Found in my documents, on the archives of my old computer, here’s some writing from July 14th in 2008:
GREENBLUE AND THE URBANATHLETIC MEDALION
The morning of Sunday July the 13th 2008 marked something rather different for me. I woke up, had three Shreddies breakfast bars, a bowl of muesli and a banana. I decided to skip having a bath or shower. I affixed the bog standard shop’s own roll-on to my armpits. I then walked my family’s dog Bailey around Highfield Country Park (Levenshulme) in glorious shimmering summer sunshine. The bus journey into town and out towards Sportscity filled me with nerves. Prior to today, I had only ever ran around chasing a football or on Aberystwyth Town reserve team runs with Richie Jones barking his orders at decibels only heard near commercial aeroplanes.
The full three months of training were about to come into fruition. Had running like a Monty Python sketch artist up stairs in Plymouth’s Hoe before diving to the ground to do a transverse abdominal stretch on the grass made a difference? Had cycling insane distances and mentally challenging hills improved my stamina? Did laying off the real ale and whiskey make one iota of a difference? Only today would tell all.
Watching The Gladiators since I was younger and occasionally catching great Olympians like Linford Christie and Sir Steve Redgrave on television should have been a big influence. I should have done more sport back in my University days at Aberystwyth. However, the Latin Superbia in proelia stuck to mind. Having gotten sponsors that combined a total of over £700 between them, I had to do this as best possible for my chosen cause the Genesis Appeal. I had chosen the Genesis Appeal for several reasons. I like boobs. One in ten women develop breast cancer (and even 1 in a 1000 men develop this too). That’s shocking! Imagine the days back at your secondary school, I went to Reddish Vale where we had around 1400 students at the time. Just pin-balling figures around to say half the students were female to give us 700 and then dividing that by ten to give us 70 possible breast cancer sufferers. Astoundingly large numbers. Scary. The other factors for choosing The Genesis Appeal included someone within the family undergoing treatment for breast cancer and my football club, MCFC (okay) choosing to nominate a cause I had up until then never heard of. I perused the matchday programmes and visited their excellent website, www.genesisuk.org, to find they are a national charity based in my homeland of Mancunia.
Preparing for the run did not just involve physical preparations, but I had to bug people, kneecap them, and scrape for pennies towards my chosen charity. The medium of Facebook proved easiest, setting up a group called the, “John Acton’s Urbanathlon Run In Aid Of The Genesis Appeal Charity” which could also have been named, “Oi, gimme cash for a bloody good cause, and I’ll do something stupid.” Then there was the T-shirt… having emailed many custom-made t-shirt providers and got no response, I contacted a firm in Plymouth who took my order, then lost it, then re-took my order before eventually deciding a week before they could not find the order again. I still await a refund. So, off to the shops I go, I grasp the blue dye and apply liberally to a cheap polo shirt from a high street sports shop (the night before the run).
So, to the task in hand, the Original Source 2008 Urbanathlon in Sportscity, East Manchester… the warm-up was bloody hard work. Diane Modahl launched the race, the first of its kind in Europe, and then on the day started us off. And off I jogged. Ouch, why do you always need a piddle after only a few minutes running? The race started on the Regional Athletics Stadium, looped around the City of Manchester Stadium forecourts, over some concrete blocks, looped around beneath the F of The Fart (I mean B of The Bang), up the spiral staircases into the City of Manchester Stadium (I stopped enroute to use the men’s toilets), back out of the stadium and past the City Social café, over another wall, through a man-made lake of water, lemons and oranges, back out feet drenched before tumbling over a few logs, following the course below, alongside the canal, then up into Phillips Park, through towards the bridge, under the bridge, up a hill, over a pyramid of hay bails, down a dip, up a slope, over some trees, through stinging nettles, up a muddy embankment, down a hill, up a steep winding path, slid down a huge waterslide aided by Fireman Sam’s hosepipes (no pun intended), up a grassy slope, across more green fields, down a path, banking left, following the pathway alongside the river Medlock, through the river Medlock and up a steep bank of mud, following the river pathway yet again but on the opposing bank, back through the river, this time over more slippery pebbles, up onto the dry land in drenched trainers (will they ever wash clean?)…
…up a hill of hell, no car could ever climb this hill, it is far too steep and long, through more green pastures, descend some steps, crawl through the pipelines, grab some water where a lady informs me I’m halfway (is there no end to this hell?), a lad shouts to me, “well done Genesis Appeal, its horrible what happens in a Genocide.” I slow my pace and inform him of what The Genesis Appeal is, I clamber through ropes aplenty in a horrible sapping rope course, waddle along the pathway, transcend a hill banking up towards Newton Heath, a silver car passes me by on the pathway with its hazard lights flashing to reflect my feelings, over an assault course (similar to that seen on parks), through some tyres one foot at a time, then run over the bridge, towards Ravensbury in Clayton, down a cobbled alley way, over a platter of car tyres, over the road back into Phillips Park. Under the old bridge, onto the straights towards the finishing line which is now in sight…
…over a sadistic climbing wall, I decide to leap two footed onto the cars just before the finish line before jogging over to glory, collecting my medal and goody bag before grabbing a drink and striding away in sheer agony. Who’s idea was this?! One milkshake later, a warm down and some water I decide to go and collect my time. I was assaulted on the way by a Gazebo and promptly St. John’s ambulances called into action. One superficial cut to the noggin cleaned up later and then a whiz round the Party In The Park before watching hundreds more cross the finish line. I had finished the 10k Urbanathlon in around an hour. Not bad for a non-distance runner!
And even today my muscles twinge, my feet burn and my body demands energy. If you sponsored me, thank you kindly.
John Acton,
www.justgiving.com/greenblue (open until September 2014 for sponsorship)
From my archives.
ACTON28: AGAINST THE FLOW OF TRAFFIC 