28 Days of Pain - Day Ten

By Jamie Hill

Reasons to lose weight #672 - to stop showing up on radar.

I nearly fell over a homeless person in a sleeping bag today. He, or she, was sleeping in a sheltered bit at the bottom of The Slippery Slope where The Common meets the road towards Rockley.

The homeless person was right in the middle of the path and I had to do a skip dance over the top of the sleeping bag shaped form to avoid landing on top of him or her. This person probably isn't having the best time of it at the moment and has been reduced to sleeping in hedgerows. The last thing they want is a 17stone sweaty piece of lard landing on top of them at 7.30am.

I was doing five kilometres again today so for the next two and a half kilometres in the field I was searching my conscience as to what to do about the homeless person. Part of me wanted to take the person back to my house with me for a nice cup of tea and a hot shower. The other really horrible part was thinking 'what if it's an axe murderer!!'.

I can just imagine Rachel, my wife's reaction, if I had done the former and brought the homeless person back with me. I would have introduced her to Boris (in my head he's a Soviet dissident who has escaped Putin's latest state crackdown) and all hell would have broken loose. I think Boris would have ended up with a sleeping buddy tonight in the shape of me. It's not that Rachel is mean, it's just that with two young children, bringing a stranger back to the house might not have been the most sensible idea that I've ever had.

So like every other person in the western world I decided to do nothing about the homeless person. In fact on my return journey to The Common I got quite nervous as I approached the area where the sleeping form had been. What if my huffing and puffing going past Boris fifteen minutes before had woken him up? What if Boris wasn't happy about being woken up? What if he had an axe?

Obviously he didn't have an axe. These unfounded generalisations of the unknown cause a lot more damage than good in our society. But I can't help the fact that the thoughts crossed my mind. Boris was still wrapped up tight in his sleeping bag when I ran guiltily past. I was kind of tiptoe running so as not to wake him or fall over him.

As I've already mentioned I ran five kilometres today. This week I've upped my distance by a kilometre as I'm very aware that I've got the 10km challenge looming in just three weeks time.

I didn't find it easy at all. This is only half the distance that I've got to eventually run and it did not feel natural at all. There were stitches galore. A veritable smorgasbord of leg aches. And more sweatiness than in a Turkish Hamaan an hour before the call to prayer.

For the last kilometre and a half back across the common towards home, it felt like I was running in a dream. I felt so light headed that it was all I could do to concentrate putting one foot in front of the other.

I still feel light-headed now. An hour and a half after returning.

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Only 18 days to go until my 10,000 metre killathon!