It's not always about the coffee, but if it is, then unquestionably it tastes better in a take out cup, even if you're sitting in. There's a big hoo-haa in Wilmslow about the increasing number of coffee shops opening. The NIMBY's yearn for the return of unsustainable local businesses that failed to prosper. One thing is for sure, these coffee houses are rarely empty, full of people laughing and chatting, coming from or going to somewhere. Going for a coffee is to leave your house or place of work, catching up with your mates or colleagues.
A bit like going to the pub, but without the pavement pizzas and cigarette ends outside. Going for a coffee is about who you're with, even if alone, where you're at, what you've just done or doing next. Actually being with and talking to people's faces. Going for a coffee is the high streets answer to e-commerce. The best coffee I had this weekend gone, was just after my parkrun. Yes, my first vaguely competitive episode of the new year, I chose to take on a parkrun in Durban.
More a case of why not than why, but of all the coffees I had, this was the one most hard fought, and that was the theme of the coffee related chat. If going for a coffee isn't about the coffee, the you could say that parkrun isn't about the running. So far away, yet so familiar, parkrun seems to be a truly global thing now. The start time was 8.00, clearly in a hopeless attempt to beat the sweltering heat, the familiar casualness of the "well, err, 3-2-1 go" and we're off on the 5k course.
You could say the route was rather uninspiring, a simple arrow straight out and back. Yet with a 1000 or more following you, this spectacular beachfront setting with the sun hanging low over the ocean, this course was anything but ordinary. It was the usual mix of energised club runners, and enthusiastic leisure runners, mixing it up in this atmosphere of healthy living along with the cyclists, power walkers, swimmers, paddlers, surfers, skaters, martial arts and aerobics...people with ability and indeed disability, all embracing this great outdoor space.
My own performance was about fair for my level of fitness right now. It's interesting and disappointing at how quickly you lose the discipline of race craft. Still, at the turn around, I was 18th. What then happens was a bit alarming. You're immediately faced with the remaining oncoming 1000 or so other runners. Everyone is trying their best, I am as much in their way as they are in mine...and the cyclists, the dog walkers and so it goes on. 17th in the end...and the best coffee of the weekend.
