Welcome, dear reader, to the next chapter in ‘Dumb Things
That Clio and Charlie Get Up To’
Some of you may recall that last September,
accompanied by night driver extraordinaire and general all-round legend Alice
Abdullah, Clio and I drove an auto-rickshaw 3,100km across Northern India in a
little under two weeks. We stayed in some of the most remarkable lodgings one
can imagine, from a hostel with a rooftop bar overlooking the Taj Mahal to the floor
of a police station where we tied our mosquito nets to the bars of the,
thankfully uninhabited, prison.
Well, scarcely had we returned from our ludicrously optimistic
drive across Northern India than we began to miss the cries of “You’re doing
what?!” and “You’re going to die doing this, you know?” In short, we hungered
for another spontaneous, unconsidered and generally foolhardy experience. What
could we do?
It was Clio who came up with the idea of doing the Marathon.
God alone knows why? I suppose it wouldn’t cost us as much as airline tickets
to India and wouldn’t take up all our holiday allowance. Anyway, we settled on
running a marathon, the Brighton Marathon, in order to raise money for Guy’s
and St Thomas’ Hospitals, two fine houses of healing that have cared for us
(indeed Tommy’s brought Clio into the world!) and are also the medical arms of
our alma mater King’s College London. It seemed a no brainer (no sniggering).
So we set out to do some training to get ourselves into shape. Because we were far from in shape!
Clio ran a half marathon way back in 2006 but at least
cycled into work occasionally. As for me, well, I had cycled into work before
my bike got nicked, but in terms of running… I’ve run for a bus… occasionally…
if no one I knew was watching.
We weren’t exactly going into this from the strongest
positions and our early runs were defined by cramping feet and agonising
stitches. Our equipment, we decided left a lot to be desired. So we called a
friend
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