Hills

So today I was supposed to be doing hill training. I say that as if I didn't do it. I did, I just haven't done anything else, except about 10 minutes of washing up, and catching up with last week's Archers Omnibus. Oh and I took a call from the nice waiters at the Bombay Brasserie. (Scarily, they have my number. I didn't give it to them at the Lido, it was when I booked the table for the cast for after tonight's show).

It took me all morning to decide that I'd actually do it. There didn't seem much point, if I'm honest about it. The task was to jog to the embankment, and then run up and down the grassy hill 8 times, then jog home. When I say "hill", the Peterborough contingent will realise that we're talking about a slope leading up to a flyover of the parkway. It's not a "hill" under your normal criteria (I have no idea what the definition of a hill is, but I know this isn't one). It seemed a ridiculously easy task, so I started mentally planning out my blog on the way over. I figured that I'd think of a little story for each lap, and play it out like a sort of "As it occurs to me" (all together now: AIOTM - if you like Richard Herring, you might get that.) script. I thought about my friend Emma, and her recently expanded family - she's just had a home birth, so I thought I could welcome the arrival of her new daughter, and try to think of some entertaining spin, like her cat Phoebe's interest in the whole proceedings... and I figured that for one of the laps, I might relate the hilarious "nougat" incident from backstage last night, when I helped myself to a yummy piece of nougat from our snacks bowl, and Jen said, "Oh that's really nice. And it's harder than it looks". Which made me snicker, although this is certainly a sad reflection on my puerile mind, rather than actually being funny. Or it could be because all this wretched exercise has affected my libido, and I have no output. I know what I'm talking about, it's all out there. Anyway, the nougat was yummy, although after the build-up, was disappointingly soft. Dave recommended that I might try stroking it next time which could help with the firmness.

So there I was, embellishing the stories I would relate for my 8 laps up the piddling little grassy slope, when I arrived there. I did bear in mind the wisdom of Nige, who had been taunting me earlier in the week, as astute readers will recall. His advice was twofold: he said, take it easy going downhill; I thought this was incase I turned my ankle, but no, it is because that's my chance to recover, and secondly, don't hoon it up the hill. I told him I very rarely "hoon it" anywhere. But the instructions were clearly to run up, and jog down, which indicated to me a difference in pace. It's actually hard to run up a steep slope, and let me tell you, that slope got steeper going up it than it had been from the bottom. I was out of breath at the top. By the third lap, I deeply resented Peterborough City Council for seeing fit to place a park bench at the top, and craved a little sit-down. On the fourth, I knew there was no way I was going to complete this task. By the sixth, I figured out that getting up, and getting down, were the priority, and if that was a jog, not a run, that would be how it was. I had my itunes on for this task, as it didn't require any addition, and was happy that "Cool for Cats" came on, followed by Madison Avenue "Don't call me baby", which was sufficiently pop-y that it afforded some distraction, and furthermore contains the line "I'll make you sorry you were born" which somehow helped. I have to say that when I reached the top for the 8th time, and thought I was going to die, the Verve, "The Drugs Don't Work" came on, which seemed entirely apposite.

Amazingly, I also managed to jog home. I was entirely unconcerned by the pace or the garmin, I was just pleased to make it.

A small nagging fear remains in my head that Sally has started me off gently...