For the past couple of weeks the universe has been telling me to run. Only yesterday, I had the line from Pink's Just like a Pill stuck in my head ...."Where I can run, just as fast as I can. To the middle of nowhere, to the middle of my frustrated fears”. I'm reading "Are You There Vodka, it's me Chelsea" and in it she has a chapter about taking a kick boxing class and getting jumped. I get home and my sister asks me to go running with her...The universe is telling me to run!
On Saturday morning, I wake up at 6:40 or 6:50 as the 10 minutes fast clock in my bedroom tells me it is. Not only am I unusually perky because as most people know I am a sour bitch in the morning and only communicate through sign language. I am also in the mood for a run. I brush my teeth and head down stairs to clear all the Randy Newman and Miranda Lambert off my mp3 player and put some stuff I can actually run to. I do a search and find the Workout Mix CD I downloaded the first time the universe asked me to run, I didn't listen that time. I throw in a couple of Bloc Party songs and head out.
I only just stepped outside when I face my first hurdle (i always believed I would have made a great hurdles runner, but my secondary school had no hurdles). I am standing outside with a bottle of water, a huge bunch of keys, phone (to time my run with runstar or to call 999 when I pass out), MP3 player, credit card, cash, Tesco shopping list...how the fuck do other runners manage to go runing with nothing but an MP3 player? I decide to leave my key behind and hide it behind a bottle of water obviously no stranger would pass by and see through the slender see-through bottle.
I hit play on my MP3 player some song I'm too uncool to have ever heard was playing and I run down to flights of stairs. I get downstairs and I feel like my hands are going numb, I'm convinced I'm in the early stages of an heart attack - do I go back home and admit defeat or do I carry on running? I choose the stupid thing to do and run as fast as I can to the middle of my frustrated fears.
I run a couple of yards and I'm smiling, I feel good, I'm grooving along to the music and totally forgotten about the numbness in my hands. I head for a park so I can sit and catch my breath – it is closed, damn! Why do bad things happen to good people like me? I carry on running and I pass by strangers that I totally want to impress with my running, but I am two songs in and frankly I am running out of breath. I am starting to run like an old lady and I could feel people giving me weird looks. I head for a quiet road and stop to "program my runstar and MP 3 player".
Programing my runstar and MP 3 player is what I tell myself I am doing when in fact I'm really having a rest. I stand there and scan through some songs; I am going to stand here for as long as it takes to resume breathing normally. I find that Sonique song at the same time some stranger starts walking towards me - someone new to impress. I start to run as fast as I can...to the bus stop! because my hands are going numb again, I am pretty sure I am having a stroke and a heart attack and I feel like pucking and I have a stitch ...FML, why do bad things happen to good people like me?
I couldn't have timed my dash for the bus stop more wrongly; a bus was heading for the bus stop at the same time and for the first time ever a bus driver stopped for someone running towards it. All I want to do was rest my arse now this driver was waiting for me. Do I look at that bad? I know I can't lift my head and if you look up "flailing" in the dictionary, there would be a picture of me there, but that is kind of cute, right? I briefly consider taking the bus one stop so I'm closer to my house. I decide to sit at the bus stop and the driver gives up and moves.
I sit at the bus stop and this time actually "program my runstar and MP 3 player" apparently, I have been running for 8 minutes - 8 whole fucking minutes! Including all the time I spent earlier "programming my runstar and MP 3 player". I decide to run seriously, I actually program my runstar to use GPS, and all that fancy shit. I put on Bloc Party's Mecury, in retrospect "The Prayer" would have been a better choice .And I start to run, this time is going be the one, I'm going to run like those "other people" with so much focus and determination, I am going to kick arse!
I run right into a man and his yappy little dog! Why do bad things happen to good people like me? The dog chases me for bit, chase is probably an exaggeration, it's short little legs are no match for my old lady running skills and luckily the owner grabbed it just in time for me to realise that I'm lost. I find myself in one of the hackney hipster back streets I normally would not dare to enter. I start to recognise where I am and realise I had driven past there during my driving lessons. I turn left and head for home or Tesco whichever one I get to before my heart gives in.
I stop at a zebra crossing to "program my runstar and MP 3 player". I skip a bunch of sings and find Rihanna's only girl In the World, it is the followed by Salt n Pepa's Push it..."perfect, I'll listen to this as I run towards Tesco".
I run to Tesco and by the time I get there, Rihanna is still playing, I check my time on the Runstar - 5:35, 0.7km. At this point, I am totally delirious and have no idea what this means.
I enter Tesco and Salt and Pepa comes on, I dance to Push it, in the World Food aisle, I do my shopping and leave.
On the way home I convince myself that lifting shopping bags is the same as weight lifting.
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