Baby, we weren’t Born to Run….
It’s Cancer Research Race for Life time again and once more like thousands of unfit women I’ve entered and not done any training yet. This’ll be my third year. The first year was great as my sister and I entered together and actually got quite into the whole running thing. In the course of three months I had gone from not being able to make it to the end of the street without practically vomiting to being able to run 10K in about an hour with relative ease, if not total enjoyment. Nobody actually enjoys running. Even Seb Coe is quoted as saying “it’s a bit of a pain in the arse”*
The payoff for the pain of running was that I always felt brilliant afterwards and people began to say how good I looked. Not because I’d lost any weight. For me losing weight is a bad thing, I am quite skinny anyway and if I lose anything my face goes all Skeletor like and people tell me I look tired and shout at me for not eating anything. I think I just looked healthy and was probably getting a bit of sun on my face making me glow a bit. Some time off the couch, computer, work desk is apparently a “good thing”. Who knew? So given that running is kind of a free beauty product that actually works, why am I so reluctant to do it again?
Why? Because it so bloody boring! For me running with music just isn’t enough to stave off that boredom. I took to downloading talking books (no, not “The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner”) and radio plays to keep me entertained and keep me from hearing my constant running Inner Gill mantra of “I -Hate This, I – Hate -This, I Hate This”; each word said in time to every stride I took. It worked. I would actually run longer to get to the end of a chapter.
Then my sister got pregnant and I was left to run alone. There was no-one phoning every couple of nights to say, “Right, we’re going for a run. Get your gear on and let’s go” and then fight with me when I tried to get out of it. There was just me, and Inner Gill. Inner Gill who hated running.
I began to long for someone like my old PE teacher, Mrs Duncan. Mrs Duncan was always convinced that I was actually quite good at sport and would force me, kicking and screaming, to join teams, enter competitions, swim one more length, and more importantly would hunt me down when I skived her classes by hiding in the Sixth year Common Room. Bless her, there can’t be many like her, as most PE are grown up school bullies in shorts who don’t even acknowledge anyone in their charge who show less than Olympian prowess. But not Mrs Duncan. She believed that everyone should be included in PE and that everyone would enjoy it….if it killed her. She was like a personal trainer. She was like Burgess Meredith in “Rocky”. She’s probably retired now but she could make a fortune forcing celebrities to go for the burn.
That’s what I need. Someone that makes you do the exercise you wouldn’t do if it were left up to you. Someone who hunts you down when you’d rather be on the couch watching “America’s Next Top Model” with a bag of crisps and a glass of something Australian. Someone who is paid to annoy you.
All the same I kept the running up for about nine months without my sister and was doing really well until I played a Scandinavian game of “Floorball” in Finland with my students. (Ice hockey without ice). The game got very competitive and I lunged forward at one point and not to put too fine a point on it , I pulled my pelvic floor muscle. Okay, I’m being too polite; I sprained my fanny. It actually felt like an elastic band snapping and was all sore and twinge-y for about six months on and off. Just when I thought it was getting better, I’d do something and it would go again. I tell you, you don’t realise how often you use it, til it hurts. Let’s move on.
But now I don’t have that excuse (for getting out of anything) and I’ve got to start again tomorrow night and christen the new running shoes that Meeestermartin bought me for Christmas.
Yes, that’ll be Christmas, 4 months ago.
Oh did I mention that my 7 year old niece is running with us? So I’ve got to make sure she doesn’t beat me. The shame!
* OK, I made that bit up- but behind closed doors, I bet he’s said it.
Baby, we weren’t Born to Run…..
It’s Cancer Research Race for Life time again and once more like thousands of unfit women I’ve entered and not done any training yet. This’ll be my third year. The first year was great as my sister and I entered together and actually got quite into the whole running thing. In the course of three months I had gone from not being able to make it to the end of the street without practically vomiting to being able to run 10K in about an hour with relative ease, if not total enjoyment. Nobody actually enjoys running. Even Seb Coe is quoted as saying “it’s a bit of a pain in the arse”*
The payoff for the pain of running was that I always felt brilliant afterwards and people began to say how good I looked. Not because I’d lost any weight. For me losing weight is a bad thing, I am quite skinny anyway and if I lose anything my face goes all Skeletor like and people tell me I look tired and shout at me for not eating anything. I think I just looked healthy and was probably getting a bit of sun on my face making me glow a bit. Some time off the couch, computer, work desk is apparently a “good thing”. Who knew? So given that running is kind of a free beauty product that actually works, why am I so reluctant to do it again?
Why? Because it so bloody boring! For me running with music just isn’t enough to stave off that boredom. I took to downloading talking books (no, not “The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner”) and radio plays to keep me entertained and keep me from hearing my constant running Inner Gill mantra of “I -Hate This, I – Hate -This, I Hate This”; each word said in time to every stride I took. It worked. I would actually run longer to get to the end of a chapter.
Then my sister got pregnant and I was left to run alone. There was no-one phoning every couple of nights to say, “Right, we’re going for a run. Get your gear on and let’s go” and then fight with me when I tried to get out of it. There was just me, and Inner Gill. Inner Gill who hated running.
I began to long for someone like my old PE teacher, Mrs Duncan. Mrs Duncan was always convinced that I was actually quite good at sport and would force me, kicking and screaming, to join teams, enter competitions, swim one more length, and more importantly would hunt me down when I skived her classes by hiding in the Sixth year Common Room. Bless her, there can’t be many like her, as most PE teachers are grown up school bullies who don’t even acknowledge anyone in their charge who show less than Olympian prowess. Tracksuited demons. But not Mrs Duncan. She believed that everyone should be included in PE and that everyone would enjoy it….if it killed her. She was like a personal trainer. She was like Burgess Meredith in “Rocky”. She’s probably retired now but she could make a fortune forcing celebrities to go for the burn.
That’s what I need. Someone that makes you do the exercise you wouldn’t do if it were left up to you. Someone who hunts you down when you’d rather be on the couch watching “America’s Next Top Model” with a bag of crisps and a glass of something Australian. Someone who is paid to annoy you.
All the same I kept the running up for about nine months without my sister and was doing really well until I played a Scandinavian game of “Floorball” in Finland with my students. (Ice hockey without ice). The game got very competitive and I lunged forward at one point and not to put too fine a point on it , I pulled my pelvic floor muscle. Okay, I’m being too polite; I sprained my fanny. It actually felt like an elastic band snapping and was all sore and twinge-y for about six months on and off. Just when I thought it was getting better, I’d do something and it would go again. I tell you, you don’t realise how often you use it, til it hurts. Let’s move on.
But now I don’t have that excuse (for getting out of anything) and I’ve got to start again tomorrow night and christen the new running shoes that Meeestermartin bought me for Christmas.
Yes, that’ll be Christmas, 4 months ago.
Oh did I mention that my 7 year old niece is running with us? So I’ve got to make sure she doesn’t beat me. The shame!
* OK, I made that bit up- but behind closed doors, I bet he’s said it.
