After all the money spent on physio appointments and all the careful training and exercising, the other day, as I was about to shave, I hurt my calf. I ended up at the local hospital as I couldn’t feel or move my foot properly. The reason I mention the ‘about to shave’ part of the story is that I don’t grow facial hair normally. This is mainly because I can’t. However, for what was intended to be half a day where I wouldn’t bump into anybody that hasn’t already judged me within an inch of my life, I thought it would be funny to leave just my ‘moustache’. That’s what I was about to shave off. I got distracted by injuring myself and left it where it was though.
It wasn’t funny at all – I was mortified when I realised I still had it at the hospital. They probably thought I was there to get that seen to. In my head, I had looked like a dashing war hero. On snapchat, I looked like an inbred radiation victim.
Anyway, I’ve torn my calf muscle now and it looks like the dream is over. I spent a couple of days on crutches and now it feels better, but even a heroic walk around the course as the Swiss team clap me on is looking out of the question. Apparently I could risk doing something quite bad to my achilles… though I swear we don’t need them anymore. I thought we just used them to digest grass and rocks when we were cavemen. But we’ll see – I’m nothing if not short sighted, stubborn and stupid.
Regardless of my failing body, we’re off to Norway in a couple of days. Rowan is still good to go and will be attempting to break the land speed record. Here is the forecast for the day of the half marathon in Tromso:
Please note the ‘feels like’ row.
Preparation for the trip is therefore mainly consisting of checking northern lights forecasts now. Lots of people have been asking me about how the northern lights are formed as my job as a Geography teacher apparently suggests I may know something about Geography. Here is one explanation from the internet. My question to you is; have you ever read a more disappointing conclusion to a paragraph ever?
“The Vikings thought the Northern Lights were caused by the shining weaponry of immortal warriors. The Alaskan Inuit people believed the lights were the souls of salmon, deer and other animals. The Menominee Indians thought the lights were the torches of giants living in the North. The Northern Lights are actually caused by electrons.”
You’ve no doubt seen that page on Facebook that the world loves to share – I Fucking Love Science? Well I don’t. It ruins everything. Just give me the end product, I don’t care about how it got there, that’s just confusing. Therefore, I’m going with the Alaskan Inuit’s Lion King option next time someone asks me about them. Apart from anything, I don’t know what electrons really are, but I’m going to assume it’s just another word for magic.
So, to sum up, I’m very frustrated as I’ve wanted to do this race since forever. These things can’t be helped though. I’ve already provisionally been given a thumbs up to do it next year instead. I can possibly keep sponsorship open until then, or you could sponsor just Rowan (let’s face it, he’s the main event) or I spend a few hours limping the 13.1 miles if I possibly can and you could sponsor that. Either way, it’s for a really good cause. Huge thanks to everyone that has donated so far – there’s been a lot of generosity towards this!
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