Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Hardcore weekends for hardcore people, Vol. I
One day, I'm going to suggest something stupid to Edwin and he's going to say "No, Dan - that's just stupid."
It hasn't happened yet. The last stupid thing I suggested to him was entering this year's Loch Ness Marathon. Ten minutes later, we'd both dropped forty notes and had our race numbers. I just can't wait.
This weekend's stupidity wasn't quite on the same scale, but it was still pretty daft: enter two 10k races. This worked out pretty well as the Saturday one was in Nottingham (handy for Ed) and the Sunday was in Coventry (handy for both of us).
Saturday saw us lining up in glorious sunshine in Cotgrave Country Park for the Paws 10k (raising money for mutts). We overheard one veteran of a previous race discussing the hill with a friend. This seemed rather inauspicious; as I remarked to Edwin, definite article prefixes seldom betoken glad tidings: the clap, the taxman, etc.
Off we went, to slowly fry on a series of slopes. Just before 6km, I rounded a hedge to be confronted with the hill, up which runners in front were struggling or, in several cases, walking. I made it over, although the bench at the top did provide me with a nasty moment of temptation.
I finished a minute or two ahead of Ed, who had, to his credit, also conquered the hill at a run and was a little caustic about some of the quitters:
"I came past these two guys who were just walking up it, chatting about all the running they do! One of them was like 'Oh, yes - I did the kilomathon recently,' and I was like 'Well get a fucking move on then!'"
I fell out of bed feeling pretty stiff on Sunday morning to do the same around the leafy lanes of Coventry in the Northbrook 10k - which, I might add, also had a the hill. Both Ed and I were unsurprisingly a little slower round the course this time.
My running complete, I sped on to my next mission: taking the dad camping / hiking in the Peak District. By this stage, I was a little tired.
It hasn't happened yet. The last stupid thing I suggested to him was entering this year's Loch Ness Marathon. Ten minutes later, we'd both dropped forty notes and had our race numbers. I just can't wait.
This weekend's stupidity wasn't quite on the same scale, but it was still pretty daft: enter two 10k races. This worked out pretty well as the Saturday one was in Nottingham (handy for Ed) and the Sunday was in Coventry (handy for both of us).
Saturday saw us lining up in glorious sunshine in Cotgrave Country Park for the Paws 10k (raising money for mutts). We overheard one veteran of a previous race discussing the hill with a friend. This seemed rather inauspicious; as I remarked to Edwin, definite article prefixes seldom betoken glad tidings: the clap, the taxman, etc.
Off we went, to slowly fry on a series of slopes. Just before 6km, I rounded a hedge to be confronted with the hill, up which runners in front were struggling or, in several cases, walking. I made it over, although the bench at the top did provide me with a nasty moment of temptation.
I finished a minute or two ahead of Ed, who had, to his credit, also conquered the hill at a run and was a little caustic about some of the quitters:
"I came past these two guys who were just walking up it, chatting about all the running they do! One of them was like 'Oh, yes - I did the kilomathon recently,' and I was like 'Well get a fucking move on then!'"
I fell out of bed feeling pretty stiff on Sunday morning to do the same around the leafy lanes of Coventry in the Northbrook 10k - which, I might add, also had a the hill. Both Ed and I were unsurprisingly a little slower round the course this time.
My running complete, I sped on to my next mission: taking the dad camping / hiking in the Peak District. By this stage, I was a little tired.
Labels: COMRADES, SELF IMPROVEMENT
