Somewhat inevitably after my last blog post, it was
raining quite a lot this morning. (So much for my ability to control the weather. I'm no longer Rain Man, I'll just have to go back to being Man.). And it was fairly windy. And I was supposed
to run for 20 minutes non-stop today. Below is a timeline of this morning
T minus 5 minutes: We began with the standard 5 minute
warm-up walk. Except that I was fairly cold as per usual, and quite wet, as per
less usual, within a couple of minutes of starting. Laura assured me that,
although it may sound quite scary to run this far (which I agreed with) that I’d
already done all of the hard work (which I completely disagreed with. Sure, I’d
done a fair amount of running, but all the
hard work? I suspect this wasn’t going to be a walk in the park. Not least
because I wasn’t going through the park and wasn’t allowed to walk)
T minus 2 minutes: Pretty apprehensive at this point. And
damp. I was damprehensive.
T minus 0 minutes: Started to run.
T plus 30 seconds: Genuinely started to feel a bit tired.
This was somewhat of a concern. Also my legs were feeling sore and it was cold
and I wanted to go home. So it was a confident start. I reminded myself that
Usain Bolt would have been finished a long time ago, and it made me feel good
to think that I was a better athlete than him.
T plus 2 minutes: Around this time the first song
finished and the second began. I tried to convince myself that the first song
was by Meatloaf and therefore I had been running for fifteen minutes already.
T plus 5 minutes: Laura’s voice came through the ether,
telling me I’d been running for 5 minutes. Because she’s not totally insane,
she didn’t mention the fact that we were only a quarter of the way through the
run. Sadly I had worked this out and was not overly thrilled by the idea. She
said to slow down if you were getting tired; however, I didn’t really think
this was a good idea. I was already going at a pace where I would have been
overtaken by elderly tortoises and continental drift, if I slowed down any more
I’d probably be going backwards, and faster. So I ploughed on.
T plus 5 minutes and 1 second: I decided that ploughing
was not a good idea whilst I was running, so I decided to keep running instead.
T plus 7 minutes: I discovered a bend in a road that I’d
run along a good three or four times before, that I didn’t remember seeing
before. According to the Internet it has always been there, but I’m not
convinced. I think they’re just trying to make me run further.
T plus 10 minutes: Another update from Laura; at this
point I’m quite ready for a recovery walk. But no, I’m only halfway through. I
consider faking an injury. This was patently a ridiculous strategy since the
only person I’d have to convince would be myself, and I knew I’d be lying; but
at this point I was prepared to look the other way. And even if I wasn’t, I
reckon my legs might have gone on a mutiny.
T plus 12 minutes: I got worried that perhaps my iPod had
fallen out at some point along the run. Note that this was whilst I was
listening to the music that was coming out of the iPod. Maybe my brain thought
that this was what they played in ambulances.
T plus 15 minutes: Laura told me how long I’d been
running. I thought that sounded like a good place to stop. She told me that I
had five minutes to go. I was not very happy about this.
T plus 17 minutes: I was powering through now fuelled by
hydro-electric power and anger at Laura. When I could get enough oxygen there
was the odd muttered threat. At one point I said out loud “I hate you Laura,
you’ve ruined my life”. At which point I realised I was running past somebody.
I really hope they weren’t called Laura.
T plus 19 minutes: Hate wasn’t working. I told Laura that
she was great, and very clever, and that I’d run enough, and could I stop now
please?
T plus 20 minutes: She let me stop. I did gladly.
20 minutes of running. I never thought I’d do that at the
start of the program. I never thought I’d do that on Wednesday. To be honest,
10 minutes in I never thought I would do that. But I did learn one thing
through doing it.
I definitely hadn’t done all the hard work already!
Exercisla Fisher
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