For those of you who don't know what the fuck I'm on about yet, I spend my Friday night marshalling at Mud Crew's Arc of Attrition; a 100 mile foot race along the Cornish Coast path, from Coverack to Porthtowan. Yep. 100 miles. Makes my ACC adventure look like the Race For Life.
Now, I am not the sanest person I know. I'm pretty accepting of weirdness. But to run 100 miles in one go takes a special kind of crazy. In no other situation could you expect to encounter bright orange board shorts, trench foot and a man known only as Papa Ferret all in the same place, without anyone batting an eyelid. But encounter them I did and, despite the complete mentalness of the race and its competitors, I left feeling completely humbled by the level of commitment and hardcoreness it takes to even train for this kind of race, let alone finish it.
I'll admit it now: I haven't been running much lately. In fact, today is the first day I've run since sometime in the middle of October. To begin with I had a bit of a twinge in an old injury and I used this as an excuse to slack off, which meant partying more and sleeping less. After a while it just seemed like too much effort to get my trainers on again. It's torture running with a hangover anyway.
Ever since I started running, I've found the balancing act between training, partying and boring shit that I have to do (work, eating, sleeping, cleaning) really hard. I love to run. I love getting out on the trails with my music and being completely alone. I love feeling fit and full of endorphins. But I love partying as well. I love to drink and dance and not come home until the early hours. I love being with my friends who don't run and lying in bed eating pizza all of Sunday. If I didn't have to do all the boring bits, I think the two things would go together fine. I could party every night, sleep until lunch and then run in the afternoons. Apparently though, I have Other Responsibilities, and that's where the problems start. How can you get out for your long run on a Sunday morning when you're still not sober from the night before? How can you pay for cross-training classes when all your money goes on pizza and whiskey? How can you even begin to fit in all the fun stuff you want to do when you have to work 30 hours a week? And yes, I get Mondays off. And no, it's still not enough time.
Anyway. In my post-run smugness this afternoon, while I was whinging about my first world problem with my Mum (who, by the way, appears to have her run-work-party balance down) I remembered I'm entered for Mud Crew's next mental event - The Dark. 10 night time miles around the Lanhydrock Estate near Bodmin. I deferred last year in an attempt to save my poor, jaded tendons for the London Marathon, which means I got entered automatically for this year... Oops. I really fancied it last year, mainly because I like glow paint and neon stuff and running in the dark seems like a good excuse to crack out both, so it would be a shame to waste my place just because I'm feeling lazy at the moment. Unnatural as it sounds, I could even schedule my long(er - I refuse to run more than 15 miles) runs on Mondays, when nothing's doin', because everyone else is at work. Or maybe not... Actually even thinking about that is upsetting my training plan OCD.
So I guess I'm back to the run/party balancing act. Considering there's a JD and coke sat next to me while I'm writing this, and considering the look of despair on The Boyfriend's face at the thought of me getting up early to run at the weekends, I'm not sure how well this is going to go. If my boss is reading this, then an extra paid day off a week wouldn't go amiss. If a generous millionaire is reading, I wouldn't say no to being paid what I'm earning now just to drink and run and write about it. Until one of these things happens, I'll just have to comfort myself with the thought that I only have to train for 10% of the distance the runners at the Arc covered over the weekend. And I KNOW that most of them like a drink or ten.
