the dreaded day arrived. the day in which I was to—I can barely bring myself to type it—go for a run.
my ‘friend’1 signed me up for this charity virtual ultra marathon relay thing wherein our team would be running varying distances which combine to the sum of 100km. my ‘friend’ put me down for 12 kilometres which I think is nothing short of ludicrous. she put herself down for 8km so we would be doing 20km between us and because she’s an arsehole. I will add at this juncture that I’m not unfit, but I have never, in my whole entire life, willingly run so much as a step. it’s just so not for me. I was a dancer, not a runner.
of course I could have rehearsed for this (that’s what the sportspeople say, isn’t it? rehearsed?). but I didn’t. because i’m a big stupid idiot. I donned my trainers which are a size 5.5 and i’m a size 4 but having properly fitting shoes won’t be something that matters on a run, right?
so woefully ill-prepared was I that I didn’t even make myself a specially curated running playlist for the occasion. thus, my only option was My Playlist. My Playlist is my only playlist. on it I put every song that I like. i’ve been compiling this playlist since 2019. it’s currently over four days long. it bounces from Eminem to Boney M., from Billie Eilish to Billy Ocean, from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons to Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. Underworld’s Born Slippy (Nuxx) from the Trainspotting soundtrack is on it three times in a row because I was having wifi issues when I was adding it and i’ve never considered undoing that. Christy Moore’s Viva la Quinta Brigada, about the Irish men who fought in the Spanish civil war, is on it more times than I am willing to admit because i’ve, knowingly and deliberately, re-added it to the end of the playlist multiple times over the years. there is a whole section comprised solely of Eläkeläiset, a Finnish humppa band who cover popular English-language songs and delight me no end (to get a flavour of their genius, I highly recommend any one of Humppaukaasi (We Will Rock You), Hump (Van Halen’s Jump), Peljätty Humppa (Kung Fu Fighting), and Humppabarbi (Barbie Girl)). My Playlist is one of myriad reasons why I will unfortunately never be one of those aesthetic substack girlies who post read-lists, watch-lists and playlists tailored to the season or ~vibe~.
with all four days of My Playlist at my disposal, I began with Bruce Springsteen’s Born to Run, thinking that was funny and ironic cause I was so not born to run. this is a fact that, before long, was reinforced quite violently (I live at the bottom of a big steep hill). i’m just not built for running. i’m built for something like this:
approximately every three steps, I had to reinsert my earphones into my ear holes and once again curse the fact that everything is built with men in mind (did you know earphones are sized for men’s ears and loads of women have smaller than ‘average’ ears which means earphones often don’t fit properly? fun fact.)
I couldn’t think of any more songs that were apt for the situation as, as far as i’m aware, there are no songs called ‘i’m beginning to wish I hadn’t agreed to this’ or ‘I resent you, erin’. so I put My Playlist on shuffle and tried to entertain myself with my lifelong hobby of making up choreography in my head.
at one point, Kate Bush’s Running Up That Hill played as I was actually running up a hill. which is actually not all that unlikely. around here, you’re almost always either going up a hill or down a hill.
at another point, I passed my sixteen year old cousin who was cutting about the Main Street with her pals and had to be like ‘I can’t stop, i’m running, I know, mental, eh?!’ or at least I hope she heard that. quite possibly she just heard some laboured breathing and unintelligible mumbling as I ran past, waving half-heartedly, and now feels she was rudely snubbed on the street by someone who resembles her older cousin if her older cousin was in the process of turning into a tomato à la Violet Beauregarde.
since this post has become quite music-centric, I will add one irrelevant detail about this cousin. she is—obviously I am biased but I think this is objectively true—a very nice looking young girl. she is also, in my opinion, the spitting image of Bob Geldof circa 1979.
my dad says he sees what I mean. my mum says I must never tell her that under any circumstances.
for two whole kilometres, I listened to the woman who plays Moaning Myrtle in Harry Potter sing Bob Dylan’s Like a Rolling Stone on repeat. i’ve seen her play several different roles (HP, Bridget Jones’s Diary, Happy Valley, the Nest) and I think she’s an excellent actor. listening to her talk, i’d never have thought she was a good singer. but she’s fantastic! and she still sounds like her talking voice when she sings (not a criticism2). really lovely cover, highly recommend.
for a further kilometre, I listened to Fleetwood Mac’s Silver Springs on repeat. but only the last minute. I manually rewound it every minute.
in the midst of some later stage descent into madness, I was so, idk, bored, knackered, naturally inclined towards ridiculousness, that I actually teared up listening to Juice Newton’s Angel of the Morning cause it reminded me of my mum. I can’t stress enough how alive and healthy and only 55 my mother is, and I would be seeing her later that day. I was just completely losing my mind. I think my brain was starved of oxygen.
at last, the ordeal was over. I arrived home, I took off my trainers and I caught sight of my reflection in the hall mirror. I was looking RED. (and a bit like i’d been dragged through a hedge backwards. or like i’d rubbed a balloon on my clothes then rubbed it up and down every inch of my ponytail.)
said redness, after drinking a fuckload of water, going for a shower and sitting on the couch for a while, only seemed to intensify, shade-wise??
even later in the evening my face remained red as fuck. to the point where people who weren’t me started expressing concern.
going by what I am doing with my hands in this picture, one can only assume I was photographed in the middle of praying that my face would cease to resemble a skelped arse in the near future.
anyway, I survived. and I got the record of the run safely to the organisers. imagine if I hadn’t pressed record on strava (could never have been the case due to incessant and paranoid checking). and, hallelujah, my prayers were answered and my face is now back to normal redness level. which is still not ideal—ideal redness level would be zero—but you can’t ask for miracles.
prob won’t repeat in a hurry, tbh.
other silliness if you fancy it:
we’ve been friends since we were about 14. the inverted commas are because, due to the current situation, her coat is on a shoogly peg.
I do too unless I consciously put on an accent. I’ve done musical theatre; I think i’d be laughed off the stage if I sang in my natural accent lol.
" I actually teared up listening to Juice Newton’s Angel of the Morning cause it reminded me of my mum. I can’t stress enough how alive and healthy and only 55 my mother is, and I would be seeing her later that day."
There's always something. : ) Is it possible you got sunburned? Do you even have sun that could burn in your part of the world this time of year? Lol.