Retired Hurt

The love affair is over.

I hate my iPod.

Flushed with the success of the shopping trip, I made a new 'Run with Me' playlist* and road tested it on my usual route - tucking iPod into the waistband of my cycle shorts in lieu of a swanky armband**.

Instead of focusing on my persistantly niggly left knee and the tortured rhythm of my breathing, the music filled my head and I pounded the route without my usual rest stops - even uphill! I reached the end, still listening, endorphins aflowing, so I carried on, and on, and on. Paula Radcliffe diminished as an icon with every yard. I pictured myself crossing the finish line in next year's Great North Run - lifting a bottle of Moet to my lips, (or at least Lucozade Sport).

The slightly euphoric and smugly self-satisfied mood stayed with me all day and all evening.

It was only the following morning when I rolled out of bed and had to stagger to the bathroom like Zara Phillips after Badminton that I realised my folly. I couldn't bloody walk! For two days!

So. iPod. I know the cycle shorts were not the most pleasant spot to spend time, and it got a bit sweaty and slippy, and having me dive to retrieve you when you slipped southwards wasn't ideal. But how could you trick me like that? Why didn't you stop me? A duck's got to stay in shape and I did promise you the armband for next time....



* She Sells Sanctuary - Cult; Love is a Stranger - Eurythmics; Insomnia - Faithless; A Midnight's Summer Dream - Stranglers; Love Will Tear Us Apart - Joy Division; The Passenger - Iggy Pop; Black and White - Upper Room; Laid - James; Waterfall - Stone Roses; Hey There Delilah - Plain White T's.

** On my shopping list along with a docking station (if you're reading this Father Christmas, please make a note to save me a stamp in December)