Things change with time and age. Our feelings, our intentions, our desires, how we interact and generally where we find pleasure. This was evident on a stag party I recently went too. This was slightly before my passion for running exploded like a pressurised milkshake. We were heading to Chamonix. I didn’t appreciate this at the time. Oh hindsight you bitch. We weren’t going sking. Neither were we going hiking. We didn’t even go during any ‘season’. We went in the middle of May, when nothing was happening. We did however have a huge chalet, a personal chef and cleaner, an endless supply of alcohol and food and a hot tub. We were basically going on a spa weekend.
Generally, we were all ok with that! Some of us wanted to relax, some of us were done with clubbing and partying, the new fathers in the group were looking for a holiday, and I was looking to run!
The first morning Daryl, Nathan, ‘Frenchie’ and I went for a little run. We didn’t go far. I can’t remember where we even went now. We did go up a hill though. A fucking steep one! Within minutes we’d all stopped talking, we were all panting and we were all drenched in sweat. we were at the bottom of the mountains. I started to realise just how high this all is. We returned to the chalet and all felt better for it. The copious amounts of alcohol cleansed from our systems ready to go again (drinking not running).
The next day we went again. We swapped ‘Frenchie’ for Joe. Joe admittedly hadn’t run far for a while, our intention was to run into Chamonix (we were a few miles out of town) and loop back. Off we went. We were staying in Les Trabets. We headed through the village before crossing the river to Les Houches. We ran along the paths passing Merlet at the riverside and into Chamonix before turning round and heading back the way we came. Fair play to Joe, we clocked over 10miles. We kind of sprung that one on him once we’d left.
Arriving back in Les Trabets I did the typical runner thing of needing to round up the distance. I carried on a little further and finished with a half marathon. Yep, I became that person who does a half marathon on a stag do. Life in the 30s are great!
Run With Dai 