Day 5: E is for Effort, Eternity, Entry and Emotion

After yesterday's dilemma followed by the late run, I was very tardy getting out of bed this morning but the news of England's excellent progress in the cricket spurred me into action and I did myself a deal (a common occurrence when bribing myself to do exercise): If I did 10k in the gym, I could allow myself to drive to work. So I did. And very smug and knackered I feel about it too.  What's better is that having completed that by 9am, if I don't run until Thursday evening I'll have had more than 24 hours "off" giving my sore leggys a bit of recovery time.

Effort: I've noticed a difference between "elite athletes" and us "mere mortals". When we try really hard, we screw our faces up. When they try really hard they just go blank like one of the Stepford Wives or something.  What is it about the last 200m of a run that makes you think that pulling a funny face will make it go any quicker?

Eternity: defined (by me) as the time taken to reach halfway in any run that I do on a treadmill.

Entry - My entry confirmation for Wokingham Half Marathon arrived today.  Usually it is only by entering half marathons that I can force myself to actually get off my fat lardy bottom and do some exercise. It is mainly the fear that motivates me. You see <whispers> I don't actually like running all that much.  There, I said it.  I like stopping quite a lot, and I like the achievement of running, but the actual running part would be a lot better if you could do it on the sofa. Watching an episode of Top Gear. With a glass of Weston's Organic in one hand, and my lovely wife snuggling up to me... perhaps I'd better continue this daydream in my own head for now.

Emotion - As I said above, my main emotion to do with running is fear. Fear of failure, fear of pain, fear of being laughed at, fear of dying from excess lard.

I've never managed to be motivated by: "I'm doing this run for cheridy so why don't you sponsor me?".  The implication being that I'm about to try something that's virtually impossible, and only the thought of the little kiddywinks is what will get me through it.  Now many many people that's true, and it does motivate them, and I have massive respect for everyone who raises money in this way, but for some reason it doesn't get me emotionally. It doesn't help me run because, well, I flatter myself that I'm pretty sure I could walk round if I wanted to - it would just take a long time. I have no disabilities. I'm not (yet) clinically obese, and been at the finishing line and I've seen those people finishing the London Marathon, and frankly they pale any effort that I could do into insignificance.

So it wasn't until this time last year and my (approximately) 8th half marathon (Wokingham again) that I came up with a cunning plan to make Charity and Fear to work together to generate MORE Fear, and therefore work for me emotionally. A very good friend had passed away from Leukemia, so I had a real emotional tie to the Anthony Nolan Trust that I would raise money for, and I had the idea that I would bet people that I could beat my personal best (which stood, at 1hr50mins). The jeopardy came that I wanted them to sponsor me per minute that I could beat it by. And on top of that, I promised that if I didn't beat it, then I would match their sponsorship money per minute that I was slower. Now there's JEOPARDY for you!

The fact I hadn't done ANY training since the previous October didn't bode well.  On the day of the race it was going to cost me more than £100 per minute if I was slower than the best I'd ever been. FEAR FEAR FEAR! And it was raining and cold FEEEEEAAAARRRRR!

The first 10k I was thinking about Trish (this friend that passed away) and got so carried away that I did it in 50 minutes - which is nearly a PB for 10K !!!!  That cost me though, and in the end I only managed to beat my PB by 3 minutes - which I was peed off with at the time, because at halfway I was on for 6 minutes, but now I look back and I'm intensely proud of it because I know I did the absolute best that I could do.  And I raised nearly £1000 for cheridy too.

Janathon Stats:

Today:
Distance: 10km (6.21 miles)   Time: 56:48    Avg Pace: 5:41/km  (9:08/mile)

Overall:
Distance: 36.66km (22.78 miles)    Time: 3:25:59  Avg Pace: 5:37/km (9:03/mile)