We’re standing at the storting line – we’re talking me, we’re talking Garret and we’re talking 6,000 others. I’m pinning my race number to the front of my shirt, except my hands are shaking – like my old dear’s when she’s making her first cocktail of the morning.
I didn’t realise I was so scared of complete and utter humiliation.
Honor and Sorcha are standing about 50 feet away. I can’t actually see them but they’re shouting encouragement from somewhere in the crowd. Sorcha’s going, “Let’s all hope for a clean and competitive race in which everyone is a winner!” while Honor’s going, “Destroy him, Dad! Wipe that smug smile off his ridiculous face!”
But I can’t even think straight without my little blue pills. “I wonder is there a chemist anywhere nearby,” I go.
Garret laughs. He’s like, “A chemist? Why do you need a chemist?”
To buy some drugs to help me run like a shoplifter. I don’t say that, though?
I’m just there, “I need to buy, em, I don’t know, plasters.”
He’s like, “Plasters?”
“Yeah, no, these new runners I’m wearing are actually rubbing a bit.”
He goes, “Getting your excuses in before the race even starts, eh?”
I’m like, “No.”
He goes, “That’s what it sounds like to me,” then he storts doing a few last-minute stretches. “Of course, if you want to back out . . .”
“What do you mean back out?”
“You don’t have to run the race, Ross – if, like you say, your runners are rubbing. I mean, it’ll be humiliating for your wife and daughter to see you pull out with sore feet. But then it’d be even worse if they saw me beat you, especially after all your promises.”
I’m there, “I’m not pulling out.”
God, I’d love to pull out.
I’m like, “One thing I’m definitely not is a quitter.”
“Well,” he goes, “you should maybe think about it, because you don’t look well to me. You look sick with nerves.”
There’s an announcement over the public address system. It’s not, “Ready, steady, go,” but it’s something very like it, then there’s the crack of a pistol and a loud cheer, and about 30 seconds after that we stort moving – slowly, I might add, because we’re all packed in together.
God, I wish we could stay at this pace.
“I can’t believe you’re out of breath already,” Garret goes. “I thought you trained for this.”
I’m there, “I did . . . train for it.”
“Doesn’t sound like it. But, look, if you’re worried about keeping up, I could go at a slower pace. Don’t be too embarrassed to ask me. Like I said, I don’t want to make you look small in front of Sorcha and Honor.”
“Yeah,” I go, “you just concentrate . . . on your own race.”
After about one kilometre, the field storts to thin out. The people in front of us push ahead and the people behind us fall back and suddenly there’s room to actually move.
After 2km, I’m wheezing like a 60-cigarettes-a-day man – again, I’m reminded of my mother – while Garret, running at my elbow, isn’t even breathing heavily? He’s, like, staring at his watch while he’s running, then he goes, “Hey, I thought this was supposed to be a race,” and he kicks, suddenly putting 10 metres of distance between us, then 20, with no apparent effort at all.
I feel like I’m going to vomit. And I’m asking myself why did I put my name down for this? Why couldn’t I leave him to run his stupid race alone while sneering at his efforts from the side of the road?
I’m watching his back disappear into the distance when suddenly, out of nowhere, I hear Ryle Nugent going, “Iiit’s Keeeaaarneeey tiiime!”
At first I think I’m, I don’t know – whatever it’s called when your ears are hallucinating?
Then I remember that it’s my actual ring tone and I realize that I must have left my phone in the pocket of my Cantos. I whip it out and I look at the screen. It’s Ronan. I end up answering.
“I just wanthed to wish you luck today,” he goes. “Here, why are you ourra brett? You’re not habben sex on the morden of the race, are you?”
I’m like, “No . . . I’m in the race . . . as in . . . it’s actually storted.”
“Soddy, Rosser, I forgor about the time diffordence. How’s it going in addyhow?”
“I might as well . . . tell you, Ro . . . not great. Garret is just . . . a speck in the distance already . . . and I’m considering pulling . . . out . . . it’s just these runners are rubbing.”
He goes, “So you’re a quitter now, are you? What do you think Fadder Fehily would think of what you’re saying?”
“Ro, we’re not even . . . at the halfway point . . . and I’m focked.”
“You’re not fooked. That’s your bleaten head tedding you that. I seen what you were capable of in the gym, member?”
I’m like, “Look . . . I’ve got something . . . to tell you,” even though I know it’s going to break his hort. “All that work you watched me do . . . I was on drugs, Ro.”
“Soddy?”
“Yeah, no . . . you heard right . . . I bought these little blue pills . . . off a dude in . . . that gym of yours . . . They’re the real reason . . . I was totally killing it in the gym . . . .. But then I accidentally left them back in Ireland . . . Now I’ve got fun runners overtaking me.”
“Thee werdunt thrugs,” Ronan suddenly goes.
I’m like, “What?”
“Them piddles you were taken – thee werdunt thrugs. The fedda what sowult them to you, he lives on me road.”
“Hang on, are you saying . . . Oh my God . . . you set me up?”
“I knew you wouldn’t thrain unless you thought you’d some koyunt of advantage. So I says to him, pretend you’re gibbon him stedoids.”
“Are you saying it was . . . the Placido Effect?”
“Ine saying you’ve been wolfing down canine hormone replacement piddles.”
“Okay, that would explain . . . the rapid hair growth.”
“Rosser, all that woork you did in the gym, that was you. Had nuttin to do with chemikiddles. Let me ast you a question.”
“Fire ahead.”
“Can you still see that Gaddet sham?”
I’m like, “In the distance, yeah . . . He’s getting . . . smaller, though.”
And Ronan goes, “Up the pace, Rosser. You can beat him.”
To be continued . . .