#naughtonlucy

Sunshine always looks better from inside looking out.

I look out the window and think, oh it is so glorious, I must go and be IN it. But the minute I am in it I don’t know what to do next, I am now too hot, anxious that I am not enjoying it enough, I can’t relax, I must keep on walking around, keep taking it all in. I can’t wander round shops, you don’t need sunshine to look in the shops, I go to the park, but the nearest bit is the bit everyone goes to and it is mobbed with children on scooters and groups sitting eating M&S picnics. Being out in the sunshine is becoming less appealing. I don’t want to get in the car and ‘go’ somewhere to enjoy the sun so it must be walking distance and then halfway through my outdoor excursion I have had enough. The second part of the walk, heading home I am not aware of the glorious weather at all, apart from feeling sweaty and half blind from going from strong sun to deep shadow, I want to get indoors and fast.

About to launch is the ‘My single band’ - one of those rubbery wristbands self righteous people wear - but instead of saying that you like soldiers, or donate to the homeless, or herons with HIV it tells other potential lovers that you are single. The idea is that you can find your soul mate more easily if you know who is available. But what if your perfect soul mate is a happily married man? Well look for the gold band on his left third finger.

Yet again the GB men’s 4x100m relay team have been disqualified for an atrocious baton changeover.

‘UK Athletics performance director and acting head coach Neil Black told the BBC: "It's pretty gutting and I'm sure we all feel the same but that's the sport’ (BBC News) He made it sound like they had accidentally chipped his favourite mug. He should have been too embarrassed to speak having failed to ensure that his team’s changeovers would be faultless. 

In my day – 1989, I was ten and training for the annual inter-school athletics competition. Our teacher made the relay teams attend extra training every Friday after school. We didn’t even mind missing Grange Hill for this, we felt so important, like the Special Forces arm of the school athletics team. By the time the competition came around a couple of months later we had become one mellifluous, plimsolled-being, gushing round the track, paper numbers flapping from our over-washed PE shirts and we brought home that relay trophy. The bus journey back with the team was probably one of the best moments of my life - though at the time I naturally assumed there would be far better moments to come. . .I digress.

These ‘elite’ athletes should be so well practised in changeovers that they can handover blindfolded, they should be practising handovers at every opportunity; whilst reaching for their girlfriend’s hand in the park, as she passes him the ticket in the cinema on date night, whilst spooning in bed – “I won’t enter you until I see your hand, palm up, fingers splayed, reaching backwards towards my manhood, and make sure you yell GO when I’m within the box. If it’s not in you by the time we hit the opposite side of the bed then it’s all over, no medal.”

I watched horrified as the third leg, Harry Aikines-Aryeetey fiddle-arsed about with the baton, scooching his hand down the shaft to make space for James Ellington’s hand which was getting further and further out of reach, then the ultimate tell – the panicked head turn – you haven’t been practising have you boys? Just thought you could turn up and work out the changeover bit en-route?!

I wonder If my primary school teacher was watching the race, barking at his wife, “That wouldn’t have happened with MY relay squad - just look at that – shocking – one session with me and my 1989 relay champs and I would soon sort them out.”

A new element has been added to my runs http://www.endomondo.com

Why would I take a Japanese starter with me? 

I had happily (no resignedly) plodded along with no concept of time for many years, stopping and starting, not caring whether I was improving or not thinking, ‘I’m not competitive, I’m just doing this to be healthy.’

Once signed up for Endomondo or ‘world of endorphins’ (the phone app that tracks and times your run, announcing your progress at regular stages.) I went through a transformation. 

Similar to facebook it announces what everyone is doing; 

‘Lucy Naughton is running. So far she has tracked 4.97miles in 40mins’ . . .  and then it shows the route you have taken/are currently taking.

Ordinarily what would be happening on one of my ‘private, un-timed’ runs:

‘Lucy has stopped to look at a heron.’

‘Lucy has slowed down to pull her knickers out of her crack.’

‘Lucy has sped up to look at what she thinks is a magnificent hare in the field.’

‘Lucy has slowed back down - it was a sticky up branch.’

‘Lucy is fiddling with her phone as the podcast she downloaded is incredibly dull and the woman’s voice is grating on her brain.’

From the very start of my first Endomondo tracked jog I ran differently, I was running as if someone was watching me, as if EVERYONE was watching me, from the entire Internet.

I was perpetually waiting for the woman to yell in my ear’ole the time for each km, the first km she yelled my time at me, “Oh how novel, most informative!” I thought.

The second km, “That was slower than the first km, why is that?”

The third km, “Right, I can’t let my time drop below 5 mins per km.”

Not competitive?! Pah!

Where once I would gaze around me looking for glamorous wildlife and amusingly shaped trees, now I was just staring hard, dead ahead, not blinking. My favourite copse full of red kites - a traditional stopping point loomed. As usual the kites soared and swooped and cawed in the way that normally stopped me in my tracks and made me grin inanely at the sky for minutes on end. Today I blasted right past. They looked at each other, perplexed.

I charged along my route like a woman being chased by age. I saw nothing, heard nothing but my timekeeper, and thought nothing but ‘For god's sake don’t slow down.’ There was no room for my loop of negative thought today.

On my way back past the copse the wake of kites had joined wings and were doing a formation display, spelling my name out in the sky, but I couldn’t stop to look or the Endomondo woman would shout in my ear that my lap time had gone down – all the people on Endomondo might mock me, how could I live with the shame?! So on I pressed without looking, the kites forming a giant one-fingered salute at my back.

Another gimmick on the app - people online can comment while you are out running and the Endo woman will announce it to you;

‘Right now I’m drinking an ice cold Lucozade.’

‘Your boobs don’t half bounce when you run.’

‘I didn’t know you had knock knees.’

‘I’m in the bushes waiting to flash you.’

‘CAMEL TOE!’

Endomondo is so informative and rich in ‘look what I’m doing’ features that it shows online the route you have run and when you ran it, it even tells everyone whilst you are on it. Screw the fitness aspect; this may just grow to be the biggest rapist and murderer’s resource ever. 

‘Lucy is out running’

‘SerialkillerBob is hiding in a bush.’

‘Lucy is 200m from SerialkillerBob.’

‘SerialkillerBob is getting out his big knife.’

‘Lucy has stopped to help a nice man who seems to have lost his puppy.’

‘SerialkillerBob has updated his kill stats.’

Serial killer with an iPhone? Download ‘Deadomondo’ today!!

Share the best ambush spots with fellow killers.

Find out where your buddies are currently hiding. 

Track where you buried your bodies, and monitor decomposition.