THIS is the column I thought I’d never write. And it comes with a health warning: if you happen to be a PE teacher and you taught any of my children, reading further may seriously damage your health. Stop now. I mean it...
Because it turns out our youngest has taken it into her head to run the Loch Ness marathon next month.
As our children’s PE teachers would no doubt tell you — were they not, at this precise moment, expiring from heart attacks at the very idea of any of the Manns going faster than your average tortoise — the words "Mann" and "marathon" bear a similar relationship to "pigs" and "fly" or "Hell" and "freeze over", if you get my drift.
This branch of the Mann family are — or, at least, have been — Olympic-class couch potatoes.
OK, himself did run in the inter-scholastics (do they have those anymore?) back when Adam was a boy. But he’s been at pains to give most forms of physical activity that don’t involve right-hand-pint-glass action a body-swerve for the past 40-odd years. Once, in the summer of 1974, when his band was doing a six-week residency in the South of France (life sure was tough back then!), he sat on the sub’s bench for the hotel footie team. He was subbed on 10 minutes before the final whistle... and had to be subbed off again five minutes later!
Me? I always got a stitch at the very idea of going for a run. And then, a couple of years back, I really took a bit of a turn and decided to do the Race For Life, all of five kilometres. No training of course. My intention was to jog until I got tired or started peching and then drop back to walking.
But, surprising as it seems, I didn’t get tired and my breathing remained under control. I guess that was to do with the fact that, though driving to work, I was parking the car a good 25 minutes brisk walk away to force myself to do something resembling daily exercise.
Anyway, I finished the entire 5k at a jog. By the end I actually felt as if I could have run the whole thing again. I was also fairly certain I deserved to be nominated for Sportswoman of the Year.
But a marathon? For goodness sake, it’s 26.2 miles. That’s nearly nine times my personal best.
For the past few months Number Two Daughter’s been out running, often with her Marathon Mate, Tracey Fraser. At first her feet were blistered and bleeding. Then, at my insistence, she got properly fitted for a pair of running shoes (you thought one pair of trainers was much the same as another? Think again) and she’s never looked back. Several times now she’s run 14 miles, a distance that I find mind-boggling. Last weekend she did 18!
There is, of course, a serious side to all this. The girls are running for a good friend of theirs.
Even when you get to my age, the "C" word still comes as a real shock. Discovering that a friend or relative has cancer is devastating.
But when you’re young — and the person who has cancer is also young — it’s even worse.
A good friend of Bryony and Tracey was diagnosed with cervical cancer a while back and has been undergoing some pretty gruelling treatment since then. She’s only 29.
She has received most of her treatment in the ANCHOR Unit (Aberdeen and North Centre for Haematology, Oncology and Radiotherapy) at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary.
When the girls said they’d like to run for a charity of her choosing, she had no hesitation in nominating Friends of ANCHOR, providing additional care, comfort and support which isn’t paid for by the NHS.
The girls’ fundraising website is now up and running and they are on their last few weeks of training. We’re all set to meet them at the finish line on the 2nd October. It will be a grand family occasion.
Oh, and if you want to speed them on their way, Googling Bryony+ Tracey+anchor seems to do the trick.
