As usual I go to Central Park after breakfast and I usually do a few laps of the the park to warm up the body and muscles before I do any exercise, get the old heart working a little. The park is really very large and there are always people here walking around, there are the gardeners, the cleaners, dog walkers, Tai Chi masters and some people that wear all the correct sports clothing but don’t actually do anything………..I’ll come back to that.

So this morning I am walking on the south side of the park where there is a car park and it backs onto the main path of the park separated only by a few shrubs, well did I get a surprise when I saw a big white arse in amongst the foliage this morn and he was in full squat mode and dumping the contents of last nights dinner in between the Ligustrum ovalifolium. I had no phone with me this morning and so I could catch this lunar eclipse in all its glory to share with you today. I wonder if he even realised just what kind of show he was giving to all and sundry…………….You’re never short of entertainment in China.

So let’s go back to the guy with all the right gear that struts his stuff. He will enter the park at the entrance near to where myself and the other older guys exercise in the morn, he has on a shirt with a sport’s logo, knee compression pads covering his leggings, some expensive looking Nike trainers and so he looks like he is ready for a good long workout. He does his stretching and seems to know what he is doing, gets all the good positions and spends quite a bit of time getting ready, personally I think all this stretching is generally a bit of a wank, but hey what do I know. 

So after he has done his thing it’s time to crack on and do this running malarkey and he is off and just around the first bend there is a seat in the shade where he can pull over for a quick rest and pull out his Iphone to get all the latest international news according to China. I guess all this stretching is pretty hardcore. I pass him on my travels and he inspires me to complete one lap. I complete my lap and then shortly afterwards I see him running back to our area looking rather worse for wear, he continues and then I head off again, but this time I take a different path and find our man again tucked under another tree continuing to study the Iphone. 

About 40 mins after he first arrived at the park he returns to the starting point and once more begins to “cool down” by doing all those wonderful stretches, what an inspiration this guy is. There’s hardly any sweat on this guy, I wonder what he tells his wife or friends when he returns home because they must think he is so good to stay so cool after such a long time in the park.