Running..... why run? Is there anything fun about running? In fact there is nothing fun about physical exercise, so why do millions of people put themselves in agonising pain day after day? I will tell you why! because humans are never satisfied and humans grave challenges, be it physical, for example running or boxing or be it sitting at home playing call of duty online. I ran 15 miles today, 15 miles the day before and 25 miles the day before that, I am training because in June I will be running to Rome for the British lung foundation, that is my dream, that is my goal, it’s been nearly three months of training and I can’t wait to embark on this quest. I will tell you a tale, a tale from the chronicles of two pilgrims who will be running to Rome, this is about one of many epic training weekends that me and James have endured.
I received word from James that we would be appearing on BBC radio Solaris on the 13th of march at 7:30 in the morning. BBC radio Solaris is a Christian radio show that is produced in Southampton, what appeared to be a simple task of showing up in Southampton at 7am to ramble on about this ridicules quest turned into the most epic weekend of training yet. The plan was to leave Friday morning, the day before the show, make my way up from Kent ( were I live) to Portsmouth ( were James lives) then get the train to Southampton from Portsmouth, Saturday morning after a good night’s sleep to have a nice talk about the run.
Evil being the root of mystery, pain is the root of knowledge. Simone Weil
I went to my lecture Friday morning when good fortune struck! My good friend Rowan was driving to Brighton Friday evening , from Brighton I could catch the train to Portsmouth. We drove to Brighton, we conversed about politics, sex and all the other things men discuss. We reached Brighton, I decided to treat Rowan to KFC as I was hungry and I hadn’t ate all day. We parked up in some dodgy area of Brighton (dodgy to the extent I didn’t know Brighton had such a big drug problem until I visited this place). We walked into KFC with some of Brightens most affluent smack heads and ordered a family Bucket. We sat down and began gorging on chicken when in the corner of my eye I sure some man stand out of his seat and attack one of the security guards, happily eating chicken we watched these men pop off and after wards left the shop and I walked to the train station to get the train to Portsmouth.
The train took one hour, I arrived at the station and was greeted by James Anderson, he took me to his Uni room, at this time it was about 12am. Before we began training for this run me and James enjoyed occasionally the smoking of the marijuana plant, by chance James found a Joint in his closet that he had lost since the beginning of the year, the temptation was too much, we smoked a finely crafted joint and we were both suitably high. We talked rubbish and theorised about life until what started out a joke spiralled into a whole lot of pain. James told me about a run he had organised in his Uni, he lives in a very tall building and if you add up all the flights of stairs it comes to 17. 17 flights of stairs.... James and one of his friends ran up and down these ungodly man made stairs to hell 50 times. I said we should run them, joking around thinking he wouldn’t think much of it. However once the words left my mouth his eyes lit up with a kind of sadistic pleasure, as I was running to Rome with James it was my turn to earn my place in the Portsmouth Uni hall of fame. I was high and all I had eaten all day was a kfc, we got changed and made our way to the ground floor. The next 6 hours were the most painful of my life, imagine if you can sprinting for 6 hours, sprinting for six hours up a flight of stairs at 1am and finishing at 7am, watching as drunken students stumble in from whatever club they have been spending the twilight hours fucking themselves up. Bare foot we ran and ran and ran. The whole time I dreamt of bed, I had visions of my girl friend and food, and sleeping, oh how I longed to sleep. When I was finished I crashed in bed. I woke up about 3pm and me and James looked like shit, we hobbled into town and ate some burger king. We checked the train times, another bomb shell struck, there were no trains running from Portsmouth to Southampton, we had no choice but to get the last train to Southampton and sleep rough outside.
We packed some layers of clothing and got on the train to Southampton. Spartans when in training were taught to steal to supplement their food rations, this showed cunning and wit. We bunked the train to Southampton as neither of us had any money, when we arrived we tried to seek refuge in some hotels but no one would give us shelter. Ironically under Dreams, the bed shop we slept, well we tried to sleep it was too cold for either of us to get any rest. We walked around through the night and at 7am BBC radio Solaris opened their doors to us. Cold, hungry and looking very rough we spoke for about 20 minutes about the run. We drank some coffee in the studio and headed back to the station were we went our separate ways. For me however the finish line was still not in sight.
I reached Brighton about 11am due to some delays on the services, and I had to wait till 4 for my friend Rowan to give me a lift back to Kent. This was part of my plan however, having no money I was to sell some of my friends music that he makes himself, it’s a kind of trippy house music, that had been burnt onto blank cd’s, I only had 6 or 7 to sell but that would be enough, so sleep deprived and straight from sleeping rough on the street I hit Brightons main shopping centre. At first i wasn’t selling any but as the students started to arise from their sleep about 1pm I managed to sell all the units making 20 pounds, it was about 2 at this point so I went to water stones and drank some coffee. Sleep deprivation can really fuck with your head, I got some books, one of which was the complete works of the great philosopher Socrates, for the remainder of the time i learnt from this wise man, i reached a spiritual place, i heard how he was a rough man who barley bathed and although himself poor would hang around in rich circles living of favours in return for his wisdom. At around 70 years old he stood up in court and argued himself to death as he denied the existence of the gods, he refused to change his views knowing he would be killed, this my friends is a real man. Rowan finally came to pick me up, he took me to his for some food at around 5pm, my first meal of the day and he drove me home.
"All men's souls are immortal, but the souls of the righteous are immortal and divine." Socrates
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