In this centuries-old English pancake race, ‘you just have to go flat out’

By KWIYEON HA and BRIAN MELLEY
Associated Press

OLNEY, England (AP) — For centuries, women in one English town have run a pancake race to mark the day before the start of Lent. They sprint through the streets trying not to drop their pancakes as they trace the path taken by a harried housewife in 1445. Legend says she heard the church bells signaling the Shrove Tuesday service and raced off with her skillet in hand. The tradition has spread to other places in England and even to a town in Kansas. It’s a dash of whimsy ahead of the Christian period of repentance and sacrifice before Easter.