Muddy socks

Official time: 00:32:07.
And no, I am not talking about the ‘Fit at 40: 32 Minute Advanced Workout’ or the 32 Minute Messenger Bag Tutorial from ‘The Diary of a Quilter: the confessions and obsessions of a stay-at-home quilter’. I am, in fact, talking about my time for running the JP Morgan Challenge last night.


Not bad considering:

• I was soaked to the bone from standing in the pouring rain at the start.

• I had to run through someone’s flower bed.

• I had to jump over several garden gnomes and,

• I ‘dodged, dipped, ducked, dived and dodged’ through hordes of people who all started the race in the sub-20 seed although it was pretty obvious that they had never seen a pair of running shoes, let alone run a road race in under 4 minutes a kilometer.

To those people I say this: Either shape up, buy yourself a decent pair of running shoes and actually DO some running or be a little more considerate and stand where you are supposed to – in the 40 to 50 minute seed.

My Purple Nikes are no longer purple, but now have a lovely reddish-brown hue to them thanks to the selfishes (a selfish person who is similar to a shelfish i.e. no backbone or brain) whom I had to leap onto pavements and trudge through mud pools for. P.S. You selfishes owe me a pair of Puma socks since mine are slpattered with enough earth to build an apartment garden. Okay? Lovely.

Nom nom nom

I have a bit of a morbid fascination with gyms. They are strange places and they seem to attract some very interesting stereotypes. It makes me wonder whether gyms buy the stereotypes online and have them delivered in little labeled boxes. Let me illustrate:


Body Nazi’s:

This package includes tribal tattoos, bulging biceps and tiny calves, army haircut, visible scars, skin-tight gym shirt or vest, golden-orange skin and a heavy southern accent. Known to use at least one of the following words after every sentence: ‘boet’, ‘bra’ (as in brother and not as in the underwire garment), ‘right hey’ or ‘shweet’.

Desperate housewives:

Includes fake boobs, pink lip-gloss, frilly bra, tight gym pants with matching low-cut top and towel and bleach blonde or dyed black hair. This package comes doused in perfume and is often seen hanging around the water cooler or weights section. Been known to dig her manicured nails into innocent young boys and beefy, body Nazi’s if given half a chance.

Peacocks:

Includes a majority of the items in the desperate housewife package except these girls are half their age, don’t smile, never seem to break a sweat and never leave the cardio or mat sections. Looking good is top priority and therefore doing something which expends energy at gym jeopardizes this. These girls are on ‘display’ and therefore come fully clad in all the latest gym kit with matching I-pod.

Salmon:

These guys spend their entire life in the gym working out until they are pink-in-the-face and exhausted. Ultimately, they get screwed in the end with a fairly tragic outcome - they never get any bigger.

Elephants:

Usually pair up with the Body Nazi’s or are found in pairs. These guys barge in, make a lot of noise, drop weights on the floor and broadcast to the entire gym in their trumpeting voice how many weights they can lift. These packages move through the weights section leaving devastation and sweat patches in their wake.

Tourists:

People who attend one class, once a week, pretend that they are practically dying in the class and leave half an hour before the class ends. Usually overweight, wear tight Lycra leggings and large baggy t-shirts.

Yuppie schoolboys:

Vest or t-shirt, shorts, sneakers, protein shake and I-pod. Always found in the weights section, usually in pairs. Aim to lift the heaviest weights possible in order to catch the eye of a Skinny, no-fun package as she walks past.

I am not sure what I would define myself as. Definitely not any of the stereotypes above. I always wondered how girls looked so perfect at gym because I look more like a blushing beetroot after a work-out. I suppose I could categorise myself as a hamster. I am the type of person who goes to gym to run on the hamster wheel, just so that I can go home and stuff my pouches with delicious food and not feel guilty! Running on a treadmill is the most mind numbing exercise, but when you can’t get out of your cage to run on the road, what else is there to do? :)

How not to run 5km

Secret confession: I run because I have to.

I am not going to sit here and tell you that running changed my life, or that for those 30 minutes or so on the road, I feel free. Nope. Perhaps, you would disagree with me if you like the idea of cars full of young testosterone-injected students whistling and hooting at you, or being attacked by swarms of miggies (tiny fly-jobs that lodge themselves in your nostrils or the back of your throat when attempting to breathe). So to be blatantly honest, I run 5-6 km on average and I try to get it over with as soon as is femininely possible – I say femininely because I was once told I look like a giraffe on steroids when I am running and since then I have attempted to shorten my stride length to look more like a female. But, and this is a big resounding but, on some occasions, running feels…great. It’s addictive. If I don’t run at least three times a week, I struggle to sleep, I eat whatever edible thing I can find in the fridge and I feel like a puff adder – fat, lazy and ready to strike at anything that moves.

So, shortly after moving into my new apartment, I decided to go for a little 4km jog to check out the area and hopefully learn the back roads to beat the morning traffic. I asked my flat mate, to tell me her 4km route, which she dutifully did.

Unfortunately, I did not listen and the leisurely 4km run turned into a 6km run-walk, to be known from here on as the '6km Run of Death'. Now I know what you are thinking. "6km is manageable" and "2km is not that much more". To both of these responses I would say "yes I agree", except that I was completely unprepared for the 'Extra 2km of Death'.

I was buggered, to say the least, when I arrived back home, gasping for air and sweating like a foot in a plastic shoe. I threw down my iPod, smashed two glasses of Oros, choking and spluttering because I was still sucking air like an acute asthmatic and vowed never to run in my area again…and then ran the same route the following day. So there it is. Running is addictive and it feels incredible when the routes you initially found so tough start to get easier.

Here is some practical advice from my own personal experience in my purple Nike’s:

I. Measure your routes and don’t take to the road willy-nilly or wear a watch and time how long you have been on the road for so you have an idea of your distance. You are not Bruce Fordyce (but if you are then I would like to take this opportunity to say hi and tell you what a huge fan of your work I am sir), so unless you are training for Comrades, keep to your target distances and times.

II. Don’t run faster when cars full of young talent are approaching and then slow down when they pass you. Firstly, this can be extremely tiring and secondly, nobody is really looking at your running style or speed. They simply want to check out your bum.

III. Carry tissues in the little pouch they sometimes put on the inside of your running shorts (I am convinced that’s what it’s for). Your nose will inevitably run or you will need to do some heavy trumpeting to get those delightful little flying jobs out of your nasal passages.

IV. Run with someone a little more experienced than you are, but at your pace. You have two options for this. A) Run with someone hotter than you. This obviously has advantages and disadvantages. The advantages are that if they run ahead of you, you get to watch and you will also try to push yourself a bit harder because you don’t want to look like a moron. The disadvantage is that they will probably see you at your worst – red faced and smelling a little funky. B) Run with someone who really encourages you and has your best interests at heart (alternatively someone who is not as hot as you). This way, you can exert yourself, push a bead or two and still take comfort in the fact that your running partner will not suddenly leave you in a cloud of dust when the inevitable car full of young talent approaches.

V. If you are one of those people (like me) who doesn’t usually (ever) spit, don’t attempt to do this while running. The odds are against you…seriously. I tried, I failed, and it landed on my left shoe.