Joggerholic

You’d have to be a masochist to be a jogger. What kind of a nut would pound delicate tootsies over kilometres of tarmac and dust at some ungodly hour all in the name of good health and vitality? Who’d have rivulets of sweat pouring over shapely shoulders, down a cute, upturned nose onto a soggy tank top to be soaked up by nifty silk shorts? What’s so vital about B.O.? While the rest of the world is dreaming sweetly, you’re out there kidding yourself it’s great to be alive in pouring rain, sub zero temperatures, soaring humidity or just plain mud and slush.

It’s nothing for my friend Sally to turn up on my doorstep, dripping sweat, panting heavily but with a cheerful Hello. She’s only jogged a mere 10 km to my place yet she has a natty little car with everything that buzzes, whirrs, clicks and clunks. “It’s such a nice day ,” she beams. I nearly died when she said she had got up yesterday to run to Victor Harbour from Adelaide. “It only took me 7 hours!” She grinned triumphantly. It’s 40Km. It’s a lovely Sunday drive, but a jog?

When everyone else is going on luxury tours, pampering themselves in top class hotels and simply revelling in creature comforts, Sally is out on a track or trail somewhere. Her idea of a “beaut holiday” is tramping trails in NZ or sprinting around the Himalayas. She comes back and tells you in enthusiastic detail how she ran for kilometres through thick mud, sloshed her way down river beds which were supposed to be dry or tippy toed across single wire bridges strung precariously over gorges. Then she’ll laugh about the time she was clambering around the edge of a mountain (part of the official trail, mind you) through tussocky grass, getting her foot stuck in holes and slipping off rocks. She positively beams and then becomes sad because the bad weather had stopped her going over the glaciers.

As you dive into your carpetbag, she’ll sit there heartily munching on a cheese sandwich – whole meal bread of course, and she’ll wash it all down with a carton of skimmed milk as you savour the bouquet of a rather nice red. And dessert? Chinese dates. She lives on them. Her idea of lashing out is digging into NZ ice cream and fresh boysenberries.

Now, you can’t tell me she is not a masochist. She tells me she gets a high while she’s running. Just think of the pain she has to go through to get there. While I’m enjoying a hearty BBQ, Sally picks at a few bits of chicken, loosens up while I’m gorging dessert and then takes off for a run as I bask in the warm outdoors. She tells me she’ll soon be off on a jogging holiday around Nepal. That’s self-inflicted punishment if ever I’ve heard of it.