Life got in the way of a few of my runs in my Couch to 5k odyssey so I’m not going to ‘graduate’ from the program before Edinburgh. I’ll be nearly there though and will definitely keep going while I’m up there. Maybe I’ll run up Arthur’s Seat with Laura egging me on and all the shit Couch to 5k music ringing in my ears as I try to speed away from bad reviews and audience members demanding their money back even though the show was free. But enough about my nightmares…week 7 is here and I’m a serious runner now. I'm Usain Bolt!
Day 1: From now on the program is just blocks of running with no walking intervals to reward me for being such a brave little soldier. A warrior queen if you will. This week I run for 25 minutes 3 times and Laura dives right in there with the suggestion that I change my route to tszuj things up a bit. OK Laura, I will. Decided to turn right out of Wheatfield Way instead of left and loop round when I got to the Waitrose garage. You all know the route I mean, obviously. Anyway, forgot that the road leading up to the Waitrose garage is a steep-as-bastards hill. This made everything very challenging and it was really hot too - what a miserable run! Because it’s Horley and everyone who lives here is the WORST some kids (couldn’t have been more than 12) on bikes cycled towards me and deliberately went really close, with 2 of them gurning in to my face to intimidate me. Coz what a lone 30-year-old runner on Langshott Lane wants to feel is that she’s about to be killed by The Wild Bunch prequel. I felt such an urge to push one over and then run really fast to get away but I knew it would be wrong and the rest would beat me to shit. Also, it wouldn’t be wrong, it would have been great.
Day 2: Goddamn the music in these podcasts is dreadful. I’m starting to lose my patience with it a bit, I want to be running to Sondheim and Schwartz, not whatever this crap is. Week 7 is the worst it’s been. One of the songs sounds like Scouting For Girls wrote a song in 5 minutes and I’ve got to be honest, I’ve never thought they were giving it 100% as it was. “She’s so luvverly, she’s so luvverly, she’s so luvverly, she’s so luvverly” is a chorus that made it in to their biggest hit so you can only imagine what the bilge on Couch To 5K’s Week 7 podcast is like. Anyway, I completed the run.
Day 3: Another bit of music on this week’s podcast sounds like 16-bit shit. I love 90s game music but not all of it and there’s some truly heinous blip-n-bloop tunage giving me GBH of the ears while I run. Today I went to where my mum is housesitting and ran round the fields. For once I wasn’t running alone, I was joined intermittently by 5 Labradors who looked pretty chuffed with my progress. The fields have been carved up by horses so the terrain was pretty uneven and now my right ankle hurts. A running injury! That must make me a proper runner. It feels alright now actually, I think it might have healed already. GO ANKLE!
Now, I have 2 weeks of running left before I complete the Couch To 5K program and that 2 weeks will be taking place at the Edinburgh Fringe, the biggest arts festival in the world. I hope my show is a big success but it’s probable that my running will be the best thing about my fringe performance. And my running is…pretty mediocre. Anyway, hopefully see some of you there. 6th-30th August, 6.20pm, Mash House, Guthrie St (just off Cowgate).