Running reluctantly

I am a runner.

I am a reluctant runner.

Except. Well, maybe that's not true anymore.

A month ago I ran a marathon. I signed for for said ridiculous endeavour in a bid to lose weight. And because my friend Martin ran a marathon and I thought, "well if he can do it, so can I." I mean he bought a pair of proper trainers about two days before the marathon.

And throughout my training, when I bothered doing it, and didn't sack it off in favour of, well, just about anything else, I really didn't love it. I occasionally liked it, mostly it bored me to tears and I usually ended up undoing all the good work by inhaling carbs when I returned.

Unfortunately, during my training my sister got engaged and planned a reasonably quick wedding and asked me to be her bridesmaid. Which means that there's 6 months to her wedding and she made me pick a bridesmaid dress 3 weeks before the marathon. At my thinnest.

So now I have to keep running, else the bloody thing won't zip up and I'll be walking down the aisle behind my sister with my bra on show. They say don't upstage the bride. This is double in the case if my sister, who can throw a mean punch and was always better than me at Judo.

All of which makes me sound like a reluctant runner. But then a funny thing happened. I joined a running club. I've been twice, consecutively, which is a high level of commitment for me. It's fun. Which is not a description I thought I'd use. I've had gaspy conversations about Homeland, Breaking Bad, marathons, trainers, beer and carb loading. And I've been able to run faster than I ever thought possible. In fact last week I averaged 8.54m/m for 6 miles. I used to run 10.13m/m. So I feel good about running. And maybe I'm not so reluctant about it anymore, because I'm pretty sure, on Tuesday night, I'll be wearing my trainers and lining up alongside an army of runners, preparing to run for no reason other than because we can.