A Couch Potato's Guide to Running by AbbeyDuckett

Britain is renowned for it's unpredictable weather, so why are we all so unprepared? It's April, April showers, and I don't have a jacket for suitable use in the rain. My umbrella is broken. And I had packed away all of my winter boots, so now I have cold feet.
The rain is an even bigger problem for me when it comes to running. I don't like to run in the rain! Who would actually enjoy stepping out of their warm, cosy home, into the wet and cold air and then put their body through the pain of running? This creates an even biggerer problem for me: I have a race in two days, and I haven't trained.
And it's not just the rain, my weather report doesn't quite express the force of wind that is blowing around currently.
But, despite all of this, Andrea and I ventured out into the blistering weather yesterday, and committed to a run. I knew this was going to be a bad idea from the beginning, when I couldn't get out of my car because the wind was blowing it shut. But I battled against it and managed to get out to run into Andrea's car. I wasn't ready to be out fully in the air yet, you have to introduce yourself to it slowly.
I don't feel like I have expressed Andrea's personality enough yet, but she is a lot cooler than me, and takes things seriously, and doesn't really do things in halves. By this I mean, she showed up wearing the full gear: running jacket, running hat, running gloves, the whole shebang. I turned up looking like a charity shop had thrown up on me. Sporting my Mother's rain mac that is a bit like a dress and not suitable for sport, a free mountain bike beer festival cap, massive red mittens, (that really clash with my orange hat and pink shoelaces) and leggings with a hole in.
So instead of worrying about the race, I spent the whole time running praying that no one I knew would see me.
The run wasn't very successful. We would turn one corner and would be literally running on the spot due to the force of the wind. And then the next corner when we are sheltered from the wind there was a massive hill. Mother nature wasn't really giving us much of a break. Other problems included my stupid girly hood blowing in my face, so I had to tuck it inside my jacket, so on top of my weird costume, I looked a little hunch back ish.
I also desperately needed the toilet. I do this a lot. I did think about doing a Paula Radcliffe at the side of the road, but I was too cold to pull down my holy leggings. And then I thought about just doing it whilst running, because I was so wet from the rain anyway. But then I decided to just wait like normal people do.
The last part of the run was downhill, which was nice, except the impact of running downhill kept swishing my bladder around. It was a very close call.
We didn't run very fast, but we did what we could in the conditions we had. I am slightly worried that the forecast is the same for our race on Wednesday. I think I might go out and buy myself a running jacket.

Racing Driver Attire

Charity shop reject