Hard Going

I am so slow. So very very slow. Last week I was disappointed because I had to start walking at fifteen miles; this week I started walking at nine miles. It took me four hours and nine minutes to cover eighteen miles.

The thing is, though, that I did cover eighteen miles. And I so nearly didn't. E (1) made sure I didn't get to bed until midnight; A (2) had me up from twenty past five. I was already tired after a five-day holiday at Center Parcs - whoever said that Center Parcs was a relaxing break needs to be locked in a dark cupboard with nothing but bread and water for a very long time.

So, after covering the marathon distance over three runs during the week, today was eighteen miles. James had promised to come and meet me with water and encouragement and I was looking out for him. Not to have the water and encouragement but to give up. It was cold, it was raining, it was too far. I'd covered the distance during the week. I'm running a half marathon practise race next weekend and the magazine says that you mustn't do your longest run in the week before. I was hungry. My mittens were soaked through, as were my trainers, which desperately need to be replaced. I could feel the trench foot setting in. I had no energy and had to walk, and I promised myself that the minute James drew up in the Renault Espace, I would leap into the passenger seat and thereby prove myself sensible and realistic and as far removed from martyrdom as it's possible to be.

The number of cars that are not Renault Espaces is staggering. And the number of Renault Espaces that are not driven by James in shining armour is more staggering still.

I limped to thirteen miles, convinced that James and the children were all eating fish and chips and enjoying the fourth Shrek film, which we got out of the library yesterday. I kept a monologue going along the lines of here I am wearing myself into a wet frazzle, about to die, and you can't even be bothered to bring me the sip of water that would save my life... A friend from O and T's school drew up to ask if I was all right ... see even people who barely KNOW me care enough to ask how I am while you just stay all comfortable and warm...and suddenly, at fourteen miles, there he was.

I leaned into the open passenger window and burst into tears. My hands were too cold to unscrew the lid on the water bottle. 'Come on, get in,' he said, 'it's raining really hard and you've done lots.'

If he'd been there at nine miles, I've have climbed straight in. But I had four miles to go. Just four. I was soaked through - I wasn't going to get any wetter. We rendezvous-ed two miles on, I had more water and he drove home to run a hot bath for me while I dragged myself the last miles home.

And I did it. Eighteen miles. I got back and cried, and A and T got into the bath with me, and we watched Shrek and then had a teddy bears' picnic (encompassing fairly major surgery for two of the bears who've been on the waiting list for months).

Eighteen miles is a long way. Twenty six point two is even longer. And somewhere between nine and fourteen miles is the line between imminent divorce and exactly the right kind of support.