E - Running at a Loss

How many of us have repugnant recollections of PE lessons?

Swampy hockey pitches; ill-fitting kit; bruises; mildewy changing
rooms; erratic showers that alternately scalded and chilled one's
skin?

And as for team-picking - that had to be the most humiliating, elitist
practice in the world! Hovering at the back in my aertex T-shirt and
pleated blue wrapover skirt, nibbling my nails and gazing at the grass
to shield my hurt eyes, as the popular girls who always got to be
captains fought over who would NOT have me in their team.

I could never fathom why being less than magnificent at hockey or
netball laid me open to the kind of contempt more appropriately
reserved for murderers. My inability to whack a ball or aim one through
a hoop invited the foulest sarcasm and derision from my brutish
teachers and catty classmates.

I think a good part of my problem was that I possessed a beanpole
physique which gave the erroneous impression that inside it lurked an
athlete.

"But you're so tall, Leigh," fools would comment, "you ought to be
BRILLIANT at netball!"

To me, this was about as logical a hypothesis as: "You've got green
eyes - you should be good at art!" or: "You've got black hair - I bet
you're a real whizz at cooking!"

People seemed disappointed when the truth dawned: that I boasted all
the athletic prowess and co-ordination of a female Frank Spencer.

I utilised every excuse in the skiver's handbook at some stage during
my stretch at secondary school (feigned ailments, fictitious dental
appointments, 'forgotten' kit, etc), which was, admittedly, not the
best method of endearing myself to teachers.

Now if one hour a week of PE was purgatory, then Cavalcade Day - the
pretentious title my school bestowed upon that summer day when lessons
were abandoned in favour of sweating it out on the racetrack for a few
poxy house points - was my Waterloo.

I reaped no personal gain from it, and thus regarded the event as an
utterly futile use of my time. I knew I was a total dud at Games, and
resented having to prove it to the whole school. It wasn't as though
they ever staged writing competitions or spelling bees, where the likes
of me might have exacted revenge upon illiterate hockey players.

The house I was in scraped the booby prize every year - which, though
surely not entirely due to my presence, could not have been unconnected
to it either.

Cavalcade mornings were devoted to team games, which were compulsory;
the track events, in the afternoons, were optional. I always dodged the
athletics - save for in July 1992 when, as a puppy fat-ridden
15-year-old, I somehow found myself coerced into the senior girls 800
metres.

I was 'volunteered' the day before the contest - because, allegedly, no
other girls in my house were available. To me, this amateurish approach
defeated the entire object of a sports day. I mean, Linford Christie
won Olympic gold in Barcelona that same year - was he selected for the
100m solely because nobody else could be bothered to enter? Somehow I
suspect not.

Joking apart, a half-mile slog was no mean feat for a girl who required
hospital treatment after a dash for the bus. Even if afforded
sufficient time to train for the run, I'd have been at a total loss as
to what 'training' involved - such was my ignorance about exercise and
the anatomy. It was really quite dangerous.

In a nutshell, the idea of Leigh Rowley running a race was as ludicrous
as Gareth Gates running for Prime Minister. It simply wasn't me. I was
an academic; a swot. I had no feasible hope of winning - or even coming
third - a fact of which I was aware even before learning that my
opponents were a trio of coltish sixth formers who had represented the
school at county level.

My paranoid, adolescent theory was that our PE teacher, who had never
liked me, sadistically proposed my name for this impossible mission to
make a very public fool of me. If this was her objective, she certainly
achieved it.

Limbering up on that starting line was an experience lifted straight
from one of my more surreal dreams. It was a scorching afternoon. My
skin and brain were already melting as though waxen, and the crisp,
salady sent of the freshly mown track prickled my hay fever-prone
nostrils. I had never 'limbered up' for anything in my life; the puny
bit of knee-flexing I attempted two minutes before the starting pistol
was a decidedly feeble parody of it.

The four of us squatted into position in our staggered lanes. The
adjudicating teacher fired the gun - and it all went awry from
there.

I rocketed away as though competing in a sprint. 'Pacing myself' was an
alien notion; I just presumed speed was the key to victory in any race.
Regrettably, this approach does not quite work in a long distance hike.
After a few seconds, my paltry energy reserve was spent.

As my Lara Croft-esque rivals dissolved into the distance, I truly
thought I might die - from exhaustion or embarrassment, either would
have done. I was all but stationary now, yet somehow persevered with
heaving my jaded, shapeless body around the interminable oval.

Pitched as I was against three superb runners, I was denied the dignity
of finishing last by a proverbial hair's breadth. Oh no - I wilted over
the finish line a full FIVE MINUTES after the girl who came third! It
seemed more like an hour.

THE WHOLE SCHOOL was my audience: 500 blurry faces dotting the grassy
banks that surrounded the circuit.

As I at long last shuffled and wheezed towards the finish, they began
to clap. Every pore of me was ablaze with shame. I knew their applause
was borne out of sympathy rather than admiration, and I felt totally
patronised. I had a proud nature, and would sooner have endured their
customary disdain than this embarrassed pity.

Believe it or not, I now love keeping fit. But if nothing else, this
little episode taught me that anyone who can survive such a public
display of humiliation in front of their whole school can survive
absolutely anything.