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Running down the drain

Running for My Life A blog by Jamie Hill

Jamie is running the Birmingham Marathon for ICP Support on October 15. Here’s his weekly blog about his exploits…

I’ve shaved. That might not be the most significant bit of news for the vast majority of the known universe (unless you’re one of those shaving fetish people that the Daily Mail keeps going on about) but to me it’s very significant. It marks a milestone. Back in March, I shaved my beard off so that I could frolic about at a Sci-fi convention as Agent K from Men in Black (don’t question me on this as it’s just something I do sometimes. I like to get dressed as 90s sci-fi characters at weekends. So what?). Anyway, I instantly looked younger without my grey beard. About 10 years younger. But I also looked fatter as the reason for me growing the beard in the first place became very apparent - my multitude of chins. So I made myself a promise. Back then I weighed nearly 18 stone and I said to myself then that I would not shave and brave my chins to the world until I’d reached the hallowed weight of 16 and a half stone. I reached it this week and so I shaved. It’s the longer runs that did it. I had given up on weight loss after losing about a stone as my weight became more stubborn than a mule. And then as my longer runs kicked in, the weight started to drop away again. At the start of the year I weighed 18 stone 4 pounds and at my last weigh-in yesterday I weighed 16 stone 6 pounds. That’s a loss of 26 pounds. So I can show my face again. Literally. This week was hard as I ended up doing two long runs. A 14 mile run on Wednesday evening and a 15 mile run on Sunday morning. The two long runs in one week thing was to give me a long enough cushion at the end of the training between my longest training run of 22 miles and the marathon itself on October 15. So this week nearly killed me. I could hardly move on Thursday and Friday, when I did a three miler to try and loosen me up, started to feel normal again on Saturday and then tried to kill myself again with a 15 mile run on the Sunday. But I completed them both. Although yesterday’s run was the hardest one I have ever done. After 10 miles I just wanted to stop. But I was five miles from home so if I stopped I would still have to somehow travel another five miles or I would never get home so I had to keep going. It seemed to me like my running was just mechanical and every step became an effort. A Herculean task to just move my legs who were constantly screaming at me: “Why are you doing this? Why on earth are you putting us through so much pain?” I’ve come to the conclusion that running over a certain distance is just a bit silly. Why would you do this out of choice? I found myself cursing my wife at times. She was meant to be doing this with me. I’m only doing it because of her. When I agreed to this, it was meant to be something we did together. I wouldn’t have volunteered just by myself. But then, having amazingly done the Brighton Marathon last year, she told me that she really couldn’t face it. Fair enough really. (And I couldn’t be more proud of her for doing the Brighton Marathon) But that left me staring down the barrel of not being able to find a plausible excuse to be able to get out of it. So, very irrationally, as I run I’m blaming her. Very unfairly too as I’m an adult and could have pulled out at any point. But, that’s the point, I don’t really want to stop doing this. In my head I’ve come this far. Something that I never thought I would be able to do so I might as well get on with it and man up. It’s just when I’m running and in pain, reason seems to go out the window. In reality, I’m very grateful to Rachel, my wife, for making me do this. Making me do something I never thought I would do. This week should be a bit easier as I’m only doing one ‘long’ run. On Wednesday I’ll be doing a three miler to loosen the muscles. This will be followed by another three miles on Friday to build pace and then on Sunday I’ll be running 16 miles. Anyway, you can now sponsor me. And it really does help as each bit of sponsorship is another nail in the coffin of the fact that I’ve got to do this no matter what. It’s something that helps me in those moments when I’ve got sweat pouring down my face like my forehead has burst a leak and my whole body is screaming at me to stop. So please, please sponsor me… www.justgiving.com/fundraising/james-hill36