You can tell that Nick and Daren spent many formative years running together because they both bound along, almost playfully, when they run with me. There is more than a hint of reserve energy that can be turned on, in Nick’s case particularly, the moment there is the merest hint of competition. Is this man competitive? Nah, not much!
In trying to describe his running style, we started thinking along the lines of a deer, maybe Bambi, but he’s not that uncoordinated; he certainly has the energy of a big puppy, but he doesn’t slobber so that’s not right; we decided that he’s a little like a lamb when he gambols (a good reason not to gamble in my opinion) but they’s mighty big gambols for a tiny lickle lamb. The closest so far I think (other suggestions welcome) is a Springbok, with it’s endless energy and fast changes of direction.
All of which neatly segways into why I’m so knackered again this morning, which is that I went for a run with Nick!
The morning started darn early and even the sun wasn’t out of bed when the coffee pot went on. How did I ever get up far earlier than this for so many years?! Fortunately the overnight cloud cover had sent the hard frost packing, so the twelve layers of thermal clothing set out ready were not to be required.
Now, having worked with thousands of field staff over the years, I am seldom stunned by the creativity of the excuses that people give when pitching up late or not at all so when Nick called aroundabout sunrise with some c&b story about a flat battery on his van, I knew he was just getting out of bed and that I was lucky that he was phoning, let alone going to turn up.
He duly arrived and what did stun me was that he had actually remembered to charge his watch – though why he actually did this twice I didn’t manage to get to the bottom of. And duh!, was the van really the best place to charge it from?
We eventually set off and within minutes I was out of breath and realising that I should have started at the correct time and let him catch up. Have you ever tried keeping up with a gambling springbok? Normally we have a nice even-tempo chat as we enjoy the fresh air, but today my
sentences
were
truncated by
big
gasping breaths!
The going was quite firm and though my hands were pretty cold, two layers were actually sufficient, me having been persuaded to leave a third behind on threat of being called a wuss!
I tried to outrun the ‘bok on three occasions, all fruitlessly, and the van-powered watch recorded a fastest sprint time equivalent to a 4 minute 35 second mile… although whichever occasion that was, it was nowhere near a mile and was followed by an increasingly long recovery time whilst trying to stave off the nauseous feeling in my stomach!
I am quite pleased that the heart-rate element of the Swiss-army watch beeped on two occasions to warn of impending heart failure… and relieved that I wan’t wearing one because I’m sure the constant beeping would have drained the battery.
So, 6.67 miles were covered according to the on-board satellite navigation department in just under 58 minutes which I make to be an average speed of 6.97mph.
Keep that up on Sunday and I’ll come in at 1 hour 52 minutes… on a stretcher, of course as it’s twice as far! Definitely three of us joining Kurt (and 1,300 other folk) at the start line and I hear tell that Cliff may be persuaded to grace us with his presence too. Anyone else not got a good excuse?
Lambkins – Anagram of:
Niks Lamb!
Disappointed that you felt the run was hard work, as I am sure I recall following YOU most of the way round! Topic of conversation was heavy too, so my jaw ached more than my legs for the rest of the day. I think we covered plenty over the course of our 6.67 miles at 183bpm… see you next week – no campervan this time!