COMPO

Channelling Compo off of West Yorkshire’s answer to Top Gear ‘Last of the Summer Wine’ after this morning’s run. Nothing slapstick about another 4 miles under my neatly tied elasticated belt. Nothing quite prepares you for ringing out the sweat from your underwear!  It’s something runners don’t tell people who don’t run. Just another reason to think it’s mental I suppose. That and apparently now I need to wear nipple tape and lubricate in between my legs. Could be worse, I could be an inside runner. I pass a few of these from time to time. An inside runner (for the uneducated) is those pant wetting, lubricated nipple tapers who choose to exert themselves indoors, usually in front of a window. I love passing them in a morning. It feels a bit like they’re at school and you’re in the playground. Don't tell them you can run outside for free. Although having said this there is one brilliant lady who holds on to a running machine. If only there was something for me to hold onto in the street. A bed on wheels perhaps. Turns out there is a Christmas market outside Tate Modern now if you fancy getting smashed on mulled wine and having a butcher's at a Lichtenstein. Jingle!

WHAT I HAVE LEARNT ABOUT RUNNING SO FAR

The binmen resent me. However when I run I have to taste their bins as they speed past me so the feeling is mutual.

I have an embarrassingly poor relationship with a security guard who ignores my advances for a Rocky moment.

I scare homeless people with my panting.

If you run with a bottle of water in your hand you can get away with anything. Although it adds weight.

I can steel part of my day back by getting up early. This stolen day doesn’t require working or texting.

An athlete named Paula did a poo in a marathon.

My leisure pants get heavy when it rains.

My nipples chafe when it rains.

I’m reluctant to have banter with other smug runners.

The skin on my feet is getting tough.

Running with my hair down makes me look like a talentless wizard. 

ROUTE

As an absolute beginner I am pleased to announce that I have already run the 26.3 mile distance of the marathon. It took me seven weeks. Here is my route week eight. 

Just over four miles and I turn a colour Dulux likes to call Raspberry Bellini. It is a combination of routes. I started with a 2.5 mile circle to Blackfriars and then added Tower Bridge. I like this bit as I remember it from watching the marathon on TV in the north of England with a hangover in previous years. When I moved to London a tour guide told me with a cockney droll that it costs £9.50 to commit suicide from the top of that bridge in 2015, a dark humour that tickles me across.

Imagining the poor souls that had to try and attack it, circling around the Tower of London humbles me. Into the moat for you and into the moat for you too. Again and again. That would have been de-motivating. Wheezing past Tate Modern is always a treat. As an artist who dreamt of exhibiting there as a young man and eventually doing so, I like this place. It spurs me on. I once overheard a couple discussing how industrial the TATE looked from outside. Funny that!

KIT

The temptation to ruin people’s mornings with a smug Facebook update or tweet post-run is sometimes overwhelming when the Dolphins kick in. I find that a quick pink faced sweaty selfie is not a bad antidote to this disease. This way I can document my own demise and remind myself of what a mess I have made of my dignity by dressing like a casual gnome. 

The thing about starting to run is that you don’t really have the kit. I mean I have my embarrassing Dad at the zoo trainers. Check. I have my pyjamas, turned puddle catchers. Check. If you look closely at my t-shirt in this image you can see that I sweat in the shape of a wolf. More animal sweat selfies to follow. Not quite as annoying as those images of animals run by people on a map with an app. Not so cool when you are doubling down a cul-de-sac. I do envy the tech runners intravenous music though. What music is good to collapse to?

BANNED WORDS

In order to be able to look myself in the mirror and not be ‘that’ guy here are a list of my banned words. This is an ongoing list and I am open to suggestions.

1.    Jog

2.    Jogging

3.    Jogger

4.    Burn

5.    Treadmill

6.    Carbload

MOTIVATION

Put simply Solace Women's Aid's vision is of a world where women and children live their lives free from domestic and sexual abuse. So that's a no brainer. 

Although no more motivation is required then raising funds for such a great organisation it just so happens that my fiancée is as fit as a flea. Once we went swimming and to be honest I dread the day she looks at me again with those pitying eyes as she did when I clung on for dear life at the shallow end. She is, unsurprisingly, supporting me. 

START

At half past six this dark November morning I had run just over 4 miles. Until October this year I personally would have stopped reading a similar blog by now. These words would be a complete mystery to me. However when meeting a bunch of new people, after a few glasses of wine, I agreed to run the London Marathon. I was charmed by the energy of a new friend who was looking for a runner for her charity. A marathon, it turns out, is ‘only’ twenty six and a point 3 of a mile. I’m an idiot!

Having barely exercised in my life I am not a conventional runner. I favour a pint over a push-up. As a recovering smoker of fifteen years I am also a quitter. Quitting smoking was disappointing as I was good at it. When I smoked running was worse in my book. I wanted a ban of running in public places. For many years passive running affected my enjoyment of a cigarette. Now as an increasingly reluctant athlete there is something lovely about the sneer of a walker. My favourite is the 5am crowd. I relate most of all to this demographic of can- wielding-piss-takers who exclaim into the night articulate utterances like “Bloody jog!” Which is fair enough. Part of me wants to tell them I’m running on poppadoms and pickles, two curries, a side, naan and rice though to save some face, but I’m too busy thickening up my spittle. I wasn’t built for running. At school my medical report read ‘bad feet’ which puzzled everyone as to what it meant, but I now know it means soft blister ridden shoe hands. I am, in more ways than one, a BEAST and this blog is a place where you can map my grumpy, naïve and frank journey to raising lots of lovely money to help those people who face bigger challenges every day.