That was the case until I reached Manchester Airport on Tuesday morning for a flight back home following a sales and marketing conference with work in Blackburn. The rush hour traffic was horrific and a journey that should have lasted 1 hour took nearly two! I arrived at the car rental village at 8:25 with my flight at 8:55. I still had to get the shuttle bus to the terminal and get through security. There was no way I could achieve this and I had a church conference to attend in Belfast showcasing one of our amazing Promethean ActivPanels! (plug)
But of course we are talking about an athlete. An injured athlete, but still an athlete nonetheless. I jumped off the shuttle bus, sprinted into departures, bounded up the escalator, scanned my boarding pass and made a dart to the top of the security lanes. All those sprints in my training were paying off.
Then I encountered the most unhelpful security staff member ever who really just wanted to delay me as much as possible and lecture me on "less haste, more speed" and tell me that the new scanners they are introducing in a month's time will be even better. Like I cared?
Boots back on, laces flying, I made a dash to the departure gates with the 'now boarding' signs on the message boards. Aghhhh!
I raced into the departure lounge passing people like Mo Farrah* only to discover I had missed my turn for gates 1-17 and had to run back down the corridor I had just come from past the same people again. Awkward!
Through another boarding pass scanning machine and I now had gate 17 in my sights!
This was 'The Mall'. Buckingham Palace behind me and the finish line in sight.
And there it was... gate 17 still open. Miraculously I had made it in the nick of time, bathed in sweat and happy to be heading to meet hundreds of church delegates.
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| Made it |
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| Made it |
* I've re-read that line. I wasn't passing people including Mo Farrah, but I was passing people the way Mo would do so.
