Tag Archives: running

January 22, 2013 · 11:43 am

I’m having a bad day

Today has not started very well. We didn’t win the pub quiz, and my little sister and I are playing ‘it’ with the heating, so I woke up freezing at about 4.30am, my friends have gone for a run but I am on deadline so am sitting at home panicking about them becoming skinnier and faster than me, and I just burnt my tongue on my herbal tea. Oh, and I’m drinking herbal tea. Things couldn’t be much bleaker, all things considered.

I’ve started playing with Eric, my little artist’s mannequin, and found myself apologizing to him for not having found a nice artist mannequin lady for him to play with.

It is quite possible that I should be less worried about my friends’ newfound fitness, and more about my encroaching dementia. Luckily, I’ve finally worked out how to balance Eric so that he looks like he’s flying. So things may be looking up. (Not for Eric though- he’s seconds away from certain death).

I am wondering what I can do to improve today-I imagine I’ll have some time remaining once I’ve planned Eric’s (poorly attended) funeral, and my Mother always says that the best way to feel happier is to do something for someone else. I have thought long and hard about what I can do, personally, to make the world a better place. I have decided, therefore, that I will devote the rest of today to making the perfect pancake.

Not only will this help my name to go down in culinary history, it will mean I have an endless supply of pancakes, and will help to fatten up my friend in the name of ‘science’. Really, I’m feeling much cheerier already.

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January 11, 2013 · 12:07 pm

I did what anyone normal would have done

Having promised my little sister that if I did more ‘communal chores’ she would do less ‘leaving her stuff all over our flat’, I dutifully took the rubbish out.

‘Hello!’ My neighbor said cheerfully. ‘Off for a run? You are so good. I really should run.’ I looked at her a little oddly. I was most certainly not going for a run. I was simply taking the rubbish out, like a good housemate. I was wearing running kit because I had run out of clean clothes, and a baseball cap because I hadn’t showered yet.

I opened my mouth to quickly explain. ‘Gosh,’ My neighbor continued. ‘I always see you in running kit. I wish I had half your energy.’ I shut my mouth quickly. Here was a real-life, actual person, admiring me. Not only that- she was admiring my lifestyle! My lifestyle, which is the source of almost continual mockery and jeering amongst my family and flatmates! Obviously I did what any normal person would do, in the face of such a confusion. ‘Ah,’ I said kindly. ‘Don’t worry! Just start slowly and build up from there. See you later.’ I quickly let go of the black bin bag I had been holding and jogged away, cursing my neighbor behind my happy-looking runner’s smile.*

*Who knows what they look like? I was just trying to do a nice thing for my flatmates.*

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September 27, 2011 · 11:50 am

Managing expectations

My friend has organised a lunch for us. I am delighted, because she has chosen a gastro-pub approximately 6 minutes walk from my house. I decide to cycle. It is even quicker. I arrive first, order a diet coke and pop to the loo. The others arrive a few minutes later. We mock my friend who asks for salad instead of chips with her sandwich. We point out to my other friend that her current tan will make her look wizened in 10 years time. (I may be using ‘we’ rather liberally here). Everything is trundling along nicely.

‘You still keen to run the 5K?’ one of my friends calls down the table. ‘You know, I’m not sure I could finish it,’ she replies. I’m on my second diet coke, and loudly interrupt, ‘ANYONE could finish a 5K. ANYONE.’ My friends disagree. I decide to help them. ‘Look, you’re not obese. 5K is what, 3 miles? Let’s say you run a 10 minute mile. That’s 30 minutes. You’ll certainly finish.’ There is uproar. ‘It would definitely take me longer than 10 minutes to run a mile.’ I am inexplicably furious. ‘Look,’ I begin to shout at my friends, ‘A normal human runs an 8 minute mile. I’ve given you guys 2 extra minutes! You’re basically walking!’ My friend reminds me that we are inside, so perhaps I should use my inside voice. I ignore her. ’10 minutes?! That’s absurdly slow already. I think over 3 miles I could run a 6 minute mile.’ My friends do not seem impressed. ‘No, wait. A 5 minute mile. I could probably run a sub-5 minute mile if I trained.’ No-one’s listening.

 ‘4 minutes!’ I call out desperately. ‘I’d be home in 12 minutes! I could run 5K now and our starters wouldn’t even be here yet!’ I seem to have lost my audience.

‘Fine! I’m going to qualify for the Olympics just to show you.’ My friends look at me, baffled. ‘I think you’re too old to be an Olympian’, one of them points out. ‘Not at ALL,’ I respond furiously. ‘Not for middle distance running. I’ll see you all in Rio.’ There are general murmurings about how fun a group trip to Rio would be. ‘It is not going to be FUN,’ I shout furiously. ‘I am going to be running a marathon with 4 minute splits. It’s going to be DREADFUL.’ Someone changes the subject, but I overhear two of my friends vowing to run 11 minute miles, just to show me.

A group of us are eating breakfast the next day, as Paula Radcliffe gets her Olympic qualifying time at the Berlin marathon. ‘That’ll be you in 2016,’ my friend says. I stop stealing chips and look up. ‘So, conceivably, you’ll be finishing with a 1 hr 46 min marathon time. That’s probably as long as we’ll take to run our 5K.’

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