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I did my first Park Run in a while this morning (I did do one about a month ago, but only did one lap). I've either been parenting or not feeling well enough, but I thought I'd ease myself back in today.
I like Park Run. I resisted it for a long time as I thought I preferred solo runs and 5kms didn't feel long enough at the time, but (apart from last time) doing it in a group does make it less likely for you to give in and in a week where you might do no other exercise, 5km is something.
My only issue with Park Run is that there always seems to be one man (always a man, but not always the same men) doing an elaborate and performative warm up, right in front of everyone at the start. It's good to warm up, but you're not running a marathon or in the Olympics and even if you want to do a weird Cleese like silly walk to really stretch every muscle in your body (rather than just touch your toes and pull your foot up behind you a couple of times) then you can do it at the back or in a space anywhere else. No one is thinking, wow that guy looks like he might be a pro runner. Everyone is thinking, why is that prick doing that ridiculous routine right in front of everyone. What a knob end.
Look, showing off in front of a crowd of people is a perfectly valid way to try and give your pathetic life some semblance of worth, but you're not even being paid and to be fair the guy today was probably generating more laughter (in front of more people) than I do.
I plodded round in almost 33 minutes, one of my slowest ever times and 8 minutes off the personal best I did almost three years ago (I'd love to know how fast I could have done this in my heyday), but very pleased to have not given up this time and to be getting back on the exercise trail.
Sorting out all the stuff ahead of the move like changing addresses and working out what things need to be donated to charity or thrown in a bin. One of the important ones is to get the home insurance right. Whilst there was building work going on we needed specialised insurance, but now we need to revert to regular buildings and content. I've used the same firm that sorted out the specialised insurance, having always done it through the bank before. They looked around for the best deal.
In the end it seems only one company will insure us and the main reason given for refusal has been our professions. I am used to car insurance companies sometimes refusing to insure comedians or charging us a lot extra (as David Baddiel wonders, do they think we'll drive in a funny way?), but I can't see how being a comic impacts on my home insurance. The person sorting out the insurance had emailed to say that some insurers were worried that the house would be left vacant for long periods of time whilst we were on tour. I explained that as we have kids of school age, at least one of us is always at home (unless we're on holiday - but that's true of any family) and that in fact we probably spend way more time in the house than a regular family, as most of our work is done from home.
I am now wondering if they didn't want to insure us because we're in the house TOO MUCH. Most accidents happen in the home, of course and if we're in there all day, doing ridiculous things and being silly we're much more likely to destroy the building.
You'd think in the modern world there would be some kind of computer record of every person's history regarding insurance. I have been paying home insurance for at least 28 years and have never missed a payment and made one claim in about 2003 when the drains were blocked in the street and my basement very mildly flooded. I don't know how much I've paid in, but I've been paid out maybe £1000 (which is not anywhere as much as I will be paying for one year's insurance). Admittedly your house only has to be blown up for an hilarious gag once in a lifetime for the insured person to beat the insurers, so they might be waiting to see if that happens first.
On car insurance I don't think I've made any real claims. I've had my windshield replaced twice at a reduced rate, but again one year of cover would easily pay for that. Insurers should be falling over themselves to insure me. But they're scared of being pranked or satirised. Ironically that's more likely to happen if they don't insure me.
