Running scared... of coming last

10:18am Wednesday 2nd April 2008

Comments (4)   Have your say »

MY BOYFRIEND and I are in a bad way at the moment.

Our knees are creaking, we're limping around like geriatrics and have enough niggles in our hips, legs and feet to host a hypochondriac's convention.

We feel like we've run a marathon, but actually it wasn't even close - it was a measly 10km.

I say measly, but lets face it, running 6.6 miles is hardly a walk in the park. In fact, it was a run around Wakefield city centre on Sunday that took me a whole hour and nine minutes to complete.

That was pretty good considering my target was one hour and 15 minutes, but a quick look at the results page this morning revealed I came 1,223rd out of 1,261 runners - not my finest hour (and nine).

My boyfriend, John, did really well; he clocked 55 minutes, while his brother, Alex, managed 46 minutes and Alex's girlfriend, Angela, who had not even done much training, did brilliantly, crossing the line in just over an hour.

The sight of us creeping painfully through the park back to the car was one to behold - especially considering the race statistics.

I'm not a natural runner; I was okay at cross country at school, but then the flat-as-a-pancake fields of Brayton High were hardly an assault course.

A decade of pub runs later and it has taken until now to even contemplate a 10km, but I admit, I thought age was on my side.

The winner of the Wakefield 10K was actually Dominic Bannister, who took only 30 minutes, 51 seconds, beating Matthew Pierson into second place, with a time of 31:21. I can handle being thrashed by seasoned club runners such as them, but by the time I limped over the finish line, eight men aged over 70, two men over 75 and three women over 65 had already won their T-shirts, supped their water and gone home.

Most people accepted their prizes and congratulations with grace - I clamped a hand over my mouth and dashed to the nearest tree. Oh, the elegance.

The shot of me finishing won't take pride of place in the photo albums either - you would think I was being chased by a monster and had run 50-miles barefoot over hot coals to get there.

So why did I put myself through it?

Well, 10km seemed like a natural step up from running Race For Life, which my youngest sister and I did in 2005.

It was only 5km around Knavesmire, but with no training felt like a life sentence.

The next day I was covering the Great Yorkshire Show for The Press and had to actually pick up my aching thighs with my hands to get to the gates - it took an hour!

Back then, the fact my dad had run the Great North Run with bowel cancer kept me moving. If he could run 13 miles with cancer, I could do three when I was healthy.

It also helped when John and I did the 5km fun run in Wakefield last March. After a month of training, I had expected a pleasant jog around the park, but staring up at two huge hills which I was expected to conquer twice was not my idea of fun at all.

This time, the threat of coming last coupled with a full bladder and the promise of toilets at the end was the greatest incentive to finish, with each kilometre a step further to relief.

Since January, I have dragged myself around Roundhay Park three times a week, come rain, gales, hail, snow and very occasionally, shine to prove that I could improve my fitness, finish a run and still smile at the end.

Despite that, Sunday was a long, hard slog, dulled only by my choice of cheesy music (Here Come The Hotstepper by Ini Kamoze, Keep On Moving by Five and Rocky, if you want a giggle) but hey, it was for charity.

It hasn't put me off though. Next year I aim to run all the way without walking and to finish in an hour - and to beat everyone over 60!