Keep On Running

My love of athletics has been the source of a joke in my family which has been running for as long as I have. Since I was a small child I have had this burning desire to get where I am going as quickly as I can. In my school days I would start at the gate and run to get home as quickly as possible, and would time myself with my (at the time pretty cheap) stopwatch to see how quickly I could do it, endeavouring to beat my record every time. Of course I didn’t manage it every time, but over the course of a couple of years I shaved minutes off the original time.

My parents used to say that when I took my first step I did it from a crouching position and when I made it to the end of the room I celebrated with a lap of honour. In fact after a few drinks they still do say that. They have had cause to say it a few times now at celebratory dinners as I am a member of the town’s athletics club and have won several medals. I started with short distances and then moved up to middle distance running when I realised that it allowed me to keep running for longer. Slowly but surely I worked my way up to marathon running, which is where I seem to have found my level.

I competed in the town’s marathon for the first time five years ago, and in a field of 45 people I finished fourth. Since then I have been practising and improving, and after a silver medal in my second attempt I have taken the gold the last three years. It really is just something I feel like I was born to do. But I almost lost the last time out because I was a little bit slapdash with my preparation. The event was sponsored by a company which makes hydration packs and at set points throughout the race they had tables set out with water bottles to allow the runners to take on fluids. Because I don’t like stopping, I must have passed the first eight of them, and at around the twenty mile mark I started to feel really shaky.

I had a fifteen second lead by this point, and though everyone watching must have felt like I’d got it in the bag, someone watching closely might have seen me looking around desperately for the next water station. The reason is that I knew I’d left it too long between stops, and I was feeling dehydrated. When I finally spotted a table I could not have been more relieved, and I swerved in to take a long, cool drink. Water has never tasted so good to me. I took off running again after dropping the bottle in a roadside receptacle and I actually managed to stretch out my lead to twenty seconds, which is where it was when I crossed the line. I’ll run a lot more marathons in my life, but I will never leave it so long between water breaks.