24 Weeks to Go (4 November)
The honeymoon, predictably, is over.
England rains. I’m tired. My feet hurt.
A dreary week at work and a weekend watching the government blow up
thousands and thousands of pounds in fireworks before announcing a fresh round
of job cuts leaves me fairly unimpressed with the state of the country. I slip over in Hyde Park, pulling my
hamstring and tearing a hole in my shorts, leg.
I force myself to go for a jog on Thursday evening knowing all of my
friends are out of the cold in the pub having a considerably better time, no
matter how much I pretend to be enjoying listening to the Smooth Jazz podcast while
getting soaked to the bone on the A406.
And some bastard at work has nicked my iron, too. My £3.99 Argos Value iron, which has happily
provided me with heavily-creased work shirts for over three years. Together we’ve endured the lows and the
slightly lower lows of coalition NHS and I can’t disguise my emotions now that
it’s gone. It feels like I’ve lost a
brother.
I’ve got zero enthusiasm all week but force myself to go through the
motions, a brief moment of cheer from my NIKE+ when I cover the distance of a
marathon somewhat muted by the fact it took me nine cumulative jogs to achieve
it.
My choice of music, too, is something of a hindrance. Though happy to
have avoided the gym cliché of remixed 90s dance anthems I’ve not yet found a
better solution, and as much as I’m enjoying listening to Alan Davies’ podcasts
whinging about the Gunners’ catatonic forward play it doesn’t exactly give me
the inspiration for a record-breaking sprint finish. For a change of pace I play some of my music
on shuffle but to no avail, and when the Cranberries’ painfully slow dirge No Need to Argue comes on I seriously
contemplate throwing myself under a Routemaster.
I’m also finding some sympathy for Paula Radcliffe, too, and a
buttock-clenching early morning run leaves me shamefully contemplating the
purchase of some ‘Marathon Pants’ (read ‘nappies’) from eBay. This is not the movement I had in mind.
Finally, there’s the weather and the state of my feet. My ambitions have been upgraded slightly, so
whilst I’m still not telling anyone I’m entering the marathon I have bought
myself the cheapest jogging shoes I could find (£22, Sports Direct). These give me a more pleasing bounce along
the pavement than my Asics did but there’s a downside, which is that after a
short jog it’s hard to say where blister ends and foot begins. By the end of the week I’m eschewing socks in
favour of a tapestry of plasters.
I’d
have hit my £2k target a lot quicker if I was collecting for Dr Scholl.
And the weather? Fuck me, it’s
cold here. Week one was a t-shirt and shorts;
as we enter into winter I’m coming out each morning togged up like Han Solo on
Hoth. It shouldn’t have come as that
much of a surprise that I’ve felt the cold so much since coming back – I wear a
base layer under my work shirt, after all.
(Lesson five: Australia makes you nesh.)
The idea of a nice jog round the park when the birds are tweeting and
the sun is shining is one thing (Fig 1); when it’s fucking it down with rain and the
grass is a rich and muddy brown it’s something else (Fig 2). I resent even leaving my bedroom when it rains, let alone mustering the enthusiasm to trot
aimlessly round Clapham Common getting splashed by every tosser with a car and
some pent up aggression.
 |
| Fig 2: Wank |
 |
| Fig 1: Inspiring |
Not happy, Jan.
No comments:
Post a Comment