This week has been a good week because, last weekend was a good weekend. My running club was putting on their annual 10k race and for the first time I entered. I have volunteered and, I have run the course previously but not as part of the event. This year however as the start of my ‘summer of fun’ I decided I would actually run the thing. The sun was shining, all my friends were there, I felt fine, the recipe for a good run was complete. The last 10k race I ran was all the way back in November so I was quite looking forward to a race that would be over in less than an hour. I checked my previous times did a few calculations and worked out a pacing plan to bring me in at an optimistic 47 mins.
On the race day there were pacers running, the poor sods had balloons attached to them and I started out with the aim to stay ahead of the 50min mark, if I fell behind it would have gone tits up. As the race started I could see that the 45 min pacer was not too far ahead. Through the first mile they were still within reach, through the second and third, still there. It’s a two lap race and known for a few hills, particularly one that comes just at the end (and the halfway mark). For some reason I am not bad at hills and it was this that kept the 45min pacer almost within reach. As we came to the end of the 2nd lap though he started to pull away downhill but I was pleased. Having stuck with him for so long I was fairly sure that I had at worst achieved the 47 mins I wanted but had a secret hope it would be closer to 46. As I crossed the line I stopped the Garmin and checked my time 45:22. A PB and a PB by almost 3 minutes. Way beyond expectation and surely a moment for excited grins and jumping up and down etc… Not me though, as a close friend put it I didn’t look
like I had just smashed my PB. I was quite restrained.
I guess I am not a particularly effusive person, and I am also not very good at taking on board good news. I think I am probably better at the bad stuff, it feels more natural. When something good happens I feel a bit like somebody is going to come up and say they have made a mistake, or even worse it was some kind of elaborate prank and that I am now the laughing stock of everyone I know. Paranoia? Not if they really are out to get you. In my head the less enthusiastic I am about my celebrations the less of a twat I will appear when I am told it’s not true. All that said there is a slow burn for me on this stuff and the more time goes by the more I am convinced that I really did take 3 minutes off my 10k time and am just a sniff away from running a sub 45.
That is why it has been a good week. As it has progressed there has been a swell of smug satisfaction within. I find myself driving along with a big grin on my face just thinking about the progress I have made. It seems just an eye blink ago that a sub 50 10k was a major achievement and here I am contemplating signing up for another 10k before the week is out with the expectation that I will be running a sub 45 race.
While being kept warm with this amazing smug joy bubble I thought back to another amazing moment recently. After running my sub 4 marathon I was thrown a surprise party. It was totally unexpected and I was really stunned and touched. I always thought if people were going to plot behind my back they would be planning something devious and unpleasant. I would be caught in a ring of car headlights with my cock in a pigs head like some character from an American teen movie, or David Cameron, but no there are a few people who actually like me. It is that kind of memory that warms 
the cockles of my heart and has made this week a very good week. The one fly in the ointment. Apparently I have a monobrow and need one fuck of a severe grooming. Bastard so called friends. I didn’t realise I was that fugly, still you can’t have everything and, I must have a wonderful personality if they are still prepared to hang out with me.
saulbee 