Monumental cock up on the twilight Race for Life – first published 7 October 2012

The other day I was talking about my stupid memory and some of the embarrassing situations it has got me into. Today I’m going to tell you about one of them. It isn’t strictly memory related really, more about having too much going on and losing track of the days but still. In fact, when I first found it in my blog archives, I did consider just pressing delete and consigning my shame to the bin on my Mac. In the end I decided everyone could do with a little laugh to brighten up a cold winter day and if that laugh is at my expense, so be it.

7 October 2012

I have a confession to make. I didn’t do the Twilight Race For Life. Now before you go getting all cross with me let me explain. Yesterday evening I got all my glow sticks together, put on my trainers, my scarf, my hat and my race number and set off in the car for the common. Commando and I were a bit surprised to find a place to park so easily but we weren’t complaining as we set off for the ten minute walk to the common and the race start point. It was really quiet on the common as we walked through, way too quiet. The only people we saw were a couple of dog walkers. Normally on a race day there are loads of women making their way to the race in their pink t-shirts and race numbers. Those dog walkers looked at me a bit askance too but I thought it was the glow sticks on my hat and my Race for Life T-shirt race number. Maybe they didn’t know about the Twilight Race for Life.

When we reached the race start point it was deserted. This was when I began to have a bad feeling about things. A quick check of the emails on my phone confirmed my monumental cock up, the race was FRIDAY night and there was I, all covered in glow sticks a big pink Race For Life number pinned to my chest on Saturday! I have no excuse. I am officially an idiot.

Commando was not impressed. He walked across the common with me until we got to Hill Lane and then went back to the car, taking most of my glow sticks with him. There was no sway I was not going to walk the 5K, people have sponsored me and the least I could do was actually do the walking. Obviously, walking the actual course was out of the question. Commando would never have let me walk round the common on my own at night and he had been embarassed enough without  being seen walking round the common with me and my glow sticks. So I walked home which was actually considerably more than three point one miles.

It’s about a mile from where I was in Hill Lane down to the city centre and it was a long lonely mile in the dark with no one about at all. Quite a contrast to what I had been expecting, loads of women sporting glow sticks and fairy lights, walking, laughing and enjoying the evening. I felt sad to have missed it but there was no one to blame but me. I really have no idea how I messed up so badly.

When I got to town there were more people about and I walked up past Central Station, my old Dream Factory office and the Mayflower theatre to the Civic Centre with its tall clock tower. On I walked past the parks and the University. Then came the Six Dials subway. I hadn’t really thought about it until I reached it but there was no other way to go, Six Dials is a giant intersection where six roads used to meet, now there are only four but they’re huge roads and there’s no safe way to cross them except the subway. At night, on my own in a less than salubrious part of town it didn’t feel all that safe to be honest. It seemed the best way to deal with it was run. I know I’m always banging on about how I can’t run but, if I have to, I can do it, I just look like a weirdo. Forest Gump looks like an Olympic Athlete next to me, and I HATE it.

Now I was in St Mary’s, about two miles from home and I’d already walked two and a half miles, not counting the half mile or so from the car to the point on the common where we realised there was not going to be a race and I turned on my GPS. There were quite a few people around in St Mary’s, a group of students with copious amounts of beer hammering on a door where there was obviously a party and, further on by the Kingsland Arms Pub, two young men with guitars serenading a group of girls which I found quite bizarre. At the Northam Estate I pushed my pace to get through as quickly as possible. It’s quite a rough area and, even though I was on the busy main road, it’s wasn’t a place I wanted to hang around. This was when I hit the three mile mark.

Before long I was crossing the Big Bridge, the lights of the houses twinkled as they reflected in the water and it reminded me of all the evening walks home from The Mad House when I worked the late shift. On round the sharp bend and I was in sight of the bottom of the Big Hill. When I got in the door, hot and sweaty, with a terminal case of hat hair, I’d walked four point four miles, plus about another half mile at the start, taken just over an hour and my average pace was slightly over fourteen minutes a mile which is not too shabby.

Obviously, I would far rather have been walking around the common with all the fun and emotion of the Race For Life around me but I guess I did at least do my twilight walk. If you were kind enough to sponsor me I’m really sorry that I didn’t actually take part in the race but I hope you’ll agree I did do my best to make up for it and all the money goes to a very worthy cause. I really must get more organised though!