I have a mate who is a little annoying. Not in a bad way. Just in that way where's there's a bit of you that wished you had a bit of his charm that makes girls knees weak, a little bit in better shape like him...and worse, told jokes like he does. Annoying! I've known him since college, maybe see him once a year. The jokes are the same. Annoying. I recall a few of them from time to time. He perpetually tells everyone in his booming voice "you've only got a finite number of heart beats...why waste them on exercise".
There are times, like today, during the Boggart Hole Clough XC when I'm convinced my heart is about to explode out of my chest, that I wonder if he may be right. My resting heart rate this morning was 39bpm. I'm good at resting. I contemplate if this somehow compensates for those brief moments of rapid heart rate and leaves me with extra beats in the tank at the end of the week. The maths is complicated, forgetting for a moment, he's talking bollocks. Then there's his other favourite that also came to mind today. 
"I can stand anything...except pain". How they laughed. Annoying. However, I have a ridiculously low pain threshold, or as my mates say, I'm 'soft as shite'. I'm fine with that. No David Blaine style calm and composure here. I need to share my pain. My Brain Training for Runners book, says I should embrace my pain. No. Yet at cross country today I remember running into something on my thigh and a searing pain ripping my skin, for that is how it felt, yet a detached almost observational reaction to it. 'Fuck, that hurt'.
Sure I felt it, but was that busy trying to keep upright, breathe and maintain some kind of forward momentum while defending interference from raised elbows and verbal abuse, that I just carried on. And that was that. I ran on, and ran well. Felt quite good and pleased with myself. That's all we want, isn't it? Then I showered. Jeeeeeeeeeze! I squealed like a squealy thing...and have effectively been moaning on about it since. Like a bread knife across my thigh, but in fact appears to be a small scratch. Unbelievable. I'm not good with pain!
