Ok, what is your thing? You know, the hobby that you enjoy most and keeps you ever so slightly sane. Mine, is running.
I love it. Realy love it. But let me be clear from the outset here. I am a runner. I don’t jog and therefore I am not a jogger. I bet you are a runner also. Don’t let anyone away with asking you if you have just been for ‘a jog’. A jog is when you have ran out of milk and head to the shops in something other than a walk. Or when you are hurrying home, desperate for the loo!
Being the proud owner of 6 marathon finishes, I know a thing or 2 about the training and preparation that is required to complete such an activity. As my wife (then girlfriend) found out not long after we first met. It was a Sunday morning and I announced I was heading out for a 6 mile run. Her immediate response was to grab a piece of paper and a pen. Strange, I thought. She then started scribbling and passed me the paper. “If you are passing the pet shop, can you nip in and get some food for the fish. Oh, and we need a new filter for the tank”. My facial response to this ask, being a highly tuned athlete at the time you understand and on a strict training regime, I believe told its own story.
I remember that particular run for other reasons. Six miles takes you throughout a few different districts and villages. I remember running through Siddal. Passing a bus stop, where an elderly lady was patiently waiting for the bus.
As I approached her, she was obviously wanting to stop me, which is agony for a runner but I obliged. “Do you know what time the next bus is?”, she enquired. To this day, I take my hat off to the optimism of that lady, thinking that this random runner would know the timing of the bus service of every village he passes through.
May I take this opportunity to pass on the benefit of my running experience. If you really have caught the running bug, increase your mileage week by week. And if you have a young child at home (as I had many years ago), please learn from my mistake. Ensure the last thing you hear as you leave the house is NOT the theme tune to Noddy. Because trust me, there is nothing worse than running for 15 miles with that particular tune, on loop, running through your head. Don’t do it.
Every marathon has been a lovely experience. Actually, it hasn’t, come to think about it. Each marathon has been nothing short of murder. Truly murder. Bit in a really enjoyable kind of way. And if you have support there for you, to greet you over the finishing line, it is lovely. Unless your wife and children miss your big moment of passing that wonderful line because they were ‘away looking for dandelion clocks to blow’. Thanks for that, family.
And if you are reading this and have already thought about the prospect of, one day, putting the training work in and competing in your first marathon, may I prepare you for a little touch of reality. During your marathon run, you will be feeling wonderful. You have trained hard for this moment. You are buzzing. Feeling good. Feeling fit. You have completed 24 mile and only 2 to go. Yes, it is hard but you are nearly there. Then, out of nowhere, someone dressed as Scooby Doo will come gliding past you, lookin as fresh as a daisy.
No matter what, the moment that Scooby Doo beats you to the finish line in a marathon will be with you for the rest of your life. Trust me, I know.
And remember, always run with a bus timetable of each village you will be passing through in your back pocket. You just never know what it will be required.
