Week Six: Saturday Club

Important lessons were learned this weekend, the most vital being that disappearing off for four or five hours to chase lycra-clad blonde girls around Richmond Park is not to be suggested on Valentine’s day. Therefore last minute changes were made to James’ plans and instead of the Richmond Run he instead set out on the ‘Greenwich Grovel’, a testing two hour route designed to make one think about ones actions whilst suffering blisters and burning thighs.

Leaving Eltham Heights full of righteous indignation, James was carried by his martyrdom through Blackheath and into Greenwich, it was only when halfway up the Docklands Tunnel stairs when calf twinges began to chip away at his self-belief. By the time he had circled Canary Wharf, descended and ascended the 100-odd steps in the Pedestrian Tunnel of Doom for a second time and then climbed the hill back up to the Royal Observatory, he was a broken man. Water-boarding has nothing on this. From here on in it was all he could do to repeat his name and regiment at each corner until he had completed his sixteen and a half mile route.

Fortunately for James there was a truce upon reaching the finish where he, his blisters and bleeding toes were welcomed back without too much of a retreat required. The papers were signed from a hot bath and peace reigned upon marathon land once again.