It wasn't me, I wasn't there, I didn't run... OK?

There's some guy out there using my body.

He looks just like me, but he runs like crap.

He was at it again last night in the Mountain Avenue Mile in Fort Collins; a perfectly straightforward, straight, fast, trending slightly downhill, Downtown Mile, which he completely screwed up by going out WAY too slowly.

He tells me that he didn't do well because he a) hadn't got much sleep; b) was still suffering from a cold; c) did Pilates yesterday and shouldn't have; d) got there late and lost a lot of energy running around looking for the registration table; e)... well the list goes on and on, really.

Even worse, the race was a Beauties vs Beasts -- for women over 40 and men over 50. At the start line he started feeling intimidated because the women looked more like 30-year-olds while he and the rest of the Beasts could have passed for 60-year-olds. He explained his apallingly slow first 400m with the grounds-for-divorce excuse that he got distracted watching a particularly fine butt and temporarily forgot what he was supposed to be doing.

When he eventually got his act halfway together he noticed a red shirt not too far ahead and figured that was Kyle on course for a 5:05 or thereabouts, so he was right where he needed to be to score a 5:15, and relaxed. Only it wasn't Kyle. Geesh!

Rounding the only corner of the course with about 200m to go he nearly clipped a woman with a pushchair who the marshals had for some reason allowed to cross the road right in front of him; the finishing straight spectators were then left open-mouthed (so he says) by a sprint that surely had a tang of Michael Johnson about it. Yes, the jolt of adrenaline had finally woken him up and he started racing. Just 1400m too late.

It was bad. Very bad. Thank goodness it wasn't me.

Luckily Kyle rescued things for our Miler's group; at about 900m he attacked from the shoulder of the then race leader Tanya Poel (who was also wearing a red shirt) and, I am happy to say, left her in the dust to open 7 seconds by the finish. He won in 5:03.

My impersonator flew in to finish sixth or something equally ridiculous, stopped his watch soon after the line for a self-timed 5:35-ish... and given his performance deserved the ignominy of an official timing screw-up that gave him 5:42 or something. I mean, that proves it wasn't me, right, we all know I can do 5:30 in my sleep?