Not a Running Blog

A few days ago I mentioned to my boss, stupidly I might add, that I sometimes go running. Being the kind guy that he is, he invited me to come along with him on one of his runs.

Well I thought because I did 5 weeks of insanity and I lost 1 pound that I am some kind of fitness professional, a superhero whose superpower is the stamina of a horse, Shaun fucking T himself!! Folks, I ashamed. Is all sorts of shame I am ashamed.

He asked me what pace I usually run and I say 10 minutes/mile (which technically I can only do on a seriously good day and after not sleeping very well for the last 3 days, today was not one of those days!). He asked me if I want to try to push it to 9 minutes/mile – I say yes. So he starts to run at that pace and asked me if I find it comfortable – I say yes. He asked me if, in that case, I would like to try the longer route, the 8k instead of the 4k – I fucking said yes!! What on earth  happened to me?! It’s like some alien from planet deluded took over my tongue! The words just came falling out of my mouth before I even had a chance to think about what I am getting myself into!

Now I know 9 minutes/mile is piss for some people but that is some Usain Bolt shit in my world. I mean feel like even Mo Farrah has nothing on me when I am running at that top speed!

We are running and he is having conversation with me, ok. At first I was talking back normal, showing off how he’s not the only one who isn’t out of breath. Well that didn’t last long at all. I starsta to feel like if I open my mouth to answer him, my lungs was going to fly of my throat and hit him in his chest! So my final words to him was to go ahead and I will follow him. Well I never see somebody take off so fast. I mean I blinked and he disappeared.  I check my fitbit, only 2.5km and I want to die already.

I start to panic immediately. I don’t know where the hell I am and my boss’ head is getting smaller and smaller. So I start to pick up speed. At 4km at get an almighty cramp in my calf! To tell you the truth I was glad because I wanted an excuse to stop. I sit down in the road to nurse my calf. By this time the man is long gone, I don’t know where he is and I don’t know where I am but by some luck familiar street signs started to appear after a while.

The embarrassment started to set in good and proper by then, I start to feel anxiety thinking about my boss waiting for me back at the office gym and I’m just wasting his time. I start to imagine him asking himself why de hell he invited that slow as fuck girl with she fat thighs on his run. I start to feel exhausted, like I will die if I take one more step because the second biggest mistake I made, apart from agreeing to this hell run, was to not take my music with me. Running without music is crippling for me but with my stupid self, I thought it would be rude to plug in headphones since you know, I thought I would be keeping up with this 6 foot 4 athletic man!

In the middle of my potential anxiety attack, I look up and see a man on a bicycle coming towards me. It was my boss!! He reached back to the office, had time to get changed, jump on his bike and come back to look for me. Like he thought I was dead somewhere because I was taking so long to get back! Talk about shame!  So I spent the last km running beside his bike, wanting the fitness universe to swallow me up. I told him I will kill him if he tells anyone about this and poor man probably thought I was joking, because he laughed but he shouldn’t really.

So here I am, I’ve been trying to be a not-so-embarrassing runner for 10 years but I’m done. It just not for me, it’s like a bad boyfriend – plenty other types of exercise in the sea, you know?

I am still well and truly one of the head members of the unfit-as-fuck-moms club but I am cool with that.
Baby steps, at least I am trying.

Bless all of you
I out!