Week 9 Run 2 – The One Where I Overtook

Let’s start with the headline news: I ran 2.9 miles this morning. Second story: I was overtaken by a very enthusiastic runner. Third story: I sort of overtook a runner back, except I didn’t. Weather: Foggy with a chance of overexposition. Full story below.

Ah look, we’re below. Are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin. But I’ll scowl at you a bit, because I’d quite like to have been sitting comfortably this morning rather than running. It took almost ten minutes to get out of the house this morning, which, bearing in mind literally all I need to do is get up and put on running gear, is impressively slow. Being impressively slow is not typically a good omen when it comes to preparing for a run.

I have a tactic for this run and Friday’s run, which is to run the same route both times. My main issue is that I generally don’t know how far I’ve been running, and thus I don’t know if I’ve hit 5km, so I’ve rectified it by doing the route for the first time today, checking how far I’ve actually run, working out how far I would need to go to finish off (in this case, about another 300m) and do that on the Friday. You might say “Surely you could measure out the route beforehand”, to which I would reply “Possibly, but the warm-up walk throws the distance out of whack because I don’t know how far I cover in that time.” To which you might say “But you could measure how far you cover in 5 minutes the last time out”, to which I say “Woah, mister! Who do you think I am, Measuring Man?” To which you might say “Excellent point, well made, I retract all of my earlier claims. Here’s £20”. To which I say “Thanks,” because I’m as good at being thankful as I am bad at measuring things.

The less facetious advantage to pacing it out in advance is also that I get some idea of landmarks. I get told every five minutes what the time is, and if I can remember where I was at those timestamps the last run out, I know how close I am to doing the pace I need to be doing to get through 5km in 30 minutes. Sadly I was about as good at remembering to think about this as I am good at measuring things, and thus this best laid scheme of mice and men gang aft agley. In other words I have no idea where I was at any point along the run.

I have, however, established how far I would need to run, and with a warm-up walk like I had this morning the end point is actually my house, which is quite nice. Thus on Friday, my aim will be to run the full 5k, even if the podcast runs out by the time I get there (which, given current evidence, is likely).

Today was a slower run; I managed to get a stitch somewhere ridiculously early (between the 5 and 10 minute mark) which meant I had to focus on my breathing for a while. I also started too fast, as I am prone to doing, and thus was once again worn out by the 20 minute mark, although less so than I have been in the past. I think I’m still not a big fan of running.

As I was merrily jogging along with my stitch I had an experience which bizarrely I’ve managed to stave off for the past 9 weeks.

I was overtaken by another jogger.

And when I say overtaken, I mean properly overtaken. It wasn’t one of these long, drawn-out affairs where they gradually draw level, slowly pull away and eventually after a long battle of wills you let them slowly drift away into the sunrise. No, she was straight past me as if I wasn’t moving. My first thought was disappointment; my second was revenge. I was going to up my speed and catch this person back up!

That thought probably lasted in the region of three seconds before I realised she was much fitter than I was, going much faster than I was, and generally was not going to be visible for much longer. Indeed we turned a corner onto a road that wasn’t too long, and by the time I was halfway down it she’d already disappeared round the next bend.

So my first target to overtake somebody had failed. But I’m nothing if not determined, and therefore I’m probably nothing. But nonetheless I decided that I wasn’t going to take this lying down, and instead I would continue running – or rather “running” as I may have to now refer to it as having seen how much slower I do it than most people.

But my chance for revenge came a short while later. I was running down a road, when across the T-junction at the end, I saw a streak of blue. Another jogger! (Fortunately not the same one lapping me; that would have been disappointing but not surprising). And not too far ahead! Perhaps I could catch this guy and redeem myself!

I turned onto the road and he was already quite a way ahead, so I quickly abandoned this plan, and replaced it with a plan to continue running and not collapse, which was one I executed slightly more successfully. (Balance was not my strong point during the run today; during the warm-down walk I nearly fell off a kerb and during the run itself I had to do evasive manoeuvres to avoid a bush which leaped out at me).

And yet, a few minutes down the road, I saw in the middle distance a blue figure, walking. Could it be? Could he have worn himself out and be doing a recovery walk? Could I overtake him and thus take the crown of Fastest Runner Out Of The Two Of Us At That Particular Point?

Now, there are some small potential questions to be raised at this point as to whether this was the same person. On the one hand, they were both wearing blue, which is a fairly strong argument. On the other hand, the jogging guy was a man and the person walking was an older woman who I think had a dog. So the evidence is fairly inconclusive either way. However, I think it’s not too much of a stretch to say that it was the same person, and I managed to overtake them whilst they were walking talking to their friend who also hadn’t been there before!

To celebrate this win, I ran for the remaining five minutes or so, stopped to try and appease my lungs who were threatening to go on strike and take my legs, and came back home for a well-deserved glass of water.

After all, it’s not every day you overtake another jogger!

Victory Pendleton