The romance of running

While Mr G and I were out plodding out our 21 mile long run the other Sunday we saw a great old school friend of mine Ally.  She was running towards us with her friend.  I love seeing friends out running, Ally and I played hockey together at school, but I don't ever remember either of us going for a run, that said she was very good at hockey so she may well have been off sprint training with out me knowing.

Anyway not only were Ally and I surprised to see each other, not that it is that much of a surprise considering she lives in the next village, but she had just been telling her running buddy about how Mr G proposed to me.  Here we were the subjects of her story.

Now Gary's proposal probably isn't up there in the top ten romantic proposals that most people would think of, it certainly wasn't a candle lit dinner.  It was running our first marathon together, the Portland Coastal Trail Marathon run by Endurance Life.  This was my third marathon but first trail marathon, while it was the first marathon Mr G had ever run.  Sadly Endurance Life didn't run the Portland CTS event this year, but for those of you who don't know it it is a grueling two lap course, with a decent stretch along the Chesil Beach shingle.  There was a great turn out to the event considering this was the week of last years snow storms, and I'll be honest Mr G and I didn't know if we'd actually make it to the start.  We did though and we set off in a really friendly crowd.

Our wedding day!

The first lap was great, the famous Portland Lighthouse looked beautiful, while the sea looked rough and raging.  It started to rain as we hit the first section of Chesil Beach, but still I was feeling good.  About a third of the way into the second lap I started to struggle.  My hamstrings went completed rigid and I felt as though every step was a pained effort.  Mr G was kindly bouncing along beside me trying to keep me going, but I just wanted to put my head down, swear gently under my breath and bare it.  I kept telling him to run on without me, but he wouldn't.  Eventually we hit the Chesil Beach Shingle for a second time and I couldn't take it any longer and started to walk.  Mr G kindly walked with me.  He was acting kind of strange and I in an irritated tone asked him what was wrong.  His reply 'well I was going to ask you to marry me.'  'Oh!' I replied completely shocked and taken a back.   Thinking my poor marathon run had actually put him off I asked 'well are you going to?'  And he said 'Well will you?'  Honestly the two of us are normally far better communicators!

The rest is history we continued walking along Chesil beach with grins on our faces.  My legs suddenly felt a whole lot better and I even managed to run the last mile.  We married in February at Exeter registry office with a small number of friends and family and celebrated afterwards at the Salty Monk Restaurant.  It was a perfect day!