Most people plan or prepare or possibly even train for their marathons or half marathons and it’s fair to say this is a pretty fucking excellent idea. So when I signed up for today’s Adelaide Half Marathon at 3pm yesterday, it’s fair to say this was not an excellent idea. But I sort of wanted to run this weekend and was too lazy so figured if I spent a stupid amount of money to go for a run maybe my tight-arse-ness would outweigh my actual arse and laziness and I’d go run. That part of my strategy was at least accurate. Plus, I bought these amazing road shoes right before this Covid Shitfuckery and I’ve never had a chance to show them off so that also seemed like a reasonable reason to sign up and go for a trot.
The start was in the north end of city near Adelaide Oval and because of the Covid staggered starts my start time was quite late which means I had fuck all chance of getting a decent park so I just parked at my office which, although about a 15 minute walk away, had the added bonus of letting me have a sneaky last minute pre-race poo in comfort and privacy rather than in one of the stinky phone booths at the race start where everyone can see how long you’re in there for. I’m not saying I looked at Instagram while I was on the pot but I may have.
The 15 minute walk to the start seemed perfectly reasonable but (spoiler alert) I forgot to factor in wind, elevation, temperature and how fucked I’d be at the end of the race which made it about a 45 minute walk back. I’m dumb as fuck sometimes.
The walk there actually seemed quicker because I bumped in to some random guy on the way and we got talking about prospecting rights and we started by talking about beach weather, then using a metal detector at the beach to find shit and I say to him I’ve always wondered why people keep shit and shouldn’t you give it back and he explains that if it’s got a diamond on it he’d hand it in but if it’s just a gold ring it’s all his and somehow, the way he says it, it makes perfect sense. We then talk about prospecting rights and how the rules are different in SA than NSW and if you find a gold nugget further than three feet or maybe three metres down in NSW then it belongs to the government and actually, fuck that. And I have no idea why this will be relevant to either of us because I’m not about to go prospecting for gold nuggets in NSW and without being too judgmental, I’m not sure he is either. But you never know, because before we went our separate ways he was talking about finding shipwrecks in the bahamas and maybe he’s one of those eccentric treasure hunter millionaires who just looks like a homeless man and come to think of it, maybe that’s what he was thinking about me because I possibly looked like equally stylish.
Eventually I lobbed up to the start line at about 7:40 with plenty of time to scratch my arse and scoff my narny, when I was told to ditch the narny and just start now. So I ditched it in my fucking pie hole, ran to the nearest bin to ditch the peel (let’s call it a warm up) and jumped into the weirdest fucking start chute ever with about seven other people. Because of Covid, runners had to start 10 seconds apart or something and it turns out by the time it was my turn pretty much everyone else had already fucked off, so I waited for the guy to count to ten and off I went.
Usually I get overexcited and take off like a startled rabbit and run a stupidly fast km because the thrill and energy of the start gets to me, but this time without the excitement of a big crowd I took off like a startled rabbit and ran a stupidly fast km anyway. After seeing that was 4:47 which, for someone who should be running about 5:47s, which was absolute insanity, I slowed down a bit, but ain’t optimism and stupidity grand?
It was a warm day and it’s fair to say that by about the 3km mark I looked a little like I’d taken a wrong turn and run through the Torrens River and fuck me did I mention how warm it got? Warm.
Running past the cactus house in the Botanic Gardens and this was right about when I started to feel a bit cactus myself actually.
Given my extensive plan for the race concocted in about eight minutes this morning, I decided I’d just run past the Covid Drink Stations and take my own drins with me which consisted of two of those little belt bottles with some Infinit and a small plastic bottle that I carried and sipped on as I went with a plan to ditch it at about the 5km mark. This worked reasonably well except the sticky drink got all over my hands and insert joke about wanking here.
Because of Covid restrictions all the drink station people had to wear drink masks, and if you transmit Covid from your chin, I’m sure they were all 100% safe. If you can transmit it from your nose or even mouth, then lift your fucking facemasks people! But whatever. I didn’t use the drink stations anyway so hopefully I won’t die. And how good are volunteers though? Answer: Really good. Thanks all.
It pissed me off quite a bit that I kept seeing plastic cups and gel wrappers on the ground so decided to pick them all up as I went so I could bin them but that would have involved actually bending down and picking them up and carrying everyone’s germy fucking cups and gel wrappers and fuck that. So I didn’t. Instead I just got grumpy every time I saw them and what entitled fuckers.
At one point I saw my friend Sarah whose hair was fucking incredible so got my GoPro out as I came up behind her so I could take a photo but at the last minute she zigged to a drink station and we both nearly got killed by a push bike that zoomed right in between us so instead of getting a photo I just yelled a last minute warning to her and what the fuck was that guy even doing? A lot of the time we were running on the Torrens River pathway which isn’t overly wide and wasn’t closed to the public and did I mention there were bikes who instead of having the morning off or fucking off somewhere else decided they should probably just ride through us and I can only imagine what it must be like to be so fucking fast and full of yourself on a push bike that the weight of a fucking bell might make a difference to your time because get a fucking bell people. It’s the law. It’s also just common fucking sense, but nope, these are probably the same kind of people who find the requirement of putting a bell on their fancy bike contradicts the 1948 Universal Charter of Human Rights and fuck them and fuck Karen from Bunnings. Just get a fucking bell.
At about the 14km mark I decide this running thing ain’t much chop so I stop for a bit of a stroll which is actually way more enjoyable so I basically do that on and off for the last 7kms. For most of the second half I play leap frog with a lady from the Whyalla Harriers… and no, not actual leap frog because I can barely lift my own feet let alone jump over an actual person. But I edge in front for a while then she comes trotting past… then I stomp past for a bit… then her… but eventually she breaks clear and although I manage to hang on for a bit, with about 3 or 4 kms she opens up a lead and although I’m sure she’s really lovely, fuck that lady. At the last turnaround point I see her coming down the hill over the Morphett Street Bridge while I’m staggering up it and I seriously consider giving her a hip and shoulder but she’s from Whyalla so we all know that’s gonna go badly for me so instead I just glare at her.
Technically it’s a flat course but by this point I’ve well and truly decided to walk anything that looks remotely uphill, including the speed hump pedestrian crossing outside of Adelaide Oval when I’ve got about 1.5kms to go because technically that’s uphill, right? On the home stretch I pass the big cathedral on the corner and the bells start ringing and I try and think of a joke about dying but honestly, I’m too fucking tired and nothing is really funny anymore. Not even religion.
I eventually cross the finish line, probably ten of 15 minutes slower than what I was hoping for which I had literally zero right to be hoping for given my complete lack of training and preparation, and I take some consolation that at least I have the coolest fucking pair of shoes out there. Then I see Coralie and she’s got cooler shoes than me, and she’s also super lovely, but fuck her for having better shoes than me as well.
So I walk the 45 minute 15 minute walk back to the car with the medal that cost me $110 and think well that was a bit fucked and honestly, sometimes I have no idea why I keep doing this to myself when I could just be out standing still for three hours taking pictures of birds.
