The Fat Bloke Diaries
Episode Fifty-
I didn’t expect the email to arrive so quickly.
I thought it would be sometime after Christmas but when it came I still had no hesitation.
‘Registration is now open for the September 2010 Great Yorkshire Run’. I got the
notification last weekend and immediately signed up.
I’ve been looking for some motivation
to get exercising since the day after I finished the 2009 Great Yorkshire, and this
seems the perfect catalyst. I was actually excited about hitting the ‘send’ button
with my Visa card details; that’s not something that I say very often. The Beloved
does it plenty enough for both of us. But I’m already looking forwards to it, even
the training (a little bit). It seems that the GYR has already become ‘my’ race,
my year-
The preparation starts now. The British Heart Foundation
training plan that I used for GYR09 was for beginners. That’s still the category
that I fall under. However they also supply a plan for runners of intermediate ability,
one that’s aimed at getting the individual through a 10k race in under an hour. So
there I go, I now have a new target, something to aim towards even though it’s such
a long way away. You heard it hear first. I’ve now got 300 days to get ready, which
is why I pulled my trainers on the very day that my application and payment went
out.
I didn’t go too far – just two short miles – but it was the furthest I’d run
in over a month. Actually it was my only run in over a month, and it certainly showed.
After just a quarter of a mile my breath was starting to get faster, shorter and
shallower. At the half mile mark my shins began to ache, a sure sign of overdoing
things. I should have turned back right there and taken a gentle stroll home. I’d
proved my point; I could still run, albeit nowhere near as easily as when I was in
peak condition just a couple of months ago. That’s peak condition for me; still verging
on fat blokery.
I pushed on and after three quarters of a mile the rain that had
been threatening all day came. Running in inclement weather isn’t too bad normally,
the gentle rainfall has a cooling effect, but this was different. This was the kind
of rain that causes floods and puts hitherto unheard of villages on News at Ten.
When I started to be pelted by flying bits of tree I knew that the wind was starting
to get a little bit on the unpleasant side too. Good job I was only doing a short
jog.
The worst part came after I’d covered a mile. I was over halfway around my loop
by now, and could almost hear my Beloved pouring Radox into hot bathwater for when
I got home. Actually that wasn’t what I heard. It was a car engine in the distance
as it suddenly sped up. And that’s when I noticed I had just got to the part of my
route that floods dramatically in bad weather. Especially in bad weather like today.
I tried to put a sprint on to take me past the long, deep puddle but my legs had
nothing in them; unlike the puddle which had plenty in it by now and was growing
by the second. I had no chance to get past it before the boy-
The wave went over my head. Honestly, it did. One entire side of my body was drenched.
At least it cooled me down a little.
People often say that they 'hurl insults'. If
this is true, then I hurled mine so hard that I'm surprised his rear window didn't
shatter. I threw all the obscenities that I could think of, the viler the better.
And when I'd run out I simply started increasing my profanisaurus vocabulary by inventing
new ones. I turned the most disgusting nouns that I could think of into adjectives
and adverbs. Try it yourself, it's hilarious. It could provide hours of fun when
the family come around. And I'm not really sure what a gerund is, but I swore so
copiously that the law of averages suggests that I must have included a few of those.
Suddenly the speed that had been missing was there. The adrenaline surge kicked in
and I ran after the scoundrel as fast as I could, screaming and gesticulating as
I went. I was a little surprised when the back of his car lit up like a Christmas
tree as he stood on the brakes, but continued towards him nonetheless. I never thought
about what would happen when I reached him, I just carried on running and shouting
and screaming and sprinting as I saw his door open, just a crack.
I guess that he
must have seen me in the mirror then, seen how very wet and how absolutely livid
I was. And maybe how big too. Whatever, something changed his mind. He closed the
door without a word and sped off.
I’m glad he did, because by the time I reached
the spot where he’d pulled over I was absolutely knackered. It was all I could do
to finish my circuit at a plodding lope, a combination of sweat, rain and what had
once been filthy puddle dripping from my nose.
But at least I was running.
© Shaun
Finnie 2009