If it's not public, it's not humilitation

Exercise sucks.

Anyone (yes, I mean you, Donna) who has been with me since the beginning of this bloody blog will already be aware that I hate exercise. Spookily, that post was written almost a year to the day ago, and heralded the last time I tried training for the Race for Life. I wouldn't ordinarily put myself through voluntary physical exertion, unless the prize was Robbie Williams, some baby oil and a large coffee cake (I'm not being kinky - I'd eat the cake first), but it's in a good cause and all that. I first ran lurched round the 5km course in 2004, after one of my best friends guilted me into taking part by being diagnosed with breast cancer. She's perfectly alright now, which may explain why, after wholeheartedly committing to doing it again last year, I took part in about three training runs and then cried off on the grounds of having a luxury holiday in Mexico instead (it's all in last June's archives, if you're the sort of person who likes reading about other people's holidays. I'm not, personally, but whatever gets you through the night). See? I've always been the caring, giving Surly Girl you know and love today.

This year, for some reason, I've agreed once more to sweat my way round a park in a red-faced, unlovely heap in the name of Cancer research. I'll be hitting you up for sponsorship at some point - I reckon that if you all pledge 10p per mile I might just raise that tenner this year. It struck me fairly recently that, given that the race is in July and that I've spent the last eighteen months emphatically not giving up smoking, I perhaps ought to, you know, train a little bit. It's at this juncture that I have to offer my apologies both to the Other Half for making him sort of walk-slightly-fast alongside me for thirty-five minutes as I gasped, sweated and generally made a meal out of jogging like an asthmatic walrus with a wonky flipper, and to anyone in my local area who had the misfortune to witness it. That thing? The wobbly thing you could see? That was my belly. Sorry about that.

Still, I made it home and will be going again on Friday morning and (lying through my teeth at this point) Sunday. and then (again with the lying) three times a week until I can run 5km without needing resuscitation at the end of it. I am celebrating my new-found impetus to get fit with a giant can of Stella (you can take the girl out of Essex...) and would kindly ask you all to remind me every so often that I DON'T SMOKE ANY MORE. That way, hopefully, these chest pains won't come back and make me worry about drinking lager.

Cheers.