What's With The Pram

Okay, its Saturday lunchtime and as I take in the news from Australia that they have managed to beat the All Blacks as I sip great coffee. It's a good time for me to reflect on my own personal sporting achievements of the day.

This morning at 8 am I again set off on my latest attempt to do well in the Park Run, here in Green Point, Cape Town. As I stumbled and gasped around the course I realised that this run was being fuelled almost by pure Chenin Blanc wine. Basically, I had a glass too much the night before and was now definitely realising it was a mistake. The smell was ousing out of my pores along with beads of sweat. I think the people running past me must have thought they were running past Ken Forrester's vineyard during the fermentation stage of the excellent Chenin Blanc. (No I am not sponsored by them, but if they are interested I certainly am).

Every time I do this run I seem to be plagued by what I presume is mothers and fathers whizzing past me pushing some sort of child in a pram. That is unless they are nannies who can't separate their work life from their social life. It got me thinking, why. Why do they do this?

Let's consider it from the runners perspective, first of all, pushing a bloody pram whilst running in a 5-kilometer event, must be a disadvantage. Unless of course the said runner was in training for some bizarre charity event. For a kick off they do not have full use of their arms, so the extra power derived from pumping the arms like a steam train is lost. Balance also seems to suffer as most pram pushers look like being one step away from a mess on the floor. Then there is the almost total inability to weave in and out of slower runners, so they end up running right on the edge of the pavement or in most cases just on the road. There are obviously exceptions to this and those buggers know who they are. They are the ones that just plough through a crowd of runners, clipping people on the ankle as they go.

Now let's consider it from the child's perspective, and I think its a bit more than gurgle, burp, fart, soil nappy, smile, giggle and throw the toy out of the pram. No they have probably been woken up at some unearthly hour, fed something they didn't want, dressed, strapped into a car, driven probably at speed as the driver who is late for the start of the run, dragged out of the car, strapped into a pram and then pushed into the middle of a large crowd of people, none of which the child knows. Then they are pushed at high speed, in an erratic manner through all this mass of unknown people who are now just a blur of neon lycra. They are bounced up and down kerbs, face oncoming traffic in the road they now find themselves sharing. Here swear words they are not supposed to hear, that is certainly the case if the pass to close to me during the final kilometre of this run. So I am pretty sure there isn't much the child gets out of these events.

I don't think there is an argument to say its a bonding exercise between baby and parent. Neither look at each other, in fact neither is sure if the other one is actually with them. Chatting is almost impossible due to conserving energy, traffic noise and the sound of old codgers swearing.

So what is the point of this, who actually gets something out of it? The answer is simple, the pram manufacturers. Except, of course, the manufacturers don't seem to take advantage of this free advertising. Just imagine how many kilometres on a Saturday morning are covered by these prams being pushed by Park Runners, it must be a very large figure. One that would make a fantastic advertising punch line for someone.

So there you have it, push prams during a Park Run is a complete waste of time. But if anyone can come up with a reason I'd love to hear it, email me.