DuraKaN

I did this a couple of years ago, but apparently I forgot to tell the rather pathetic, humiliating story…

I’d done the run before with a time of 50 minutes, but this time they changed the course and there were a LOT more up and down bits than before, so I was fairly certain I wouldn’t beat my time. Also, I didn’t bother to do any training…

For some reason, despite not doing any training, I was feeling quite confident on the day. A few hundred people showed up, and we all had to stand in a field with a big stage at the front, while some fitness instructor co-ordinated a warm-up. The warm-up was hell. By the end, I think most people were out of breath. Then, a few minutes later, the run started. Great.

Still, I wasn’t feeling too bad, and after a couple of kilometres I thought I was doing fine, so I upped the pace a bit… around about the five kilometre mark, I really started to not feel good, and then I suddenly became really cold and my head was getting a bit light, so for the first time ever, I had to stop jogging and walk for a bit..

That was effectively the end of my race. Shortly, my dad and my brother passed me, and my embarrassment was complete. I spent the rest of the race running and walking in intervals, and only just managed to run over the finish line. Thanks to the strong start, my time was about 65 minutes, which isn’t too bad considering it was a harder track, but I felt pretty awful for a long time afterwards.

The run was in aid of charity – cancer research – and beneath the bit of paper with our number on, we could write who we were doing it for. I dedicated my race to a friend of mine that died of leukaemia when he was 17… He would definitely have appreciated the humour value!

My real name has never been anywhere in the Google search results, but I don’t mind that… I always thought I could rely on being number one for my pseudonym, ‘DuraKaN’, but this is no longer the case, thanks to some stupid bin company called ‘Dura-Kan’.

That’s a terrible name for a company. I might ask them to change it. Otherwise, I’ll have to develop some dynamic plan of action for clawing my way back to the top, and that will take effort.

I’ve had the game for several years, but I had to stop playing it when I went to university because it wouldn’t work on the university internet. However, that obstacle has been out of my way for some time now. I don’t remember how far I got last time (I think it was the cold place after Ascalon), but it’s about damn time I gave it another shot!

I have created a new character, and I intend to play like a maniac, so we’ll see if I can complete it this time…