Don't Worry, Be Happy!

Goat Milk, Woohoooo!!!!!
Honestly, I don't get nervous about the run until I read some of your blogs. What can I say, I'm a sympathetic worrier. Oh well.
And now for your reading pleasure, a tiny excerpt from the book I've been reading called: The Looniness of the Long Distance Runner: An unfit Londoner's attempt to run the New York City Marathon from scratch. Here, he is running his first half marathon.

The first couple of minutes of a large road race like this are by far the most dangerous part. You have 1600 competitors, in cramped conditions under which it would be illegal to transport cattle, all suddenly attempting to run with different degrees of physical co-ordination while simultaneously waving to watching friends. If you can avoid being tripped up, body-checked or smacked in the side of the head at this stage, the remaining umpteen miles seem a doddle.

At three miles we come to the first water point. Trestle tables have been set out by the roadside and teams of frantic volunteers are doling out drinks in plastic cups. It resembles a game from It's a Knockout with water being slopped all over the tables and road in the panic to shove it out quickly enough. ...I am badly overheating so I help myself to two cups which I drain as best as possible on the move and end up spilling most of the few feeble fluid ounces down my shirt. Almost immediately, external refreshment arrives in the form of rain. The last person who was grateful for a sudden downpour was probably Noah who stood to look pretty foolish otherwise.

Four miles now and I am getting serious pain from my right knee. Typical. It is my left knee that has been giving me problems and now the one which has behaved impeccably throughout my training buckles at the first hurdle...My body is like the English cricket team - there is no single individual part of it that can be relied upon.

By mile six, I am feeling seriously dehydrated. Then suddenly a sign blissfully informs us that a drink station is 100 metres away. The next sign says it is two hundred metres away. What is going on? Are we all running in the wrong direction? Then another sign: Drinks 100m- clearly we are now going around in circles. I continue in confusion. Several hundred metres later there are still no drinks. Are these signs mirages conjured up by my oxygen-starved brain or has someone borrowed my pedometer to measure the distances? Finally the welcome roadside tables appear in the distance up ahead. A drinks station, apart from the finishing line, is the finest sight in a race. It is also highly dangerous as for the next 200 metres the road is covered in discarded plastic cups and sponges. To compound the hazard a well-meaning woman is handing out bananas. Okay, I know Linford Christie swears by them as a quick energy boost, but the prospect of having runners in front tossing banana skins under my feet on an already rain-slippery surface does not appeal.

With two miles to go I have now reached my decision point. So far I have been averaging eight-minute miles. Do I up my pace and put on a bit of a finish? As this is by far the longest distance I have ever run I am not sure of available energy reserves. ...if I were my CD Discman, the little battery symbol on my display woud be flashing urgently right now. ...this is the one time in the race worthy of trying to put on a show, with camcorders and loved-ones packed by the roadside... . I descreetly enquire of my body whether there is any possibility of a little more productivity, only to be turned down flatly... "His tank's empty. There's nothing there." I cross the line at 1:44:33.
I walk to the Pub where I have arranged to meet...friends...and sit down. This is one of the most blissful experiences of my life. ...you've probably sat down several dozen times today - but let me tell you, you haven't sat down until you've run 13 miles and then sat down! I've never taken heroin, but it cannot be much better than this.


Now, there won't be 1600 people at the Goat Milk, so fear not. And I doubt we'll have any kind of problems like this guy did. But isn't it great to read of someone else's experience who has already ran a half marathon? It cracked me up. I look forward to seeing all of you on Saturday and experiencing this adventure with you. And sitting down with you after! Rest up - we're in this one for the long haul, Ladies and Gents!!!!