So, as some of you know, I decided to join my Muay Thai class for their group run tonight.
I’ve been avoiding this, as they’re fit fuckers and I am not a runner, and I could do my best but it might be wicked hard. Plus, it’s winter, however mild, and it’s hard to run in the city in the cold.
Right. So I went because I thought I had to – because the timing of the beginner class overlapped with the 1/2 hour of running. 1 hour class, 1/2 hour run.
It turns out not so much. It turns out that only 5 people went on the run – 4 senior guys (including two instructors), plus me.
w00t.
So I did good, did good, did good. For the first .75 K? Then I started feeling a little tired, but I took a short walk break, then caught up to them. They were encouraging (without being sappy), and we kept going. I made it down the hill a few more streets. Then I started feeling not so good. Like, gagging a couple of times. It’s cool I thought, I just need to ease up a bit. And then my new favourite person in the whole world (”Dad”) slowed down to keep pace with me. Interestingly, ’Dad’ was one of the guys who, on first impression, I thought was wicked tough and probably sort of mean.
Usually someone keeping pace would drive me crazy, I don’t like holding people back, and I keep my own pace – I push myself. But ’Dad’ was really good to run with. Encouraging without being motivational speakery (”Those fuckers up there have all been through this, and Kru says leave no one behind.”). Very cool. But I was definitely struggling. Walk. Run. Walk.
Then he pointed out that we were doing the long run. Apparently the route one of the guys chose (remind me to beat on him with a stick) for that night was about twice as far as usual (5K vs. 2K). Awesome. Did I mention how I’m not a runner? He said I was doing good, and that he had been struggling way before now on his first run.
Did I mention how he’s my new favourite person?
So then I started gagging again. We were past the halfway mark (4ishK), but still had a long way to go to get back. And I thought, okay, take’er easy. Then we got to the hill. Let’s just get to the top of this hill we both said. And I was soo on board. I’m a determined little bastard and I wanted to get up that hill. So I did what a friend of mine called ”Soldiers in Siberia-ing” up it. Got to the top. Gagged. Gagged. Started to throw up in my hand. Realized I was going to seriously toss some cookies. But where was I? At the corner of cement and concrete that’s where. Having never thrown up outside before, I was new at this. What to do. What to do. I hightailed it over to one of those straggly looking Toronto trees where the base is covered by cement – but with a tiny piece of dirt showing.
Or it was, before I hurled all over it.
Lovely.
’Dad’ was fantastic about it. Very cool, like this was totally normal. I said ”Excuse me” when I got back, and he was all ”hey I’ve got a 3 1/2 year old, you should see the things that come out of her”.
And then there’s a whole thing where my stomach was just *churning*, but I’ll spare those details. Suffice it to say that I was looking for emergency pitstop places all the way back.
So – some kind of initiation? Maybe. From maybe that one guy who knew there was a n00b in the group and decided to ’push’ me. Whatever. ’Dad’ and all the rest of the guys who had run were very cool and much warmer than usual when I got back (that’s a fun sentence). Patting me on the back saying ’good run’, bowing. It was like a family. Cool. What a crazy place.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go and lie very still now. 🙂