Half woman, half lipid, that's what I am

My enthusiasm for the race begins to wane as the big day approaches and the nerves kick in

AS RACE day approaches, I am forced to address a fundamental problem. I don’t like running near or in view of other people. I read on the Great Limerick Run website that they are expecting 8,000 participants and 30,000 spectators on Sunday.

When I think about the crowds my mouth goes dry and my legs stop working and I feel like giving the whole thing up. I’m with Greta Garbo on this one. I want to run alone.

I’ve also given up on music and on audio books and on intellectually stimulating Radio 4 podcasts. I was sick of carrying the iPhone in my hand like a digital crutch and the earphones kept slipping out of my ears.

Without the crutch I am alone with my thoughts, alone with my breath, alone with all those nagging doubts about whether I’ll be able to run 10 kilometres without stopping.

If I succeed it’s going to take me about one hour and 20 minutes, that’s how slowly I run. I don’t think I can run for that many minutes. I don’t think I can run at all in fact with all those people zipping past me.

One of the reasons I started running was because when, after swearing off the scales for years, I stepped on them and was appalled by what I saw.

I weigh a bit less since I started running. But I need to be easier on myself. Carrying that excess weight is bound to slow me down. I’ve got to stop comparing myself with other runners and always coming up short.

It’s like my boxing trainer Uncle Brendan always says: “The only person who can beat you is yourself.”

An email from a concerned relation doesn’t help. “Check this out!! Not to freak you out or anything!!” It contains a link to that tragic story of the 30-year-old woman who dropped dead after crossing the finishing line of the London Marathon.

Not to freak me out or anything.

My sister R and I have already had our fitness tested in the Sports Injury Clinic in Santry, Dublin. I never actually knew there was a Sports Injury Clinic in Santry. But here it is, massive and gleaming, packed with people who know their way around a cruciate ligament.

When your favourite Irish sportsperson has an ailment, he or she ends up hobbling through these doors.

Sitting in the waiting room we can see the doctor for the Irish rugby team walking around looking properly fit. A nurse takes me into a room and gets me to stand me on this machine which delivers judgment on my body on a piece of paper that looks like a till receipt for your weekly shop.

One item on the list jumps out at me. Apparently, I have 49.5 per cent body fat. Half woman, half lipid, that’s what I am.

Dr E comes in. I think he’s going to tell me I can’t do the fitness test because the figures don’t add up. But apparently I am good to go.

“This is going to be intense, just so you know,” he tells me. I go into another room where a load of wires are stuck to my chest and a mask put on my face. I have to run on a treadmill. And it is intense. Just so you know.

Neither R nor I are the better for it but we are both interested in the results. They come by email the next day. My fitness is deemed to be “average”. My goal is to have “good” fitness. My sister is declared “excellent” and her goal is to “maintain an excellent standard of fitness”. I am raging.

“What did you expect?” my sister asks as I seethe quietly in a corner of her house.

“Did you expect excellence after only taking it up a few months ago?” And no I didn’t expect excellence but I can’t help thinking average is just a polite word for “criminally unfit”.

R says no, that “criminally unfit” is what the report would have said had I turned up three months ago when I could barely run the length of myself.

I hope this day next week I will be able to tell you that all my fears were unfounded, that having average fitness means you can run 10k without stopping, that I love running with people.

I know one thing. This is going to be intense.

To find out how Róisín does in the Great Limerick Run, read The Irish Times special supplement on Tuesday next week.