For the love of God, please stop jogging in Lenton

You’re going to look like a wanker


Picture the scene, it’s one we all know only too well. It’s a grey Thursday in November, you have a butters Crisis hangover and you’re trying to get to your intro to Philosophy lecture all the way in humanities. You leave your house, where no one has cleaned up pres from the night before and make it on to Derby Road. The queue for the 34 is long, and you decide to walk it. And then it hits you. Literally. You get knocked from behind by a stream of people in Nike leggings and strappy tops.

They’re wearing bright trainers, sometimes uni stash, but always with a big shit-eating grin. You feel this overwhelming sense of self-pity and begin to loathe their very core.

Late teens and early twenties are the sexiest years of your life. Keeping fit through exercise maintains your good looks before you become older, saggier and fatter whilst waddling through that 9-5 life. Doing some free exercise and saving your money for better things like clothes or alcohol is a fundamentally good idea. Just don’t run in Lenton. Stay in your room, download a fitness app and get abs thirty days later.

Is that Usain Bolt?

Making the poor decision to run in Lenton means you will bump into people. The worst people you could possibly bump into. An old hookup, people from your course that you were trying to impress, close friends who will take photos of you and irritating acquaintances that went to your old school and always want to “catch up over drinks sometime”.

They’re unavoidable as you move past covered in sweat and smelling of it too. Meanwhile, your face will probably be portraying all the pain you’re going through in doing exercise.  The meeting lasts seconds, feels like minutes and can haunt you for years – especially if your friend snapped you on your adventures. Prepare to be blackmailed if they did.

Headbands make you go faster

Running up a hill whilst staring at student houses and oncoming buses is pretty boring too. The inner city areas of Nottingham don’t exactly have the stunning aesthetics of Barcelona or Rome. No amount of Spotify playlists can spice up your run of monotone views for the next half an hour. If you’re lucky, you might be able to spot some broken vodka bottles, sick on the street or a hockey lad doing the walk of shame on a Thursday still in their blue shirts/tan chinos combo. To be fair, exercise is rarely fun anyway; if it was we’d all look incredible.

having a breakdown

Find better ways to exercise, you’ll still get the positive effects but without the added shame and boredom. Maybe even join a sports society, there’s loads available. If you really really really need to run in Lenton after a month of leaving your house only for ocean, then avoid the Sainsbury’s local at all costs. You’ll meet every person mentioned above whilst getting stuck behind a queue for the bus. You won’t be able to escape and there’ll be even more awkward eye contact.