I can't believe it's a year since I ran the London Marathon. In fact I find it quite hard to believe I ran the London Marathon at all. As I look at my flabby body and my wasted muscles it is truly amazing that it managed to run 26.2 miles just 52 weeks ago.
But I did, look.
Nowadays I can no longer even walk up the stairs and so employ an old woman to carry me. It works out cheaper than a Stannah stair lift and although the old women wear out quite quickly, they can be easily replaced.
All the memories of the Hell I went through were revived today, as I went to see my sister go through this pointless and stupid exercise.
I found it hard enough getting myself out of bed at ten o'clock (it is the old lady's day off - she usually lifts me out after having cleaned me all over with a flannel), so I felt sorry for my sister who had had to leave the house at 7am and who was already pounding the streets of South London, apparently not realising that getting a tube would be a much quicker and less exhausting way to get to the Mall. The Somerset idiot.
I was meeting my brother-in-law near Tower Bridge, which predicatably was packed with spectators. We found a good spot at around about 22 miles and waited. He thought he'd already seen my sister heading through the 13 mile point at around about 100 minutes. If that was true my Herring family record was about to fall.
It was a very warm and sunny day. I knew this would make it harder for the runners. We had been helped last year by the constant drizzle. But being at this point (which we didn't actually run past last time - they've slightly changed to course) made me remember being about a mile further down the road and running alongside a bloke dressed up as a devil, with his skin all painted red (at least I think he was there: it could have been a graphic hallucination, or I might as I imagined at the time have died and arrived in Hell. That is what it felt like). The crowd were up above us at this point and they were booing the devil in a pantomime style. Weirdly even though I knew they were playfully booing the devil, psychologically I couldn't help feeling like they were booing us all. As if to say, "What? You're running the Marathon and are only going to manage a time of around 4 hours 15 minutes? You lazy idiots. We hate you."
I knew how much the crowd lift you during the run, but was also aware of the fact that I needed to conserve my voice for the Hornchurch gig tonight. So I elected to cheer only for people called Richard or Keith (or at least the ones who had been prescient enough to put their name on their shirt). I would have cheered doubly loud for anyone who was called Richard Keith Herring but if there was anyone then I didn't see them.
I needed to be at Broadcasting House for 2pm to go on the Andrew Collings show, so I would have to leave the race at 1.30 at the latest. Sadly, my sister had not made it through by then, but predictably as I was being carried up the steps to the tube station by a passing old woman I got a phone call from my brother-in-law saying my sister had just gone through. I'd waited for an hour and a half and missed her by seconds.
I calculated that she was on course for a very similar time to mine. Part of me was willing her to the line, but part of me hoped she would not be making it into the sub four hours 18 minute club, with the elite. This is what being a brother is all about.
After my stint on the radio, where I unfairly (no actually quite fairly) slagged off Dom Joly in an unamusing tirade, clearly jealous of his success and annoyed that some people think I am him (and I was so snide and unpleasant for a few seconds that I could understand why people might think that), I got a call from my brother-in-law (the law has decreed he is my brother and however much I may want to disown him, I cannot, or I shall be sent to prison). My sister had finished the race in just under 4 hours fifteen minutes. She'd beaten me by three minutes. I was no longer the fastest Marathoning Herring.
But she had then had to spend half an hour lying on a stretcher and couldn't recite the alphabet, whereas I had gone down the pub and got pissed after mine. And also she's called Edmonds now. And anyway I am obviously still best.
The gig in Hornchurch was great and there's a chance you might even be able to purchase it on DVD at some point to find out, as some men were filming it for me. It won't be an official release, just something I will sell on here to anyone interested if the quality is good enough. There was a man wearing a Marathon medal in the audience. I asked him what time he'd done. It was just under four hours. I told him that I would have been able to do that kind of time too, but I had to keep stopping to give autographs to my millions of fans. It is important that I am the best at running. If Paula Radcliffe had been in the audience I would have told her that I managed to do the whole thing without going to the toilet once. Like Richie "Richard" Blackwood, she is going to discover that performing toiletry functions in public will lead to you being tarred with the brush of being a pooer or pooee or weeer or weeee for the rest of your life. That poor girl just can't win can she?
WHAT'S COMING UP THIS WEEK
GIGS- check gig guide for details:
Tuesday - BRIGHTON - stand up in charity gig for Water Aid.
Thursday - CAMDEN - preview of new show, "Someone Likes Yoghurt"
Friday - CITY, LONDON - stand up at Kabaret Kick
Saturday - STAMFORD Arts Centre - The Twelve Tasks of Hercules Terrace.
Sunday - BATH - stand up.
RADIO
I will be on the Andrew Collins show on 6Music at around about 3pm as usual. Check home page to see how you can listen again if you missed it last week.
OTHER
Builders are finally coming to sort out my kitchen wall on Wednesday.
