It all started when we arrived in Florida and the guilt from not running for a month started eating away at me. Literally would have been lovely as it would have gotten rid of those lovely extra kilo's i've been carry consisting of cider, ribs and some interesting take on biltong only the Americans can do, called Jerky. But no, literally was not to be, rather more mentally as I was starting to feel very unfit and rather heavy. So I signed up for a 5km charity run and thought the best way to deal with this guilt would be to tackle it head on by making this 5km run a personal time trial. No easing back into it, no leisurely pace... light a fire cracker and run. Whilst this in not necessarily a very bad idea, it turns out it was maybe not the greatest considering only the day before I had been given a flu shot, a tetnis injection, a TB jab and had copious amounts of my blood removed from my body (only to be replaced by numerous pints of cider) all in the name of immigration.
So you can imagine my surprise when I woke up the day of the run, with the flu! And possibly TB and lock jaw, but who's to say. And to add insult to injury and an already bruised and battered body, faithful Mother Nature had made sure it was a perfect Florida winter's day. A cool 75 degrees fahrenheit with as little possible respite in the form of a breeze as possible! At this point, my confidence in the fact that surely I can run 5kms, had disappeared. Along with any possibility of escaping the madness as I was already standing in the 25 line deep masses to begin.
An interesting fact to note quickly before I continue my tirade is, that in America before each race they actually semi seed you into groups. 5 minute milers (WTF) up ahead and so on. So carefully placed at the back of the bunch, already losing half my body weight in fluid, we began! AAAHHH! seriously, what have I done!!! It's boiling, my limbs feel like lead and the small amount of oxygen I may be able to inhale is being used to try and rid my system of the germs given to me the previous day. Not good when you're trying to set a pace for a time trial! To say it was an uncomfortable run would be to compare having an anvil dropped on your head as having a mild headache. It was torture! But I suppose time trials usually are!
24 minutes and 33 seconds later I found a little peice of heaven. The finish line, some juice and a small patch of grass I could lie and write my last will and testament (assuming I could open my eyes). It was over, and by george I have never been so happy to see the end of a run. You know your fitness has taken an island holiday millions if miles away from you when 5kms becomes your conquering Mount Everest. However, slowly but surely I regained my personality and blood supply to all limbs and smiled. At least I finished in under 30 minutes. I'm pretty sure my running family would have disowned me if this wasn't the case :-)
As it turns out, finishing wasn't even the best part. I won a prize. I know, I also fell over when I heard... but it's true. It true American style, I was awarded a 3rd place win for my age group, and the leader was only 8 seconds in front of me! And the prize... A Pint Glass! I'm starting to like America more and more! So with my new found love of winning... I mean running... I have studeously kept up the training thus far and even thrown in a bit of cycling for good measure. (Yes, Thunder, our building does have one of those bikes you can sit on and read your book). But hey... it's a start!
