The Fat Bloke Diaries

Episode Forty-Two – Mad Dogs and Englishmen

It was my birthday last week. Middle aged. According to Shakespeare I’m in my fifth age. Big baby, fat kid, fat teenager, fat bloke, and now not-quite-so-fat bloke who is trying to do something about it, sitting in wise ‘grumpy old man’ judgement of others and passing on experience in the form of these FBDs. I’m sure that’s what The Bard meant to say… “All the world’s a Pizzahut, and men and women merely diners. They all have their starters and their entrees, and one man in his life eats many slices”. This would be the same scribe who offered the advice, “Get thee to a bunnery”.

The woman who shall now forever be known as my Beloved bought me some lovely new Asics running shoes. They were a wonderful surprise; she’d bought precisely the model that I would have picked out myself. Probably because I had picked them out myself. The girl done good, as sports commentators are wont to say.

I’ve run about 150 miles in what has suddenly become my old pair, so I'm now going to alternate between those and my shiny new pair. Not alternate during the same run obviously; that would be silly and involve far too much hopping. It’s time to up the mileage by any means necessary, but double the number of shoes might not necessarily result in me running double the distance.

I’m starting to enjoy running, though I still like the resting afterwards much better. Last week I mentioned how I love a long soak in a cold – and then a hot – bath after exercise. It’s one of life’s great simple pleasures for me. But it’s not always possible. Sometimes all that I have time for is a quick shower.

That happened this week. I had little time available so just had a quick hose down and jumped out of the shower. Of course this meant that I didn’t have time to cool down properly, so by the time I got out of the steamy shower room I was sweating like the proverbial porker again. I was so wet that I may as well have not bothered drying.

This might not have been too bad were it not for the fact that I wasn’t in my own home. I was at the office, and I needed a shower because I’d been running at lunch. This is another of those moments when anyone who knows me will be staring open-mouthed at these words. Me. Giving up valuable eating time. For exercise! Who’d a thunk it?

Fortunately I remembered my running kit. It would have been a terrible thing for the good citizens of Sheffield (and the more common ones) if I’d forgotten it. I would have been forced, in time honoured school run tradition, to do it in my vest and pants.

Even clad in decent sports attire I was dreading seeing someone I knew, someone who would notice me struggling on my sweaty way. But strangely enough when I made it back to the office itself, when I’d successfully run out to the bingo hall (it’s a classy area) and back in the baking heat, I was so very disappointed that I hadn’t seen a single person that I knew. There was nobody to see my personal victory. I even hung around outside the building, taking much longer than usual over my post-run stretch, all the while searching for a witness.

The showers aren’t actually in the office of course. That would be a little distracting, especially when that blonde from upstairs comes back from her lunchtime run. The local Starbucks would be devoid of male staff from my workplace that day. And it would be similarly off-putting (but for very different reasons) if I were to shower in the office. Business would be ruined and the UK economy would sink to uncharted depths, all because of my need to de-sweat.

The showers in our building aren’t bad actually but they could be better, especially in the temperature department. I found ‘off’ and also ‘thermo-nuclear’ but nothing in between. I could just about stand three drops or so hitting me at a time. It took a while to wash my hair. No time for conditioner. It’s a good job I keep it short; I don’t look good frizzy.

But the scalding water and the cloud system that it created within the shower room meant that however much I towelled I was still more than moist by the time I returned to my own office. It was like I’d sprung a thousand little leaks; every pint of water (and there were many) that I poured into my mouth just seeped straight out again through my skin. No part of me was dry. I eventually settled for a pair of fans on my desk on their highest setting. They were spinning so fast that my work surface almost took off.

That would have been more entertaining for the guys at work than me buying birthday buns.


© Shaun Finnie 2009
 

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