Skip to main content

Running down a dream

Imagine you’ve just run 13 miles. What are you feeling as you cross the line? I think I’m closer to understanding than I’ve ever been.

Last Sunday was a very busy one if you work for Brathay Trust, the Ambleside-based charity that works to inspire children and young people to make positive choices that will last a lifetime.

Their biggest fundraising event of the year took place – The Brathay Windermere Marathon. This year was the first event to also feature a Half Marathon and, relieved of my usual duties of wandering around with a camera and trying to look busy on social media, I got to hand medals to the finishers of the 13.1mile race.

Poised with an arm-full of medals, I got to place the prize over the heads of the runners who wanted it, or hand it over to those who didn’t fancy me getting too up close and personal.

I’m sure it would have been easy to lapse into a conveyor-belt routine of: Say “well done”; place medal; point to water; Next!

But I couldn’t do that. All the runners were doing this for their own, different, reasons. A personal challenge, to beat their best time, as part of a fitness regime, their first ever race, their 100th race, to raise money for Brathay or another charity close to their hearts, in memory of a loved one, to prove a point to themselves or someone else... the list is endless.

So I tried my best to make sure each and every one got a warm smile, a “welcome back” and as much of my time and attention as I could fit in, or they wanted. Some definitely didn’t want it – caught in the maelstrom of emotion they just wanted to be left alone.

In that moment of crossing the line, I saw exaltation, defiance, joy, pleasure, pain, happiness and everything else in-between. And after 13 miles of being in control, crossing the line seemed to flick a switch for some. Momentarily, they were uncertain and confused, trying to instantaneously change back from running machine to regular person as the adrenaline ebbed away and normality kicked in.

I was honoured to be able to witness that – and share it. The tears, the sweat (there was a lot of that!), the hugs, and the chance to agree, wholeheartedly, and in that brilliantly understated British way, that yes – that was indeed bloody hard work.

There were such a lot of genuinely lovely people too; warm, friendly, polite and funny. Even the stragglers limping home at the end were wonderful. I hope the lady with the mascot soft bunny came back later to pick up a medal for him/her too.

It was truly amazing, and inspiring, to see how much crossing the line means, in so many different ways, for people. The memory of that will hopefully stay with me for far longer than my sunburnt neck.

Thanks for letting me intrude on your moment. See you next year?

This post first appeared as my "Thank grumpy it's Friday" column, in the North West Evening Mail, on the 27th of May 2016, where it was re-titled as "Proud to say I love to medal". Fair play - that's a good one!

You'll no doubt be delighted to hear that the sunburn (which was slightly more on one side of my head than the other - which is a great look) has now resulted in a gently peeling left ear. Easy, ladies. I'm bringing sexy back.

Nice to also not that, following his 1st F1 win and my subsequent column, young Max Verstappen appeared to have shown up in Monaco in the mistaken belief that the barriers were made of jelly. Whoops.

(CD A:Z: Frankie Goes To Hollywood's "Maximum Joy" compilation. Relax. Don't Do It.) 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

A fisful of change at the shops

A recent day out reminded me how much the retail experience has altered during my lifetime – and it’s not all good. I could stop typing this, and buy a fridge, in a matter of seconds. The shops are shut and it’s 9pm, but I could still place the order and arrange delivery. I haven’t got to wander round a white-goods retail emporium trying to work out which slightly different version of something that keeps my cider cold is better. It’ll be cheaper, too. But in amongst the convenience, endless choice and bargains, we’ve lost some of the personal, human, touches that used to make a trip to the shops something more than just a daily chore. Last weekend, we visited a local coastal town. Amongst the shops selling over-priced imported home accessories (who doesn’t need another roughly-hewn wooden heart, poorly painted and a bargain at £10?) was one that looked different. It’s window allowed you to see in, rather than being plastered with stick-on graphics and special offers calling ...

Making an exhibition of yourself

Now and again, it’s good to reaffirm that you’re a (relatively) normal human being. One excellent way of doing this is to go to a business exhibition. Despite what you might have surmised from reading my previous columns, I am employable, and even capable of acting like a regular person most of the time, even joining in the Monday morning conversation about the weather over the weekend, and why (insert name of footyballs manager here) should be fired immediately. The mug! True, there are times, often involving a caffeine deficiency, where it is like having the distilled essence of ten moody teenagers in the room, but I try and get that out of the way when people I genuinely like aren’t around to see it. As part of my ongoing experiment with what others call ‘working’, my ‘job’ involves me occasionally needing to go and see what some of my colleagues get up to outside the office, and what our competitors do to try and make sure that they do whatever my colleagues do better than ...

Shouting in the social media mirror

It was always tricky to fit everything you wanted into the intentionally short character count of Twitter, especially when, like me, you tend to write ridiculously long sentences that keep going on and on, with no discernible end in sight, until you start wondering what the point was in the first place. The maximum length of a text message originally limited a tweet to 140 characters, due to it being a common way to post your ramblings in Twitter’s early days. Ten years later, we’ve largely consigned texting to the tech dustbin, and after a lot of angst, the social media platform’s bigwigs have finally opted to double your ranting capacity to 280. Responses ranged from “You’ve ruined it! Closing my account!” to the far more common “Meh” of modern disinterest. As someone rightly pointed out, just because you have twice as much capacity doesn’t mean you actually have to use it. It is, of course, and excellent opportunity to use the English language correctly and include punctuat...