February 2009

[Sweder]

I awoke this morning, fully clothed in jeans, shoes and faded Hawaiian shirt, flat on my bed a-top the bedclothes, oesophagus raw from continued and pronounced Olympian snoreage, in the midst of the post-running carnage one might reasonably expect after a record-breaking weekend. To the untrained eye this room appears to have been ransacked, at least twice, by the FBI. Only I know, with a wobbly degree of certainty, that the horror is of my own making.

Last night saw the climax to a veritable orgy of running and rehydration, selfish indulgence that might have raised a flush of chagrin on the indefatigable cheeks of that Great Rehydrationalist Oliver Reed. Whilst our fellow countrymen and women have struggled against debilitating Arctic elements we have, in all honesty, revelled like hogs in the hollow. Yesterday’s mountain plummet was a highlight, tortured limbs hurtling wide-eyed bodies from the Canaveral of the Banos de Sierra Almahillas to shatter the tranquillity of Pechina. It was all I could have hoped for; damp, slippery, that imposter the riverbed, bereft of a body of water yet slippery with recent rain, offering a tough challenge to balance and sensibility. Gillybean continued to show resilience beyond understanding, bounding from rock to scree to boulder, leaving your corpulent correspondent floundering in his own personal sauna (having elected to run in his FLM 2007 Rejection Jacket whilst processing the sweaty aftermath of double-digit post-Half pints) and giving the redoubtable Ho-man a run for his money. Behind us Niguel cantered as only he can, following hot on the heels of the Sheekster. By the time we reached the labyrinthine weave of the outer cobbled streets we’d lost the Guildford Straggler, leaving we four to jostle good-naturedly for position as the town square loomed. Steve stepped on the gas, nudging past me with a determined grin. I responded, legs like raw hamburger finding the resolve to battle back. We passed Gillybean who, as one might expect from a fighter, was having none of it, proving the sharpness of her elbows fuelled by the fire in her belly to shrug off our ungallant advances. This unsightly jousting took us past Simon, who must have wondered what in the Sam Hill had gotten into us before firing the boosters to roar passed us all, blazing into the snug town square at what must have been close to terminal velocity.

The rehydration has, for my part at least, been spectacular. To the defining point that, having returned last night to Molly’s, we were informed by the rueful staff that we had terminally depleted their Guinness reserves, leaving some of us to ruminate over pints of Murphy's Red. Worse things, I am assured, happen at sea. It's a tale worth telling in itself, if only to reveal DiO's attempts at bar-surfing . . . but enough indiscretion for one post; surely our tale must begin, as Enrique Doubleglasias would have it, at the begin . . .