B4 you go-go: Melways Map 67

Look Me Up B4 You Go-Go: Tales from the B4 grid square of maps.

Give me a pool (and a degree of fitness) and I could churn up and down, lap after lap. Show me a running track and I’m lucky to last 30 seconds before I’m clutching the stitch in my side and being overtaken by elderly ladies power-walking with their poodles.

So it was with a complete lack of sense and a large degree of reckless abandon that I agreed earlier in the year to go for a “run” with a girlfriend.

The location she nominated was Elwood Beach – which just happens to be on the B4 gridsquare of Map 67 of the Melways.

The task was rendered even more treacherous by the fact that she was running with another friend who is an ex-army officer.

Twenty seconds into the run I decided it was a really bad idea.

Mr Ex-Army was jogging seemingly on the spot, wearing a backpack laden with drinks and our jackets and anything else we could weigh him down with, while I was running at (my) top-speed and still couldn’t keep up with him.

He was chatting and joking, laughing heartily. I was gasping for air. My friend was somewhere in the middle.

You’d think after that experience I would have learnt better…but no, I went back a couple more times to torture myself some more.

Because you know what?

If you have to run, the beach is truly the place to do it.