I was prepared last night looking at the weather for it
to be a balmy 3 degrees this morning. What I forgot about, I was promptly
reminded of upon stepping outside and seeing the pavements glisten like icy
pavements on a Friday morning. But hey, it’s running, and it’s icy. What could
possibly go wrong, I thought?
I’ll give you a minute to decide.
…
You know, I’m as surprised as you, but actually that didn’t
happen! I managed to stay upright for the entire session (apart from the
stretch at the end where you put your knees behind your head and your head
behind your lower intestine and eat your feet or something like that). There
was the occasional bit of road running (with no Wile E Coyote for company, just
the occasional dog walker or jogger. I considered writing fellow jogger there,
but I think it’s too soon) or grass running (did that make me Blade Runner?)
but other than that, all perfectly safe and healthy and alive.
This was the first time I’d vaguely planned a route ahead
of time instead of just picking the road that looked the easiest at each point,
and I didn’t even get lost!
I did have one slightly awkward moment just before run 5,
where I came onto a road and there was a man walking about 100m ahead of me,
with the run about to start. I could see how it was going to go – I was going
to start jogging in the same direction (no changing routes, this was one long
road with only dead ends for turnings), go past him and almost immediately, the
minute would be up and I’d start walking again. It would just look like I was
really keen to be slightly in front of him in my morning walk.
Sadly I could think of no way to counter this other than
going past him on the other side of the road (like the Good Samaritan without
the injury), jog for a little longer than Laura told me to avoid being socially
awkward, and then slow down when I didn’t think he would notice.
Just before I started the next run, I looked behind me.
He was there. He’d noticed. So I ran away. That’s the advantage of going out
running, you can lose people.
I also had the beautiful experience at the fourth run of
thinking “Hey, I’m doing OK at the moment. Maybe my fitness really is
improving!” It’s this level of arrogance for which they invented run number six,
at which point I was dying again and Laura had the upper hand. Although I
suspect she doesn’t have hands, just talons to claw at the last pockets of
oxygen in my lungs.
I hope Fake That come back in future podcasts, I have one
of the songs from the run stuck in my head. It’s definitely not based on the
Take That song “Greatest Day”, because that one goes “Today this could be the
greatest day of our life” and Fake That’s one goes “This is the greatest day”
so they are clearly very different songs. Also Take That never got a gig on an
NHS podcast, so there’s that.
Next week we start the next regiment of running. I’m off
to lock all the doors so Laura can’t find me.
Gym Carrey
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