I did try to be ready, I really did. Having not run properly for a while I did the Race for Life in July with some of the school mums and sitting around with two bottles of champagne in my belly afterwards I agreed to run a half marathon with them in November. Easy, I thought to myself. July to November is a nice long time and I put together a training plan. I then went to France and drank every day and ate cheese for two weeks. September came with the craziness of the beginning of term and I was struggling to fit in the running (or struggling to be arsed to do any running!) Saturday morning runs are out due to Friday nights so that meant that it had to be one night after work. I began running around Clarence Park after my Monday evening meeting finished at 5pm, building up by half a mile a week. I've always liked Clarence Park - nice and flat. This all went very well until about three weeks ago when I pulled a muscle in my calf at 4 miles and stopped. Bum. No worries thought I; I continued with personal training and boot camp and thought that the long-distance-running-adrenaline-fairy would carry me through today.
Just before this calf-pull incident; I drunkenly signed up my friend and personal trainer Elena to do this 10K today with me. She panicked for about five minutes and then embraced it in true Dundjerovic style and set out to smash it for me in my target time of less than an hour.
I realised there was a problem when we started off the first kilometre at a canter when I was expecting a trot. Jeebus. Maybe this hour malarky wasn't doable after all. I was trying to tell Dunders that I was about to die already, five minutes in but I couldn't manage to get the words out. I tried all sorts of tactics: slow down, try and get stuck behind a fatty, pretend to trip over a dog; but she was taking her job very seriously and kept me going at what I had quickly realised was not at all my pace.
I had described the hill at 4K to Elena as basically the same as Mount Everest and she had told me in no uncertain terms that I was not walking up it. About halfway up I was most definitely walking up it and no amount of cajoling, shouting and even pushing me seemed to change that. People were beginning to stare at the obviously fitter less sweaty lady pushing the seriously angry looking more sweaty bird in the back to try and make her go faster. 'She's a bitch' I was telling everybody I could. Nobody replied. It is not the best hill for conversation really.
I started running again (having tried to turn around and go home a couple of times) and by the time we hit 5K I knew I would probably finish at least and didn't care how long it took. Elena was still trying to do her job, the job I had set her up for, but I was trying to pant to her that I didn't want her to do the job anymore I just wanted to wallow silently in my own sweaty misery. She tried everything but I was decidedly grumpy. She was laughing when I tried to stop running again at about 7K and was telling her to fuck off with one breath but then when somebody came out of their house to cheer us on I was sweetness and light itself with a smile and a wave. Poor Elena.
I did try to convince her to run on and save herself. She knows far too many fit PT people who will be looking up her race time after all but she is a good friend and stuck with me and my little trot until the bitter end. Apparently we are doing it every year from now on. I reckon I might just stick on some rollerskates next time and tie myself onto her waist.
I have already backed out of the half marathon and am hugely relieved I will not be flogging it around Clarence Park seven times tomorrow evening. I am now drinking all of my Saturday night champagne and enjoying the simple pleasure of sitting on my sore bum... ;-)
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