Bullets Under Foot

Not unlike all our long runs to date this one was difficult. It was a beautiful day, the sun was shining and it was dead calm, hardly ideal for a long 12 mile run and such was our negative mental state that, just to make the worst out of a bad situation, we duly took that rather large chip and swung it over our shoulders before we started to run.

It wasn't that bad. Although we didn't really want to run at all that day and the thought of stretching out on a comfy bench while 2 creamy pints of Guinness were delivered to our corner of the beer garden were very vivid and very distracting, once we got going and into a rhythm we began to enjoy it.

Our route took us on a large 7.5 mile loop around the parameter of the Curragh, along some quite country lanes, across beautiful countryside, back into the Curragh camp and out the other side back towards the car. We had another 4.5 miles to run so to make that up we took in the large field that ran along the M7. Half was around this final loop I started to get really tired and slowly dropped behind, my legs were getting heavier and heavier with every step. Before I knew it I was so far behind I was just out of shouting distance, I kept my head down and focused on moving those tired legs.

Just then something sparkled in the grass and caught my eye. My concentration was focused on running I kept plodding along but my legendary concentration skills let me down yet again and I had to turn back to have a look. It turned out to be a shiny new bullet, my guess was that some private with concentration skills no better than mine had dropped it while on a training exercise last night. So I did what any idiot would do and picked it up to bring it to the MP's when I finished my run. A few steps later I decided that was a retarded thing to do and as I looked for a safe place to drop the bullet, somewhere findable again, I noticed a batch of other bullets. That'll do I thought to myself. There must have been 20 or so rounds lying there. A closer look revealed that although they were unfired they were blanks so I was not uncomfortable leaving them there until I finished my run.

After an agonising 2 more miles I finally reached the end of the run just before I reached the end of my teather. After a long stretch we circled back to report the bundle brass. It's a little worrying that we're having such trouble with a fairly trivial 12 mile run, and with the marathon about 6 weeks away we really need to fix this or it may be a marathon of comedy moments...