am still very low in rank and as
such am unable to run for extended periods of time, no longer than a couple of
minutes at a time. Some very highly trained individuals are able to run for
upwards of 40 kilometres in a go, all whilst wearing the fluorescent car repellents.
Although the feat is impressive, this does show that the species is somewhat
uninquisitive – had these very able people investigated the cars more closely,
they may have found a faster and less painful way to travel the same distance.
However, I believe the
experiment is going successfully, and the group may be beginning to accept me
as one of their own. This morning, in one of the fits of running between
sessions of being exhausted, I saw one of the pack jogging the other way.
In such cases, there
is an element of power play. When both joggers are running the same way, it
becomes what is known as a “race”, whereby the person behind attempts to run
fast enough to overtake the one in front, and the one in front has to stop this
from happening. I am not certain, but I suspect that if an overtaking occurs,
the loser has to give the winner their jacket, so you can tell who the most
successful joggers are by how many coats they are wearing. I have yet to
experience a jogger with more than one which makes me think that this place must
be fairly far down on the foodchain.
I know of no such “race”
equivalent for two joggers running towards one another. Generally this ritual
seems to involve each jogger committing to a single side of the path and
attempting to pass each other without falling off, rather like the ancient
sport of jousting, except that lances appear to not be encouraged and horses
are deemed to be cheating.
This process reaches
its apex at the point of passing, whereby one jogger will utter a (usually
relatively breathless) “Morning!” to the other. If there is sufficient respect
between the two, the second will reciprocate. I attempted this ceremony this
morning and achieved success, hearing a “Morning!” sent straight back to me.
Even more impressively, this woman appeared to be much less tired than I was,
meaning that I had the respect of somebody much higher up the food chain than
I. Although I would have thought I might not actually be on the food chain as
people probably don’t want to eat something bathed in sweat.
On the way back to the
observatory, I encountered a more common “Canine Exercisium”, or dog walker. I
attempted the same procedure but was not reciprocated. Presumably to gain the
trust of this species I need to carry around a small hairy lick-y object of my
own.
There is clearly much
more research to be done here.
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