Canadians look at you aghast when you say ‘who’s Terry Fox’. It seems he was a cancer victim and amputee who decided to run the breadth of Canada on his one good leg and one artificial leg to raise awareness of the disease. I guess each nation has someone like Terry Fox and Jane Tomlinson springs to mind as the UK’s equivalent. Every year there are numerous Terry Fox runs throughout Canada, and anywhere that there are large numbers of Canadians; hence this morning’s run in Kandahar.
The whole point of the run is that it is non-competitive. There are no numbers, no finish times and no results. There was however a choice of 5k or 10k races, sorry runs. Obviously I wasn’t going to get out of bed at 0515 for a 5k so 10k it was. The Canadian physical training instructors treated us to a truly cringeworthy warm up routine, complete with Eye of The Tiger backing track. The great British reserve prevented me from getting too enthusiastic although it did make me recall a similarly embarrassing Mr Motivator at the start of the Great North Run many moons ago. My training partner Jem, a dentist from Leeming, got a much better start than me but the route (round the airfield to a halfway point and then double back, as always) was poorly marshaled and his group turned too early. So although he beat me (remember Gus, it is non-competitive) I was able to give him a hard time for cheating, and on a charity run of all things. Shameful.
That is now 3 races completed in eleven days: one 10k, one 10 miler and one half marathon. And boy-oh-boy is the scenery getting repetitive. Still, I have a couple of weeks’ leave starting on Monday so I shall be back in Yorkshire and hopefully out training with you all next Thursday evening. If I do not make it there then I have entered the Pickering 10. Having not seen a gradient of more than 1% or any mud for a long time I am not going to run with any great expectations, but it will be good to catch up with friends again.
Finally for the coaches and training gurus amongst you, ‘does 4 months without alcohol improve your running performance’? Buy me a beer at the Galtres Centre after training and I am prepared to discuss my findings with you. I am ready for it.
All the best
Gus
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