The Invisible Runner


It’s strange; I remember very little of the marathon, even a short time after finishing it. The very start, where i went far too fast. Running behind Marina Bay Sands is something I think I remember, although that may just be baseless conjecture. The last few hundred metres, jogging as hard as I could through darkness. But one thing stands clear. The photographers who seemed to refuse to record me. 

All around the course there were photographers stationed. I’d see them from a hundred yards away, flashguns firing as runners got close and waved at them. Except for me. I’d look at them, they’d seem to look at me, but never would there be the flash of a light. Was I wearing camouflage? Were they offended by the blue and red stripes of my best? Did they assume I wasn’t part of the event, and was just tooling around with a number pinned to my shirt for shits and giggles?

Whatever it was, I felt it was stranger and stranger that everyone else was getting photographed apart from me. But it wasn’t the sort of thing worth stopping to remonstrate with them. Ok, I wasn’t going that fast on Sunday .Orning, but what would the point have been? Worse, think of the embarassment if it turned out they had taken a photo of me? Best to avoid being a diva, I assumed. 

But it was odd that even when I ran through the finishing arch, arms held high in celebration, there was no flash. I saw plenty of other official photos of people who had finished. Not just the first person back, but people completing it in 6 or 7 hours. But not me. 

Had I daubed myself with magical invisible paint? Was my smile at the end not genuine enough? Had the staff photographer wandered off for a dump at 4 in the morning and never came back?

We may never know, just as the main record of my run may turn out to be a selfie I took at the top of a motorway flyover, looking aghast at it all. 

Well, those are the memories you savour, right?


Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.