The Running Man

Oh yeah, and then there was this.

We went to the gym last night for the first time in a week. And I thought..."Fuck it."

I got on the treadmill, fired that puppy up, and started...erm...running.

Now of course way back when I started all this, I said I wouldn't run, because my ankle (which is full of metal), would probably have snapped if I'd pounded pavements with all that weight on it. But since then, it's become something of a goal of mine to run a mile during 2012 without feeling like I'm either dead or wanting to be dead.

So I started running. Pretty much randomised the iPod. I'd like to declare - you've never run until you've run to country-bluegrass versions of hard rock classics (I took a bunch of albums off my brother's iPod recently, and...well, he's at least as weird as I am, so these Hayseed Dixie albums made their way across).

As I pounded the faux-pavement, the gym did its inevitable gym-thing to me - the screen above my head was suddenly full of sweaty, seductive dancing 20-something women, moving like an exercise in erotica...

Nothing wrong with that of course, but when you're a sweaty fat fuck, running endlessly towards them and panting uncontrollably, it tends to make you take a long hard look at yourself and not very much like what you see.
I changed the channel. and suddenly there was a guy on a slab, with a bit gash in his chest, and surgeons jusssst about popping out one of his organs. I blanched as I watched it. Whichever organ it was, the surgeon seemed fascinated by it, squeezing it breifly between his fingers and showing it to the camera. I closed my eyes, and listened to the banjo-heavy version of Queen's "Fat-Bottomed Girls". When I next opened my eyes, another flaw in my plan revealed itself to me.

Being 40.

See, the thing about being 40 is that you will have learned to measure things in Imperial units - to some extent, like your American cousins. Then, at some point long after you had the capacity to go back and re-learn this stuff, as part of a strand of European harmony and homogenisation, the world around you will have changed inexplicably, and started measuring things in Metric units. So while I'm aiming to run a mile, the treadmills that will train you to do such a thing won't tell you they're training you to run a mile. They'll tell you they're training you to run...some inexplicable amount of kilometres.

I wouldn't be able to spot a kilometre if one came up and whacked me in the face. I'd go "What the Hell was that thing? Looked like some bit of a mile..."

I grabbed the heart monitors, and discovered my body-pump was working significantly overtime...which explained the nearly-dead feeling. I went through the 1 km barrier, and had a vague idea that a kilometre was some pussy wuss-ass mile-let. So I pushed on, getting less and less delighted with the experience. I got as far as 1.5 km, and thought to myself "That's got to be enough, surely to any avaailable gods..."
Got off, nearly died, and texted my pal Sian, who runs like it's a fundamental part of what humans are supposed to do every day (she's sick that way).
"How many kilometres to the mile?" I asked, moving my thumbs as they were the only part of me that could move without pain.
"About 2.5" she replied.
"Sonofabitch," I said.
Still, I figured it was a reasonable start.
Then I got home and did a web search.

D;you know how many kilometres make a mile? Do ya? Hmm?

1.freakin' goddamnedsonofabitch-6.
I was 0.1 km away from achieving part 1 (the running of the mile) on my first time out. If I'd known...if I'd only thought a little ahead to work this shit out before going to the gym...I could have survived that tiny bit longer and achieved the mile. I figure from there to not-dying is just a matter of being stupid enough to do it again and again and again. Now I have to do it again to go just halfway...all for the price of 0.1 km.

Bugger....bugger bugger bollocks and damn...