Run, Forest, Run............!!!
There was much controversy at our School house team sports day back in the early 1980's when they decided to introduce the 'Special Achievers Race', which basically meant that the school 'tards all had a chance of doing something worthwhile in the sports day.

This was really opposed by Mark, our ultra-competitive House Team captain, who viewed this with immense disgust, thinking that our resident House team spanner who I will name 'Derren' will cock-up our reasonable chances of walking away with a few medals.

Anyway, day of said race, the 'spakka 200m' was due to be the last race (so they could get a special round of applause at the end). Derren hadn't bothered bringing his PE kit - not one piece of it! Therefore, in front of the whole School, parents, governors etc., he had to run in the cliched vest, underpants and his shoes...which just happened to be a pair of grubby glam-rock style platform boots that would have been out of fashion in 1976, never mind the North Of England in the early '80s!

"Captain Fanastic" Mark was fuming!! We really thought he was going to explode as his face was bright red (more than normal - he was a proper ginge!). We were within a few points of winning the sports day, all hopes of victory resting in the platformed shoes of our resident spazmo in his vest and undies. We were doomed....

Race starts, and he's off like a feckin' whippet!! And we mean storming. We'd seen nothing like it every jaw dropped, he was running like his life depended on it. Hardly able to even stand in his platform shoes, his skinny legs and arms all over the place, but was winning by a country mile! Okay, strictly he should have been disqualified for going into other lanes, but not even the most pedantic schoolmaster was going to fault this effort.

Last 50m of the race, we were all at the finishing line, noise from the assembled masses building to a crescendo...and he was speeding up! The sight of Derren running towards us with his arms waving like a drowning man, tongue flapping to one side, and demented smile on his face, will stay with me forever!! What made it even funnier was "Captain Fantastic" Mark, lost in the moment, screaming at the top of his voice "RUN, RUN, FASTER YA SPAKKY CNUT, FASTER C'MONNNNN!!!!!" punching the air, face almost purple, veins popping from the side of his ginger nut. Screaming so loud that obviously every person with half a mile could hear his words of...erm....'encouragement'!

He crossed the winning line with time to spare, and just kept running around the track again in a mad lap of hounour. All of us trying to catch him to celebrate as he ran off. He won us the sports day, and we were going to carry him shoulder-high with our trophy as an honour, but when we did catch up with him, the excitement occasion had overcome him and he was erm....damp to say the least!
(Charlie Baked Potato, Fri 31 Mar 2006, 12:16, Reply)