Over the past week, a couple of people have asked why I
chose to give my blog the name that it’s got. So I thought I had better explain….
Anyone who knows me well will know that I have a rather
colourful dating history. For many years, I have tended to be attracted to men
who are bad for me – in fact with one recent notable exception, they have been
varying degrees of vile. Of course, I have been oblivious to this until long
after it is over. I had the dubious pleasure of bumping into one of them in a
pub back last summer, and I told him during the course of our conversation of
my intentions to sign up for the Bath half marathon. Spluttering into his beer
he told me that I would never manage to run even a mile as I am far too fat and
lazy. To be fair, I was perhaps rather foolish of me to expect him to be in any way
supportive as his pet name for me was, and in fact still is "Lard".
Another equally charming ex, on terminating our relationship
told me that he had made an exception for me, because normally he only dated
thin, pretty girls. That statement has stuck with me ever since. It would be understandable if he had the
benefit of supermodel looks himself, but sadly he does not.
I am well aware that I am not exactly skinny. I haven’t been
since I started working in McDonalds and discovered beer when I was 16. But I
have come to realise that even if I had been a size 6, those men would still
have made those comments – I wasn’t about me, or how I looked, it was about
them and their odious personalities. And
as they both march quickly towards middle age, and all the disadvantages that
go with it, I am becoming a better person than they ever deserved. I will probably not ever be skinny again, but
I will be happy and that is sometimes the best revenge anyone can get.
Fat or thin, I will complete the Bath half marathon, and I
will do it with a smile on my face. And
I will do it just for me, because I can. I have named this blog in celebration
of who I am, and when I do complete the race it will because the things that
they said about me made me stronger.
So there you go, my
sad little story. I could actually write
a book on the men I have known and their strange habits. Maybe that will be my
next project.
On a more cheerful note, I ran 5 miles this week without
stopping. It was a bit slow at times, as it was on the road out of Abergavenny
where I am currently on placement with university, and much of it was uphill,
but it felt fantastic to complete that distance. If I can repeat the same next
week, I think I might try to find a 10k to enter, and again I will finish it
with a smile on my face.
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