I ran the seychelles marathon - sort of...

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I was never gonna be a contender but the other one having decided to run 10km in the Seychelles Eco Healing Marathon and get (or wake me) up at 5.30am on a Sunday morning - well, why should he have had all the fun? (some might think that flawed logic I admit). So where in London I'd think myself successful if I dragged my sorry ass out of bed by 10.00, here in the Seychelles by that time I'd have been to the paper shop and back at least 50 times (if there were such things as Sunday papers and paper shops).

7.00am and still rubbing the sleep from my eyes and waking up to the realisation that I was about to run 10km (never before attempted) the starter gun went off, surprisingly on time. Off first were the proper marathon runners, followed by the half marathon-ers followed by 10k runners and 10k walkers.

The race started at Beau Vallon, curved round to Bel Ombre, back to Beau Vallon and then over to the Hilton near Glacis for the 10k. I recall someone saying there weren't many hills- they didn't know what they were talking about clearly. As I was overtaken by small boys who looked about eight, I began to worry. It was time for my secret weapon- my MP3 player.

Originally intended to give me much needed go faster stripes, it seems the MP3 metamorphisized into an instrument of torture exposing fellow runners to a heady mix of bad singing in between ragged attempts to breathe. Still I couldn't hear myself so that was ok.

The first 5km was not too bad, it was the second half, with the sun and humidity increasing that I found difficult. My goal and the other one's was to try and run the whole 10km and not walk at any point, causing the very sensible people walking up the steep hills to look at us with some concern - though I'm not sure at one point a walking becomes a run, my status being indeterminate.

Having turned at the Hilton to head back into Beau Vallon, I did fleetingly enjoy the wonderful views of the coastline before plunging back into the pain of keeping going. The last couple of km I really started to feel it but was determined to sprint last few metres once the finishing line came into sight. Much to my annoyance, having summoned up the energy for an all out burst of running (humour me), some young punk kid just in front of me, about ten years old, saw me and started legging it. She pulled away, too far for me to trip her up dammit, so I had the glory of finishing the race heaving like a knackered thing while the little nipper, barely breaking a sweat, whupped my ass showing how it should be done. Still I made it in 1hr.10 - woo hoo, pat on the back me.

By far the best thing about the run - no not the achievement, the medal or the free t-shirt or even the free Kinder bar afterwards - was stripping down to swimmers, limping down to the beach, washing off the sweat and floating away my aches and pains idling in the Indian Ocean. Nothing beats that.

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