Crossing the Rubicon: Joining a running club

It was a dark and stormy night; lightning periodically broke the skyline against a constant downpour of rain that showered me as I jogged across the park towards the running track. Okay well I am being a little bit dramatic. It wasn’t stormy, rainy and there was certainly no lightning! So I was probably being more than a little bit adventurous with my language. Though I did feel nervous about joining a running club, much like the stereotypical main character entering a forbidden temple or lost civilisation. Was I expecting this club to be something out of Chariots of Fire? I don’t know why I felt nervous about joining a running club. I have joined rugby clubs, a boxing club and been part of fitness classes; so it was not the fear of meeting new people. I think where my nervousness lay is with my anxiety that all that I had believed to be correct with running would turn out to be false or that I was not talented enough to be part of this running club. It is probably a very negative/ cynical view to have of myself. I also find it hard to believe that a club will cater for all abilities. These were just some of the insecurities that I was bringing along to my first track session with this club. At this point you may be thinking, why is this person telling me about how they were feeling? Or why is it such a big deal to join a running club? The simple answer to those questions is that I was joining this club to fulfil a goal I had set myself for running in 2015.

Brighton Marathon 2015: Triumph over adversity

This is my account of the Brighton Marathon 2015.

Sunday morning- 02:00hrs (12^th April).

Things were not going according to how I had envisioned on the morning of my first attempt at running a marathon in under three hours. Below my hotel room was the steady thumping of disco music combined with the cacophony of voices, laughter and cheering from a party that the hotel was hosting. I won’t try to pretend to you that I remained calm. I wished I could say I had, but even my intensive meditation this week could not contain my anger at being placed right above a party. I had even asked the hotel to put us in a quiet room. Things started to deteriorate for me when I started to hear the plumbing from various other rooms. In the end I went down to complain to the duty manager of the hotel; call me a spoil sport but they had a number of  other guests staying who were running the marathon that day and I felt well within my rights. Luckily I managed to squeeze in four hours sleep, but I knew things were not going according to plan. I knew I wasn’t in the right mind set, there was no doubt I was feeling sorry for myself and was very frustrated, but I tried to be positive. I thought about how champion runners would have dealt with the situation and realised they would have got on with the job.

08:35hrs