CASH rewards for top athletes are huge. But BRIAN DOOGAN discovered that for competitors like AMANDA PARKINSON, who recently ran for Great Britain in Japan, a good time can help compensate... THERE it was, black and gooey, looking like wastage from some industrial plant rather than the main part of the main course.

Stringy strands of spaghetti laced with peppers and vegetables - and covered in jet black squid ink.

Naturally, Baxenden athlete Amanda Parkinson was the sole member of the British party to order lashings of the stuff from the buffet bar of the Intercontinental Hotel in Yokohama, Japan.

If it had carried a government health warning - guaranteed to result in regurgitation in no more than five minutes - she would probably still have tucked into it, for a laugh you understand.

"It was very nice really," recalled Amanda, who was in town recently to run for Britain in the Eikeden women's road relay, a feat she managed even after consuming this sewage-like delight.

Yes, I'm sure it was wonderful I told her. Let me try to imagine the look and the taste while you direct me quickly to your bathroom.

"The Japanese use squid ink as food colouring in a lot of their foods," she elaborated, failing to detect the nausea hastily overcoming this visitor.

"I didn't touch that raw fish sort of thing, though.

"What do you call it? Sushi?

"Yuk!

"Otherwise the food was excellent.

"And it was all buffet service, very very good."

Her taste in food may be outlandish, but her observations about Yokohama and its people indicate that not all of her time was spent sampling the local cuisine.

"It's very, very built up, very high-rise, very concrete," she said about the city.

"They don't have grass and they don't have trees.

"But it's interesting.

"Their way of life is just so organised compared to ours.

"They're just so spot on. They're never late for anything.

"When they come to a zebra crossing they all line up.

"And they wait till the green man flashes before crossing the road - whether there is traffic around or not.

"If there's nothing coming we go ahead and cross, whereas they wouldn't even dream about it.

"Everything about them is just so routine.

"Even the politeness is in-bred.

"Athletes are treated like gods.

"I couldn't carry my own bags anywhere in Yokohama.

"And I'd be fighting with waiters in the restaurant just to take my plate back to the table - they wanted to do everything for you."

Such treatment is in sharp contrast to the complete anonymity in which Parkinson competes at home.

Her spindly limbs make it difficult to believe that she could run 50 yards without having the wind blow her back across the starting line. But she is ranked 17th in Britain at 1500m, once cracked the top 10 in the 3,000 and last season made the final of the AAA Championship over the shorter distance.

Such is the structure of British Athletics, though, that despite some decent results over the years, the Eikeden in Yokohama was Amanda's first experience of competing in the national jersey. "Obviously, that has been a goal for some time - to represent my country," said Amanda whose formative years in athletics owed as much to it being a way out of the classroom as to father John being a coach at Hyndburn Athletics Club.

She started running at 10 and now, at 25, could still pass for a schoolgirl.

Schoolgirl tendencies, like her inclination to cause mischief both at home and in the workplace, persist even though she is happily married to Paul and holds down a secretarial job at Baxenden Chemicals where she has worked since leaving school.

"I'm fidgety, I can't stay in the one spot very long," she said.

Fidgety? If the right wires were attached to her anatomy, she might generate enough energy to light up a parish.

She is such a livewire that you imagine on each visit to the dentist she is strapped into the chair after being pumped with enough sedatives to send an elephant to sleep.

And perhaps it is youthful liveliness that is at the root of Amanda failing to establish herself as a top-flight performer.

Her dedication to training, she readily acknowledges, leaves something to be desired.

The underlying reason, she finds more difficult to pin down.

"I know I don't train as diligently as I could or should," she conceded, peering out the window at a cloud-strewn sky.

"But I don't know why that is.

"Even when I'm running a race, if it's 3,000m I get bored after a few laps.

"That may not quite be true but I kind of lose interest after a certain length of time.

"Then a few laps from home I perk up again.

"I'm not one of these athletes who sacrifices everything to excel at a particular activity.

"I'm all for having a good time as well.

"I enjoy my curry - a chicken tikka masala being my favourite - and a bottle of wine on a Friday night and, by and large, I eat what I want.

"I don't believe in living like a monk.

"When I am training I'm serious about it.

"But, being honest, if I see the clouds drawing in, I occasionally will use them as an excuse not to train that day.

"It's difficult as well, though, having to combine a full-time job with life as an athlete and then a life at home on top of that.

"I'm afraid the athletics side suffers through that.

"But sponsorship is required these days to apply yourself to a sport 100 percent."

This week has seen the dawn of a new era in athletics with prizemoney being made available to successful competitors in addition to medals.

Amanda would like to see some of that money at her level of competition, the trickle-down theory if you like.

"I'm all in favour of prizemoney for athletes," she said.

"But it's only evident at the very top.

"It should definitely be more evenly distributed.

"We don't see much money at our level. It's more vouchers and the like.

"It would be nice to see prizemoney for all athletes at all levels but I can't see it happening."

Maybe by finally making that leap into the upper echelons, Amanda can end up in the black - as well as having her food covered in the stuff.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.