Gordon Bleu. It's been a while, but I'm committed to not letting the 2015 season slip away like a piece of flotsam in an ebbing tide. More like something rather more organic floating aimlessly from a sewage outfall.
Funny that, tide is an old german word for 'hurry', but after 2 weeks off with the lurgy and matching hacky cough, there was no hurry at the Druridge Bay Country Park Cross Country. It was blowing a hoolie (hooligan), or as we say in Bohemia, 'der rowdy'. The club tent floor was a wash with a film of muddy waters, not the musician bloke, and there was a huddle of around 10 or 12 in there, although I didn't do a head count. I was outside shouting at them to 'man up'
Eventually around 530 heads lined up for one long lap and 2 very long laps of the course. Not too hilly, but softened up very nicely by the young ones and women. I was so cold, I couldn't be bothered changing to my spikes and just tightened up the Salomons.
I pegged a few runners and plugged along the first lap coming past the finish in 85th from the slow pack. The runners whom Id caught toward the end of the first lap, however, began to come past and after the second lap, the rip current was sucking at my ankles and even though I was making all the right movements, I was going backward, drowning and not waving and was 95th by the second lap. I'm not sure where it was, but not long after there, my misfiring lungs and spindly legs gave way and the engine reverted to emergency mode (from the latin 'emergere' meaning to dip or plunge) and plunge I did, where most of the rest of the club came past in among the other 90 runners and I trotted in 186th or somewhere.
Some of the club runners I didn't even recognise. Has it been that long!?
The cheek of it was I was happy to have cracked the top 200. Well, that sort of performance is not going to stand me in good stead for a run in the Hexham Hobble Hill Race next weekend, but we'll just concentrate on getting a few nights training and see how we get on. I've just about warmed up now, but the running kit and shoes took some scrubbing outside, I'll say.
