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Published: January 28th 2009
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Raring to go.
Frustration set in as Ben informed me the knobbly knees contest was last weekend. 07:30am Sunday 25th March 2009
"You got any rizzlas geez?" says the sunglass wearing fella in a hoarse voice that suggests he's made the most of his Saturday night. "Sorry mate, don't smoke" comes my reply. It gets me thinking that my hoodie,beanie hat and tracksuit bottom combo might be giving off the wrong impression of me. (Good thing I decided against the Burberry cap at the last minute before leaving the house!)
Now this probably isn't the typical conversation you'd expect to have on a train with somebody at 07.30am Sunday morning on the way to Dartford. Then I suppose given the choice, most people wouldn't be heading to Dartford at any time of the day, much less 7.30am on a Sunday!
I should probably start at the beginning (It's only an hour earlier after all!).
06:30am Sunday morning. It's still dark, it's raining and a tad on the cold side. To be expected I guess, after all it is January and this is England. I drag my limp and weary backside out of a warm inviting bed and suit up before heading off to the train station.
I'm sure a lot of you will
Surfs Up!
Amongst the professionals and club vest wearing runners, Ben's surf shorts probably gave away the fact that we fitted into neither category. be thinking big deal....'we've all woken up in somebody else's bed and had to duck out a bit early whilst they're still asleep to avoid the difficult morning after!' Well you would be wrong, I'm taking part in a 15 mile run today. The only potentially embarrassing moment I can foresee this morning is if I've forgotten my running shorts and have to attempt the 15 miles in just my skintight spandex cycling style shorts! (fortunately I remembered my running shorts...phew the cycling shorts are definitely not a good look...especially when it's this cold!)
I jump on the train at Waterloo and look forward to waking up slowly and enjoying my coffee in peace of the train. Foolishly I seem to be forgetting that this is London and that the first train of the day from the city is the zombie train. For those of you that have never partied 'til 6am, that basically means that everybody that has, gets on this train to head home after a night out uptown. At best, the most you can generally hope for is that they're so tired the conversation is kept to monosyballic grunts. At worse screams of 'Oi, Oi Dan
we did a spot of black shoe, black shoe....
to see who would go first...being amateurs it soon dawned on us, that as we were both wearing trainers this would be a less than full proof way to decide. (for those of you that never did black shoe black shoe change your shoe at your school, A) you wont get the gag and B) you haven't lived! you Wan**r, come back 'ere you c***!' can be expected.
Most of you are probably aware that I turned 30 in November and up until this morning I didn't think the change of age bracket had made any difference. That is until a group of 5 girls got on the train all in their short skirts and heels with more flesh on display than at your local morgue. Now I'm ashamed to say this gang, but in all honesty, my first thought was 'you lot must be mad! it's freezing and you're all wandering round in next to nothing!' (Obviously that feeling subsided rather quickly and the pervert in me was awaken.....when I say the pervert IN me, I don't mean in a literal sense.) Oh dear god what's happening to me! Earlier this year I actually started wearing pyjamas to bed!! Damn it Darren get a grip of yourself...next thing you know you'll be telling them all about dying those grey hairs of yours.........ooops!
So anyhoo, where was I, Oh yeah....after my brief encounter with rizzla boy, I shut my eyes until I arrived in Dartford. Still half asleep I meet up with my wing man Ben
Ah screw it, Ben drew the short straw.....
and lead the way. I wanted to play Bulldog or Stinger but Ben opted for 'stuck in the mud!' and off we head to Canvey Island in Essex, for the first of our organised training runs. Todays run has been billed as a difficult multi terrain run through the undulating hills of Benfleet.
We start off well enough, but the weather over the last few weeks has been pretty wet, and as you would expect the mud under foot is anything but firm! We're about half way round when I start to think that this is a bit of a foolish run as one of us could easily twist an ankle on this kind of ground! We're about 8 miles in and the ground is really boggy, slippery and uneven, well im ok, my natural sense of balance kicks in 'ahem'...but Ben on the other hand looses his footing, falls and then seems to roll from one side of the track to the other and then somehow back again?! Much to my amusement!
Shortly after that a middle age lady running in front of us trips up on some barbed wire that just happens to be lying about the place....it's around this time you half expect a drill sergeant to jump out of the hedges and start bellowing 'are you eyeballing me son!!'
We head though an unavoidable bog that comes midway up the shins, before running down a hill covered in large pond sized bogs. Well on the approach to a particularly large one, my attempt to leap over it is just about successful....unfortunately Bens is not so good. (Must be all those KFC buckets he's tucking into!) He completely loses his footing and falls in! Whilst he drags himself out of the waist deep muddy water, the fella running behind us cant keep his his chuckles to himself!
We clock a finish time of 2 hrs & 7 minutes, which isn't too bad all things considered! What better way to celebrate than loading up on a hefty feed at the local Harvester!! We might have made pigs of ourselves but then I suppose we are athletes now. That's right....we are athletes. I draw your attention to the Cambridge online definition of the word;
Athlete - a person who is trained or skilled in exercises, sports, or games
requiring physical strength, agility,
or stamina So there.
Next stop Watford...........bet you can't wait.
To read more or sponsor this great cause please check out...
http://www.justgiving.com/3marathonchallenge Oh and apologies for the picture quality...but they were taken on a mobile phone! I'll do better next time I promise.
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