"Once upon a time there were three beautiful ladies who tried running by themselves. They were each assigned to look after people, a carer, teacher, NHS worker. Running by themselves was tough but I took them all away from that and now they run for me. My name is Norman"
Training began in the afternoon for Normans Angels, that's us by the way it's what Norman calls us. Collected by car we made our way to Normans secret training ground. It's so secret that it is hidden in plain sight, even using ordinary citizens to help disguise the secret location as an ordinary park. Me and the other two Angels, our code names, Old Girl (me), Naggy and SnappyH were all set for the next rigorous test.
 |
| Normans Angles |
Norman has plenty of ways get the best out of us, even pitting us against 700 would be 'assassins' on a Saturday morning. That is a particular favourite of the lovable Norman. Today however, inspired by a film he had recently watched while supping on a pina colada, he decided that 'The Hunger Games' style training would really make everybody try harder.
Our task was to 'Stay Alive!' Could we do it, could we reach 'home' before being caught, each one by the other Angels. Naggy had the hardest test, her speciality is the ability to run fast non-stop over miles and miles. Her job was to catch both me and SnappyH. SnappyH, well her speciality is Gadgets, numbers, graphs! My speciality, well, mine is blogging, or is it blagging! I can write up anything and make it sound exciting! If I run a mile I can write up a whole chapter about it! Standing by the car, looking out to the expanse of the park, the secret location we took a deep breath! It was riddled with innocent citizens unaware of what was about to take place. Norman doesn't like to make it easy! There are so many obstacles to get around. It could get messy. There were very young children on bikes, they looked learning to ride them. Have you ever watched a small child learning to ride a bike? When they riding along looking at someone for some inexplicable reason they head straight for them! I made a mental note "Do not making eye contact with any small person on a bike."
All three of us looked around as we got ourselves ready for this special training session. Each of us had our own special earbuds to listen to music, Norman wanted to make sure that each of us relied only on our instinct, our own intuition of where our team members were. We walked to the path, smiled at each other, wished each other the best of luck and then synchronised our watches. The Game had started.
We ran together for only a couple of feet before the competitiveness of Naggy drew her out of the plodding threesome, she started to slowly put some space between me and SnappyH. I was thinking that if I could just stay fairly near SnappyH then I could make a sprint for 'home' at the last minute. I was asking a lot of my worn out little legs, but I felt sure that if I at least kept her in my sight then Naggy would have a bit more of a job to catch me! A good plan. Just as I was getting to the first corner SnappyH started to pull away from me! She is on a mission for sure! My ear bud started to fall out of my left ear, it's the most important one, it is the one that records all the data that we so love. I pushed in back in and accidentally turned it off! Scuppered by technology! I had to slow down, walk even, while I sorted it all out, SnappyH was in the zone, she was pulling away from me. Naggy was way up the long straight! She is so going to be catching me today! Unless I pull something out of the bag!
Once I had my technology all working again I was already about 30 or seconds slower than I had planned. I better get a move on. Norman really had pulled out all of the stops with the amount of citizens using the secret training ground. I was right about the small people on bikes, I watched one of them ride straight into his static sister neither of them asking the other to move out of the way! I watched in wonder at the little girl standing in front of the out of control learner cyclist not budging! he ploughed right into her, she managed to stay on her feet but he fell off the bike and cried to the parent. I had to keep my wits about me, little people are so unpredictable.
I avoided the first pit fall, I felt a bit more confident, I spied my 'mission' up head. Just then the cutest little Jack Russel caught my eye as the little rascal ran with his tongue whipping the side of his mouth, as what can only be described as a smile on the face of the little pooch, as he speedily ran after his ball that his human had thrown! That Norman is a task master! He knows only too well that any cute little puppy dog, with big brown eyes, floppy ears, huge gangly feet, the waggiest of tails, would have me falling on my knees simpering over their soft furry little faces! That is mean! I need to stay focused, their are so many cute little furry faces around today, it's going to be hard to ignore them. Not only that but the darling little furbabies are even more unpredictable than little people on bikes!
The first lap of the secret location was done, so far so good, but there was no time to rest on my laurels. I still have a lot of work to do, SnappyH was quite a way in front of me and as for Naggy I hadn't seen her anywhere. I thought I caught sight of her once, but she was so far away it could have been any one of the ordinary citizens that Norman planted in the park. I later found out that she had taken layers off and her trade mark flash of orange. I wouldn't have spotted her without her orange ear warmers! The second lap I tried as hard as I might to keep the pace going, my Garmin telling me that I was running pretty fast! I was hoping that my new Gadget would pipe in and tell me that I was running to fast, I should stick to the plan I had programmed into it. But then I began to realise, I had programmed in to run 39 minutes for a 5k distance, I was on target for that. I should have put it in for a slightly longer distance! I felt sure that I will still be able to keep away from Naggy, catching SnappyH would probably be a little harder. But if I can keep her in eyesight she may just realise that I am close and somehow, maybe, make a mistake, push too hard and just like me yesterday, have a time out for a few second! I could possible get her then.
The final lap, there was no sign of Naggy, I was feeling exhausted and SnappyH was so hard to catch! At least SnappyH was in my view! Naggy needs to be my motivation, I need to stay focused now, just to stay ahead of her, keep her well behind. Somehow there seemed to be more small people on bikes, a little bit older than the ones on the first lap. This one particular lad on a bike kept riding by my side, then stopping then catching me up again. I managed to pull away from the rider, well actually he had to wait for his mum! I managed to avoid yet another adorable pooch trap who was just longing to be petted, ok, so it was me, I just really wanted to pet the dog but instead I looked towards the corner, the top of the long straight. I had to keep my wits about me as I tried to dodge the unsuspecting citizens, I swerved left and right, dodging each one of them. They really didn't know what was taking place right under their noses! Normans Angles, training, right in front of them, training to be the ones to jump in and help any of them, any time, to become 'RUNNERS'! How I love this job!
The last long straight, I need to finish this now. This is where I need to stay on my toes, I can't slack anymore, Naggy could quite easily catch me up. I remember the last time we did this Naggy told me that she saw me as I started this long straight. She really though she could catch me IF I did my usual walking bits! I couldn't let that happen, totally focused I ran down, hoping that I would just do this non stop. I felt someone running behind me. "No, no, it can't be" I thought to myself. I saw a hand appear in my peripheral vision. Could this Naggy? I pushed out a little harder, but then the whole arm appeared, that's it, I done. The runner got faster and overtook me! It wasn't Naggy! It must have been another super-training-angel.
Norman still hadn't finished with trying to trip me up as yet more people came by on bikes. This time they were older, they were youths, usually seen riding on roads with their buddies, doing wheelies, terrorising commuters, winding up Sunday drivers. They were now here, zig-zagging between all the citizens and me! One was even on his phone, he could easily lose his balance in front of me, scuppering my chances of getting home! The danger passed quite quickly as they headed off, maybe they were going to try and intimidate SnappyH, then maybe I could have a chance of catching her!
I managed to get to the bottom of the last corner, still no sign of Naggy and no chance of catching SnappyH, I just had to make sure there was plenty of space behind me! I took a sneaky peak behind me, no sign of her. It doesn't mean that she isn't that far, I still have around the woods to do. She could do quite a bit of damage control here. I couldn't see her, I just had to keep going! I ducked up the path that goes around the woods, more families! Norman, have you not had your fun yet! Maybe he really did want it to be like the 'Hunger Games' Maybe there can only be one survivor! I managed to run around the woods, I could see the end in sight, and just up ahead in the 'home' section SnappyH was cooling down, doing her stretches. No doubt pleased with her performance. I ran to the start point, unscathed, not caught out, ok so I didn't manage to catch SnappyH, maybe next time! I walked it out, stopped both my gadgets and walked up to SnappyH. We chatted for a bit as Naggy came around the corner and ran up to us, looking like she ran as hard as she could! We congratulated each other on a job well done.
Back in the car we all looked at our stats, comparing numbers, heart rate, pace, VO2. We could see on Naggys stats that the last section she really ran fast as she tried to catch us!
"Well done my angels, you all looked great out there! Old girl, try and keep your head up when running"
Oh my goodness Norman was there! Which one was he!?
No comments:
Post a Comment