If you don’t know already, I am doing the Great North Run this Sunday. This is a long way. A very long way indeed. It’s a half marathon and that’s half a marathon. Don’t go on at me about how it’s ‘half the distance some people do.’ It’s still a lot more than most. Have you ever run that far? You have. Well done you. Stop showing off.
Having been press-ganged, sorry gently persuaded, to do it by Sian from Lunch Monkeys (along with most of the cast) for Alzheimer’s, my initial thought was to just jog/walk it and hope for the best. But panic set in and I have been running. At school I used to hate cross-country. I’d walk until I either spotted Mr Bentley, the sadistic PE teacher, or he spotted me and shouted in a scary fashion until I started sprinting. He seemed to like hiding in the woods in Central Park – I’m not saying that’s dodgy, just suggesting it.
Incidentally Mr Bentley once threatened me with a big metal pole (it was some kind of stand) after catching me throw a snowball. Nothing weird going on, it was winter and it had been snowing. And I hadn’t even thrown it at him, the cruel b*st*rd. I was convinced that there was no way he could hit my arse with it, smashing my pelvic girdle into smithereens. Even back then he would definitely have been suspended. As he ran at me with the pole, I stood firm… well I was bent over, but in a firm fashion. It’s one of my proudest moments. I bravely stuck out my backside – a plucky resistance to the onslaught of fascist PE teachers. He didn’t hit me with the pole. He stopped and I pretended not to heave a sigh of relief.
Then he hit me with a Dunlop Green Flash gym shoe and I cried. The b*st*rd.
But now I don’t need Mr. Bentley. A training schedule sent by the Alzheimer’s Society telling me that I was already 6 weeks behind was enough to shit me right up.
Leaving the house to run in the street is a scary thing. Will people laugh at you for wearing a Plymouth Argyle football shirt? What if you can’t work your ipod while I run and it jumps all over the place? What if you run up a canal that’s through the roughest of rough estates hop-scotching through dog shit in a ridiculous fashion? What if you run another way along the canal and go under a bit where lots of men are just hanging around for some unknown reason? (It did help me achieve a personal best though).
All these things can (and did) happen. At times I felt like Rocky in Rocky. But I’m quite chuffed that I’m running and have already run further than I’ve ever run before. So f*ck you, Mr. Bentley, I won’t run for you (except when you shout at me), but I will run for charity when forced to by a nice person.
On a serious note, please donate whatever you can afford. Many of us have friends or family affected by Alzheimer’s and it is a terrible condition. It is a cause that deserves our support. Thank you.
