The tables have turned, and that was quite possibly one of the most painful runs I have ever done.
Having decided to go running with Radar this weekend, I was in her hands in terms of arrangements. With small children, she has a lot less flexibility than me so had suggested that we would run on Sunday afternoon, setting off sometime between four and six.
On Saturday, I discovered that Mrs CC5 had invited some friends over for a Sunday roast dinner. No worries I thought. As Radar is always chasing in circles, she’s not going to be ready until 18:00 at the latest so I can fit in a roast, have time to sleep it off, before heading out the door. Perfect.
Except for two things. 1) the roast was a lot later than planned, we finished eating at 14:45; and 2) Radar announced at 15:00, a 16:00 start.
I was looking forward to this outing, particularly as the route had been designed by Radar, and whilst I knew the component parts, stringing them together in this order was something new to me.
The first mile to the start line was ok. I was held back to warm myself up and felt ok. But then we set off proper… through the railway land, down Cliffe high street and up Chapel Hill. But the trot up the hill did two things, it kicked off a lot of moaning from my legs (who are still feeling the impact of Thursday evening’s shenanigans), and secondly, it mixed up the contents of my stomach (5 roast potatoes, a plate of chicken and more stuffing than a man should eat in one sitting) to form a solid bowling ball of roast dinner, which then pressed upwards against my lungs causing pain when I breathed.
I struggled on, but knew that it wasn’t going to be my day. As we ran/stumbled round onto Malling Down I took the decision to drop out, to Let Radar go alone, as she was on fine running form and I was only going to hold her back.
She had different ideas. It was time for revenge. All those winter runs when I forced her up muddy hills in the pouring rain had clearly been festering in the back of her mind. The swearing and muttering behind my back had reach a tipping point. She wasn’t going to let me get out of this one.
Gentle persuasion, physically kicking me up the arse, and threats of “never lettering me hear the end of it if I don’t complete this” kept me going. She had to significantly rein her pace in as I progressively got slower and slower. From the bottom of Malling Down we ran along the river to Offham and then up what I will now call Radar’s Hill, up, up, up to Mount Harry before turning back towards town along the race course, Jills Ponds and back to the prison.
Ten and half miles by the time I got home. Ten and half miles in two hours. Not my finest two hours, but I guess I did it. Afterwards, I lay in the garden for half an hour contemplating life, before eventually crawling back inside to finish the crumble (which some ice cream of course).
