unironedman

IN WHICH WE NEARLY TEMPT FATE, BUT THEN REMEMBER THAT TEMPTING FATE IS USUALLY A BAD THING AND THEN DECIDE NOT TO TEMPT FATE…

The second full week of work has drawn to a close, and a few observations spring to mind. Firstly, I haven’t been doing those sort of hours since I worked on a building site with my Dad many moons ago. How many moons, you ask? I cannot say, without taking a long break from this blog post and researching all the details. Let’s say about 400 moons, okay? Secondly, nobody really cares, which is fine. Most normal folk work long hours, and in my case, we close about 4 on a Saturday and I have Mondays off, so the weekend really feels like a weekend.

And thirdly, when you are busy, you tend to cram more into the week. Or at least you try. The gym is the main victim of this when times are tight, but the running has stayed steady at three per week, and that’s largely down to two things: Gary very kindly puts up a Garmin challenge each week for the three of us (myself, Gary and JC, who is abroad), so that keeps us all honest. And of course, there is the added element of competition when your phone bings to let you know that JC has just passed you out and is now top of the leaderboard. (Look, I’m just not that competitive. The fact that I have won the first two challenges is entirely coincidental and irrelevant…).

The other factor for keeping true to the running schedule is fear. Fear of arriving at the start line undercooked. Or even overcooked, I suppose, which is unlikely. But mostly, yes; the fear of not having enough in the tank to manage the forty odd miles.

As the job entails quite a bit of physical work and we have a large upstairs area, I get quite a bit of exercise during the day. So it’s like a gym workout, with all that lifting, carrying and stairs. No further questions.

During the week, I managed my Tuesday run without too many problems, but it was a modest 9k. Thursday arrived, and family matters took priority, as they should. It meant my Thursday run was now my Friday run, which meant no gym that evening, which in the general scheme of things, was fine by me.

Friday evening arrived and I headed off into the gloom. My plan was to skirt around the park first by taking in the dam, which is a pleasant enough detour, albeit a little tricky when the light is dropping. Safely out of that, I took in the park, and then thought I’d head out up to the canal. Schoolboy error. It had been lashing rain all day, and the towpath was lethal. I did about fifty yards, and turned tail. This added about 11.7k to the week’s total, which Gary had set at 45k. This would mean about 25k would be required to save face.

Saturday was a day for both work and rugby, and I managed to catch a fair bit of the Ireland game in the shop. Nervy stuff, but we managed the win. Then Scotland nearly pulled off another Calcutta Cup win but fell at the final hurdle.

We had a lovely Sunday brunch with Tamsyn as the rain poured down outside once more. With mucky, soul-sucking towpath memories still fresh in my mind, I had engineered a different route that would avoid those unpleasantries. I also toyed with the idea of writing a blog post BEFORE the actual run, in which I would detail the route I would take, and how it would go, etc. I was killing time and waiting for the rain to stop. But then I had a little twinge. Not a runner’s twinge like a mild hamstring, but a deeper, more metaphysical twinge. The one that says ‘are you really going to tempt fate like that? I mean, REALLY?’

Waiting for the rain to ease was going to be a frustrating job, so I just decided I would record the France/Italy game and head out at 3pm, regardless. Any later, and I would be ending a long run in the dark. To lift the mood a little, I raided my recently-acquired goodie-bag from Decathlon. Christmas gifts from the family had included very generous gift vouchers for this superstore, and I had held off for nearly two months. By my standards, that shows remarkable restraint.

Of course, I had gone over budget by the time I reached the checkout, but I was loaded up with all sorts of useful bits and bobs. For the run that morning, I donned a new running cap, shorts and running top, applied new anti-chafing cream to the parts that needed it, and popped a few new gels into the pocket of the hydration vest (also from Decathlon!). I’m sure my sponsorship deal is mere weeks away…

I’m sure I looked well smart as I left my house. The weather, on the other hand, just laughed. It laughed so hard that it wept giants tears of heavy rain. After about two measly kilometres, I took mostly pointless shelter beside a holly tree on the top path in the woods of the park overlooking the river. With little growth on the trees, the rain had few obstacles. Except an under-dressed runner, of course. I’m sure I could hear the wind laughing as it drove the rain into me.

It eased, and I pushed on. A few minutes later, having successfully lured me out of my skimpy shelter, it reopened the floodgates. I took shelter under a beech tree, but the water was pouring in from every angle. Biblical. Epic. Wet.

It eased, and I figured third time was a charm, and I pushed on. Another two kilometres or so, and once more, the impish gods sent another wave of water my direction. This time, I found a large covered sign for shelter which perhaps was enough to send them off looking for other victims. Who knows. Perhaps it was just the park? As the rain eased, I left the park and moved along into Lucan along by the golf course. Here the greatest danger was getting engulfed by puddle waves from passing motorists. Luckily enough, I dodged this bullet, though I am not sure there was much left to soak.

As I reached Tubber Lane, it started to brighten up and as I reached about ten kilometres into my own personal odyssey, nothing short of a miracle happened; the sun came out!

I would normally turn right at the junction at Stacumney and head back towards Leixlip. Perhaps I might take in Castletown Demesne. But that was all for later. I pushed on towards Hazelhatch on a road I know but had never run on before. I reached the train station and headed back towards Celbridge village, stopping at the Costa café to use their facilities. They very kindly gave this drowned rat the door combination for the toilets.

Castletown Demesne was next, and I jogged along beside the Liffey once more. Earlier in the run, in the park, I had briefly considered jumping into the river to get out of the rain. Now, with a little heat from both inside and out, the clothing was soggy but bearable. Now the trick was to make sure the relevant mileage was achieved. A mild panic gripped me as I reached Louisa Bridge in Leixlip. Rough calculations here suggested a straight run home would leave me short, so I added on a little more distance by turning left and heading out past my new place of work before doubling back along the canal and taking in the only local stretch available to me that isn’t either closed for towpath renovation, or still awaiting attention and therefore un-runnable on days like today.

The watch was still beeping every kilometre, but it was tucked up under my long-sleeved top, and these days I also need to fish out glasses from a pocket of the vest to read the dial, so I wasn’t sure where I was in terms of distance. A few hundred yards from my door, I thought I had best check in case I needed yet another detour. I was at 27k and had overshot the runway. No harm.

I watched a ferocious French team dismantle the plucky Italians, which makes me fear for next week’s encounter in Dublin. Could be the game of the tournament. Then shower, change and dinner.

(The fun aspect to the penguin gag is that my brother did a short stint with the British Antarctic Survey once upon a time. No idea how many penguins he surveyed…)