FBD32

The Fat Bloke Diaries

Episode Thirty-Two – Flying High Again

I'm not here. While you're reading this I'm sunning myself in Orlando, Florida. Fantastic. It's going to be hugely enjoyable, I'm certain of that, but restful?

I've kept rigidly to my training plan so far in my quest to be ready for the 10km run that I've foolishly promised to do in September, but this is my first dose of real temptation. This is a choice between full-on family fun in the home of Mr and Ms Mouse – if Mickey and Minnie never married, isn't it a coincidence that they share the same surname? – and keeping up to date with my training (but missing the entire point of having a holiday) in the energy-sapping ninety degree heat. That's how hot it's going to be in old money, I've no idea what these newfangled centigrade thermometers would call it apart from 'scorchio!'

So that's the quandary that faces me. Just in case, I've packed my running shoes.

While I'm there I'll be setting myself two challenges. Firstly, to ride The Hulk roller-coaster once again (see FBD 9 – Reasonings for the whole embarrassing saga), and secondly, to do an early morning run at least twice a week. I hope I can manage those. I'll be walking somewhere in the region of ten miles a day in the theme parks, so even if I don't do anything else, I shouldn't come back a total lard-arse. The amount of walking should counteract the weight gain that's pretty much expected when a European goes to the Land of the Free Buffet.

My hotel has a one and a half mile running loop around its lake. I may try that, though the seventh coaster of the day might be enough to get my heart rate up to high intensity. A friend who is going with us has suggested that he could hire a bike and cycle alongside be as I run. He also had the 'hilarious' idea that he could get a megaphone and encourage me to keep my knees up, or maybe just sing the 'Rocky' theme at me. I non-too politely replied that if he tried anything like that then him and his bike would be in the lake faster than he could yell 'Adrienne!'. And Florida is justifiably famous for its gators.

Hopefully my running over in the States will be as surprisingly successful as my last training run at home, when I found myself wide awake at 5:30 on a Saturday morning. I quickly realised that sleep wouldn't be returning any time soon so did what any sensible fat bloke would never consider doing; I crept quietly out of the house like a remorseful lover who's woken up in the least appropriate bed ever. I didn't even start randomly pressing my watch looking for the stopwatch setting (sorry, I mean the chronometer setting – I'm posh, at least for Barnsley) until I was well into my warm-up walk, for fear of the beeping buttons waking my Beloved. As the sun reluctantly rose over Rotherham I ventured out into the solitude of beautiful spring dawn and slowly I began to run.

The early morning mists over the fields had never looked so rejuvenating, the birds in the woods had never sung clearer and I had never rejoiced in the simple pleasure of running so much in my life. Even the hilly sections were, if not enjoyable or easy, at least manageable at a gentle trot.

I had expected to run for twenty minutes or so, possibly covering around one and a half miles. I told you I was slow. When I finally returned to my garden gate I checked my watch: precisely thirty minutes of steady unbroken running had passed. Later on a quick check of my favourite mapping website confirmed that my distance had been much more than I'd expected too. I fully appreciate that there's a long way to go, but I've never really believed before that I could run two and a half miles without a break.

I've always known that we can do amazing things if only we put our mind to it, but this was exactly the opposite. I'd done something which was totally amazing to me, and mostly because I'd left my mind out of it and simply enjoyed the experience.

Now I'm really looking forwards to that path around the lake.

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