LIKE A GACK OUT OF HELL!

THE wife doesn’t know what to make of it all.
We’ve been fond of each other for well over a decade now so we know all there is to know about each other. From the good to the bad, we’ve seen it all.
Until this marathon training craic.
Just the other day she looked me up and down and proclaimed, “You’ve become a completely different person with this running.” The reason for this outburst?
I was wearing shorts.
It may also have had something to do with the fact that I had got up out of my bed at 6:45am to go running, but the shorts were apparently the last straw.
On the Thursday morning I had done 18 miles, and when I got home, with the sun splitting the sky, I dug deep into the wardrobe and fished out the old classic – the black shorts and Manchester United top combo that had her in a spin all those years ago. But this time it didn’t go down so smoothly. Ever since I castigated her a few weeks ago in this column for her lack of support, she’s been eyeing every opportunity to get me back. At first she demanded a right of reply to my drivel, then she forgot, then she remembered and she demanded it again, then she forgot again. Instead she has chosen to be passive aggressive, by saying nothing, for fear that I’ll tell all in the Ferry marriage expose that this column has become.
I gave her great ammunition the other day and I’m not going to hide away from it. After completing my 18 miles in the dizzying sun, I finished off at the Peace Bridge. I knew when I dialled her number that I was giving her another chance to scoff at me, but hey, I had just run 18 miles and I didn’t care.
“Can you come pick me up?”
“What?”
You see, having never run 18 miles before, I’m discovering new and zany things about my body and its reaction to such torture; this week I discovered that when I run 18 miles, I can’t walk. I told the missus I would meet her at Sainsburys, this after intense negotiations over said lift, and I started to shuffle down the quay.
I say ‘shuffle’ when I really mean ‘drag’. My left leg wasn’t in full working order so I was leading with my right leg and pulling the left along behind me. I was also very aware of that ‘fresh’ smell I allegedly have after running great distances, so I was trying to keep a respectful distance between me and …well, everybody.
But I was proud of my effort. Getting up so early allowed me to take in the sights of Derry for the first time since I donned the running shoes. I went a few miles out the line and loved it, although I had serious reservations about going back s by that stage I was around 15 miles and really struggling. Around the same point I had the old hi-fi on shuffle and Meat Loaf came on with his ‘I Would Do Anything For Love’. The reason for its inclusion, about from the rocking beats, is that it lasts so long that you’re guaranteed a mile before it comes to the end. But I was so far gone I began to change the lyrics in my delirium…
“I Would Do Anything to Stop…I’d run right into hell and back!”
“I Would Do Anything to Stop, I’ll never run again and that’s a fact!”
There were some positives however. Last week when I ran without music, I finished 17 miles in 2h, 42 minutes. This week with music, I finished 18 miles, in 2h, 45 minutes. I also completed a new personal best for the half marathon – 13 miles in 1h, 53 minutes. So there is some progress.
But with each step forward, there is a mental step backwards. I’m beginning to dread my running days. They loom ominously over each of my days and it’s turning me into a grumpy sod in the house. The poor wife has to put up with that, and the fact that she ‘can now see my ribs’, with the weight allegedly dropping off me.
I landed down to work on the Friday, and the busy bees of the Derry News were so busy that they were standing jooking out the kitchen window, discussing my form like a couple of giddy schoolgirls. No sooner had I entered the building than I heard…
“Gary, you’re going to have to get a feed of spuds into you.”
“Gary, seriously, have you ever heard of a steak?”
Witches, the lot of them.
It’s bad enough that I’m battling innumerable aches and pains and the mood swings to go with it; the last thing I need is to be fading away to nothing. I’m slim to skinny at the best of times. All those years of Salsa dancing have stood to me, but at this rate I’m going to have to hit the chocolate gravy rings hard come June 1.
But there’s one good thing to look forward to. When I’m dunking the custard creams back into the full-fat tea this summer, the missus will be there by me side, looking me up and down again, and welcoming back her slim to pudgy husband with open arms.
That’s what a marriage is all about. The good times.

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