Funny things I heard happen to friends during marathon - #1

"If in doubt, keep it out of your mouth."

It was the Dublin marathon and my friend was struggling. His training had been curtailed first by injury, then by frustration and finally by the desire to have the odd pint at the weekend. He was fit though. He had ran a reasonable number of miles in training. But a marathon was just a tad overly-ambitious. So it was no surprise that by the Stillorgan bypass he was in dire straits.

That’s when he saw them, the Order of Malta. Standing beside the road they were offering energy gels held out for labouring runners like my friend. However, for some reason the energy gel was out of the packet and being held out on their gloved hands. To a normal person in normal conditions this would seem very strange indeed. However, while my friend is pretty normal, 19 miles into a marathon is not exactly normal conditions so he thought nothing of it except gratitude as he scooped it first into his palm and then into his mouth.

The first indication that something was wrong was that it wasn’t sweet.

The second indication that something was wrong was when his mouth started to go numb.

The final indication that something was wrong was when he looked back and from 50 metres the Order of Malta volunteer was still staring at him with their arm outstretched.

Of course it wasn’t energy gel at all.

The Order of Malta don’t do energy gels around mile 19.

Energy gel people do energy gels.

The Order of Malta does Vaseline to help prevent chaffing.

Yesterday’s running
Again it was late. Again I was tired from a long day. But again I managed to get the runners on and out the door sometime after 8 pm for an 8 k run. Felt the calf just a little at the beginning but it soon faded away. Fingers continue to cross. Maybe a little longer tomorrow.