KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON

On Sunday, I ran a half-marathon. Well, run is perhaps a slight overstatement. Certainly I ran the first 10 miles I would have said, but by the final 3 I had faithfully departed from my "slightly faster than walking" pace to... well it was probably slightly slower than walking to be honest. But, it was still a "run" - as my brother kindly remarked to me as he strolled along next to me for the final mile "one of your feet is off the ground at any one time - technically you're still running." I shall cling to that statement.

I have been tempted to blog some of my running experiences before this but was concerned that I would not be able to complete the marathon I was training for and then every time I glanced back at my previous posts I would be shamed by the irony. I did not want to tempt fate, so to speak. Now, however, I can blog away, hurrah!

It has not been at easy past few months. Ever since I rashly signed up under the mis-construction that it would be "fun" I have had moments of utter panic. Most of these occurred when I first started running. Only to discover, that I couldn't run. Well not for very long at least, a mile would have my life flashing before my eyes and forcing myself to restrain from flagging passing motorists down and begging them for a lift.

"Shit", was what went through my mind the majority of the time. How the bloody hell am I going to run 13.1 miles if 1.5 is a challenge. Fortunately, I am incredibly optimistic, and would calm my frantic nerves with the reassurance that I could always either a) just not turn up on the day and blame the traffic, b) fake injury c) run (no pun intended) away.

After that it was a matter of swallowing my pride and resigning myself to the fact that no matter what, I was going to look like a tit. I have had my fair share of humiliation. There was the time I was a mile into a 7 mile run and it started pissing it down - literally people were driving past me, laughing. Or the time I got a bit carried away listening to Tina Turner and found myself skipping and jumping erratically in the road; or, a personal favourite, when I inadvertently yelled "JESUS FUCKING CHRIST MOTHER OF GOD" at a cyclist who had cycled past me suddenly giving me the fright of my life. All character building stuff. I have, of course suffered numerous other humiliations and embarrassments but I shall keep them for whenever someone needs cheering up.

The title of this blog may seem utterly irrelevant but it is fundamental to my success. When running for a long time - and indeed, on marathon day - I frequently needed boosters to help me going. Sometimes Tina just didn't quite cut it. One of the techniques I employed was to make little jokes as I went along - if I ran past some sheep I would shout "hello ewe!" and chortle away, or try and list all the Jilly Cooper characters (never got very far) but my favourite was to give myself a firm talking to and to remind myself to remember to "KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON!"

Too right, love.

This morning whilst conveniently late for work I somehow found myself embroiled in an argument with a good friend of mine concerning "internships". It started because I was bemoaning the fact that I will (outwardly) happily work for free to gain valuable experience whilst the respective company gets to joyously milk my slave labour. This enraged my friend to the extent that he made the simile that "doing a stupid internship is just like the fucking Victorians sending children down coal mines. Except at least they got bloody paid tuppence for it!"

Amusing and inaccurate as this may be (I don't spend my days earning nothing but the experience of my lungs being steadily corroded by coal dust, thankfully) it lead onto a discussion (read foul-mouthed fight at 8 am in the morning) as to the ethics of the situation.

Whereas my friend demanded that I stand up, shout FUCK YOU to the man and quit in a blaze of glory, I, in my cowardly and pathetic way argued that sometimes you just have to suck it up. If I was actually James Bond, (rather than just pretending to be on the ski slopes - the closest I come), I would fight the very principle behind unpaid work. The ethics behind this new accepted system of unpaid internships is frankly awful. I worked at one place where my daily expenses were £7 a day. Don't get me wrong, £7 is far better than a slap in the face with a wet fish, but when broken down to the tragic statistic of "£1 an hour"... well it was harder to stay so cheery. And it can become incredibly demoralising, working is better than sitting at home watching Jeremy Kyle "confront gangs" (oh where would we be without him to protect our moral backbone) but really, we need Jeremy Kyle to "confront internships". Surely the ethics behind companies continually hiring interns - to do a full time job for a period of months, and without pay are practically non existant?

So yes, I should have agreed, whole heartedly with my friend this morning. He was saying what I have been thinking, but it boils down to the fact that, unethical, boring and depressing as they may be, I have accepted that unpaid internships are almost like some twisted rite of passage. Perhaps when I have finished my purgatory sentence down the coal mines I may progress. Fingers crossed, certainly.