Wow, what a great weekend I’ve had. Do you want to know what I did yesterday? I got up after midday, and I ate some marmite on toast. Then we ordered a pizza and spent several hours boxing each other into unconsciousness on the PS3. I then went to a pub and drank several pints of ale and ate a burger, before going to another pub and drinking some more beer. I then decided I was too fantastic to use buses, and got a cab driver to take me to my front door. When I got in I finished off the last of my cold pizza and collapsed in bed with grease under my finger nails and spent all night farting, burping and snoring like some kind of farm animal with a curly tail.

Although I consider this to be an amazingly successful day, I’ve been thinking of various ways that I can be less like some kind of farm animal with a curly tail.
In some kind of a mist of bravado and good intentions, I have done something really stupid, I have just entered myself for the British 10k London run.

I was never very enthusiastic about PE at school. When we were forced to do cross country running I used to think that all the guys who took it seriously, and tried to win, or beat their last personal best were complete idiots. I’d be walking laps at the back with the asthmatics, under-age smokers and over-eaters. The thing was, I never actually got on with any of them, so as soon as school was back in sight, I’d leg it back to the changing rooms to make it look like I’d at least tried to run some of it, and to dodge coming in last.

Since I started running recreationally about two years ago, I’ve found that it is the sport for me. You don’t have to make a tit out of yourself in front of your team, you can do it all by yourself, a bit like a catholic in confession I suppose.

It doesn’t take place until mid July, so I’ve got about five months to prepare myself. I will be doing this by adhering to a strict regime of not eating pizzas and burgers too much, and walking up the left hand side of escalators. Even the really long ones like in Angel station.

I also have a secret tactic to increase my speed. The day prior to the race, I’m going to smear my entire surface area with Veet hair removal cream, and then scrape every bit of ginger from my body, even my eyelashes. Then, I’ll don a spandex vest and a pair of Speedos to run in. This will decrease my weight, and make me super stream lined. Finally, on the starting line, I’m going to secretly rub Deep Heat onto my scrotum. This will either make me run REALLY fast, or just make my face and head turn burgundy and make me scream a lot. Either way it will have the desired effect of making other runners step aside to let me through.

If any of you would like to come along and heckle me whilst drinking a McDonald’s milk shake, and then laugh at me laying in a broken heap in the road at the finish line, please feel free. Alternatively you could actually join me so that I’ve got someone to shout at, “Wait, I’ve got a stitch, come back, Please don’t leave me here. I’m dying, somebody get me some oxygen and a 15” quatro fromagio!”
HJ