On beauty

This incredibly peripatetic lifestyle I have recently had thrust upon me, while requiring me to set off at silly hours of the morning and postpone my morning runs, has an upside. I get to see new parts of the town and country. Today I discovered the joys of the A3, and Waterlooville, which is close to Portsmouth. The two hour drive from London treated me to the unbridled yellow of the rape fields, to ancient trees and green hills like reclining women. It made me realise, yet again, how necessary beauty is to my sanity. Without something beautiful to look at, a part of me shrivels. My mind is filled by my eyes. I have been known to spend my last tenner on a bunch of flowers. And England in Spring certainly delivers. Even eastern London, occasionally derided as a beauty-free wasteland, has its delights. At a sweet little primary school last week, while we had a moment between setting up for the show and the arrival of our lilliputian audience members, I sat on the steps of the hall beneath a cherry tree, in a blizzard of candy pink petals, and was perfectly and simply happy.

On Sunday

So much for Sunday being a day of rest. As the sun rose, so did we. We headed west through our old haunt, Reading, and on to the cute villages of south Oxfordshire. While I waited for David to complete the Reading Spring Race around a little piece of English postcard-perfection called Woodcote, I treated myself to a light jog through the bluebelled woods. I didn't run too far because I was on Feed Zone duty, and I was the only woman in Woodcote handing her sweaty spouse a water bottle dressed in a pink silk kimono jacket and white linen culottes this morning, a fact that only I seemed to find completely normal. Then we went for lunch at a very charming place called the Woody Nook at Woodcote, where I can highly recommend the Cornish sea bass, filleted with flair at our table by the French waiter. My idea of a perfect Sunday lunch; one that ends with cappucino and the Sunday Times. After which, we went home and I walked the arduous two blocks to our local pub to see a play with my lovely friend Amber. Theatre 503 performs in a little theatre above the pub, and delivers new writing. This was a first play from actor Orlando Wells. We were interested in his dark view of a world run by a massive corporation, but he had stuffed his play with Messiahs, Mary Magdalens, idiot-savants, and People Who Shouted A Lot, which lost me a little. And now I'm home, frantically typing before dashing off to bed for the requisite eight hours. Its bliss to get out of London for the day, but its even better coming home to it to begin another week.

On ugliness

Yesterday I was visited by a moment of clarity. We had arrived slightly early at the South London school we were due to perform at. Our set was up, our costumes were on and we only awaited our tiny audience members to finish their lesson before filing into the hall. It being another miraculously lovely fresh Spring morning, I was sitting on the hall steps beneath a ticker tape shower of cherry blossom petals, and the thought struck me that beauty is one of the most vital things to my state of well-being. I wilt when I'm surrounded by ugliness. I will spend my last pound on a bunch of flowers. I don't think I am alone in this need, but too often it is sacrificed to commerce in modern life. And then we end up with cheap, uninspired buildings, like the 42 storey mall they are proposing to fasten onto Clapham Junction station. But, reason number 101 why I'm so glad to live in England: by joining the ranks of Those Who Complain, I am taking up a time-honoured national past time, and I have hope that my voice will be heard by my local council. Which is a treat for someone raised on the corrupt machinations of the apathetic South African bureaucrats.

On life as a wandering player

Today, St George's Day, was a jolly affair as the sun was on loan from Spain and builders flew red and white flags from their vans. Every park sports little dandelion stars. I have just surfaced after a frantic week of rehearsals for the show I shall be doing for the next three months, The Starry Messenger. I've never rehearsed a show in fourteen days before, and certainly not one that requires me to run the lights and sound in between my nineteen costume changes. What a sheltered life I've led... The past week was a combination of frustration and panic, as I attempted to get my head around a new set of skills but now that I've been doing it for the past two days, and I don't come running off stage in blind panic thinking 'What am I supposed to be now, the Cockney dog or the Cornish pirate...', I realise that I'm enjoying it and its certainly a great challenge. Getting up in front of a hundred kids dressed as a dog is very good for the soul, on so many levels. Not even I can take myself seriously when jumping around in a dog suit, sweating to death. And how they love it! All those gleaming faces, upturned and expectant. They don't want drama. They haven't seen it all before. They just want someone to fall over and leap about dressed as a dog. And the sound of their laughter, the instant united giggle, is pure delight.

My co-actor, Chris, a very likeable boy who is tall and eager like a great dane puppy, is the second half of the cast and crew. We drive to each school, put up the set, do the show, dismantle the set and go on to the next one. After two shows each day, I am dazed and wrung out. I have fantasies that we are a travelling troupe in Elizabeth the First's England, wandering from town to town, living on the whims of our audiences, and dodging fruit. It is a wonderful treat to be able sit in a park and eat an al fresco lunch in between shows. Poor Chris doesn't know how many picnics he's in for! I'm looking forward to the schools that we have to travel to in exotic places like Hampshire and the Midlands (alright, exotic to me).

Luckily all this doesn't leave me much time to question life, the universe and everything, but I feel like I've lost my firm footing and am floating in a little bubble of a world that comprises me , my fellow actor and a little red van. My aim is to get to regular acting and dance classes, and not lose sight of my goals of working on screen and tv and on the stages in the West End. Although, I doubt any audience could ever match these for sheer reward.

Wandering Through The Land Of Stupid

I cannot shake the nagging suspicion that I am going through a very dumb phase in my personal development. In recent years, I do believe I've chosen to unknow so much that I vaguely recall knowing before. This must have something to do with the waning hunger for new knowledge, as I struggle to juggle adult tasks like keeping the flat in a state sanitary enough for habitation and negotiating my way to work on time and making enough money to buy groceries. I never thought being an adult could be so dull. I seem to recall my parents making it look like so much fun as I staggered around in mummy's high heels and helped daddy plant pretty flowers in our garden in Singapore. After this exhausting week, physically and mentally, I have cocooned myself in cashmere and retreated to the sofa to soothe myself with fish fingers (perfect comfort food) and the Sunday Times. I like the Sunday Times because, for a brief hour or so, I feel a tiny bit more informed and a bit less ignorant. But my lack of knowledge about my world is frustrating me. I hate feeling stupid, especially when I know I'm not. I've often dreamed of going to study at Oxford or Cambridge. But I've set myself the task of learning how to negotiate successfully through the world before I closet myself away from it.

On Being Tourists At Home

This weekend, Husband and I celebrated Easter by feasting on the museums in South Kensington. We've lived in London for three months. It's high time we started taking advantage of the reasons we moved here in the first place! The price you pay for living in one of the world's treasure troves is that all too quickly you become jaded. And when you are tired of London you are tired of life, or so it is said. If I am to eventually take these delights for granted, I'd better have sampled them first. So on Saturday I coerced my sceptical love onto a bus, for one of the only moments in his life. This is a man born with a bicycle clamped between his thighs, to whom the bus is a natural enemy. But as my bicycle is undergoing cosmetic attention (more on that next time), and it is lunacy to drive in London, a bus was the obvious alternative. We bought Oyster cards, waited for all of three minutes before the 345 rolled up at the stop outside our front door, and even got the front seats on the upper deck. Ladies and gentlemen, I think we may have a convert on our hands...

On Saturday we dived into the Science Museum. Incredible that you can wander in off the street and stare at such lovingly crafted machines or fragile relics of man's haphazard climb up the tree of progress. We spent an hour staring at steam engines and I loved watching his face radiate enthusiasm as he explained the process of creating energy from steam. There was a model of a beam engine, originally owned by the engineer James Watt, that was so gloriously animal-like in it's motion. I saw a giraffe bending to drink as the beam was sucked down towards the chamber, and a praying mantis as it lifted free, as though holding it's arms elegantly tucked. There was also a well laid-out display of Formula One's contribution to modern convenience, with it's different components on display with their accompanying developments. Like the excruciatingly expensive Factor 001 bicycle, or the curious health monitoring pod, that looked like a futuristic armchair in a plastic bubble and a very cosy place for an undisturbed nap. A canny PR exercise it is that Formula One remind us of their importance to every day living as cars lose ground in popular opinion as we see the planet start frying... Another treat was the lunar module that brought Apollo astronauts safely home through the Earth's atmosphere.

Today, Easter Monday, we hopped aboard another bus and scratched at the surface of the iceberg that is the V & A. After a fascinating stroll through a lot of ludicrously ornate religious silverware and some exquisite stained glass windows, we found the Performance and Theatre gallery. Some highlights here were incredible videos and stills photographs of past glories. I loved the detailed mock up of Kylie's dressing room from her Showgirl tour, the floor strewn with glittering, tiny shoes. So did a gentleman beside me, whose daughter was rummaging among the rail of crazy costumes for something to try on, but the rail was beyond her reach. Daddy was a little too engrossed to help... There were exquisite set models of previous productions, and a sweet model of the Theatre Royal on Drury Lane, featuring the grisly star traps that used to shoot unlucky performers up through the stage floor from a spring loaded platform by way of a sharp-toothed star shaped platform. I've been on enough rickety stage traps to be incredibly grateful these things are now illegal.

I could have drifted happy and agape through the sumptuous rooms of magnificent paintings, each a tale jostling to be unravelled. But David began to glaze over and take on the look of a man in the dentist's waiting room, so for the sake of marital harmony we escaped into the Spring sunshine, reeling from cultural overdose. We went to Le Pain Quotidien, a Belgian place around the corner from South Ken station, where the bread basket comes with their luscious homemade chocolate spread. It is something that sustained Amber, my favourite Kiwi, and I through a long miserable winter when we were shopgirls working on Brompton road. After the coffee was done and we had had our fill of people watching, we happy two sauntered home through Chelsea and Battersea, ogling the beautiful brick apartments.

It's thrilling to know we could spend every weekend doing this for as long as we pleased, and never run out of something new to discover. It's yet another reason we knew we had to escape Johannesburg and become Londoners.

On Being Alone In Paris

The prize for running my first marathon, from me to me, was a handful of days in Paris to wander as I pleased. I like wandering alone in strange cities. It's my idea of freedom. I tend to dig myself into a trench of daily routine when at home, which I both love and loathe. But in a new town, with no trenches dug, I am a free agent. I can see the horizon. I wake up every morning with the sketchiest of plans and am welcome to break the date with myself and follow the whims that blow in through the window. Such winds were generally blowing in the direction of the Left Bank, where I discovered the delights of the famous Cafe des Flores and Les Deux Magots (overpriced coffee, exquisite sugar packets, disdainful waiters, sensational people-watching) and spent happy hours scribbling and imagining who all the fascinating people around me might be. One of the greatest pleasures of traveling through a culture whose language you don't fully understand is that you are spared the banalities of other people's conversations. How often are you privy to witty banter or illuminating insights on the Tube? Inner city life, tragically, far more regularly serves up a stew of the petty gripes, veiled hypocrisies, and grisly health concerns of my fellow man. The most disturbing part of all this is how often I see my own ignorances paraded before me. In France, all that human noise is on mute and I can watch, enthralled, and allow my imagination free rein.

When I did need some contact with deeper thought, I found it in a poetry reading at Shakespeare & Co. This is a little rabbit hole of an English bookshop on the Seine where the original proprietor, Sylvia Beach, was a friend to Hemingway et al and the shop still allows travellers in need to sleep amongst the books at night in return for their labour as shop-assistants during waking hours. This is my idea of Heaven! Besides Left Bank American intelligentsia, the place attracts a steady stream of tourists, like me, who were milling happily through the book-lined rooms, past the piano available should your fingers feel the itch, and up the stairs where a quote on the wall bids you be kind to strangers lest they be angels in disguise. A closet of a room was readied with rows of tiny folding chairs and the air buzzed with expectant American chat. Sean O'Brien, our poet, read us some juicy pieces about death and water, standing before a window open to cherry blossoms and humming traffic. He is from Hull, and speaks of the austere landscape in that pocket of North East England and its wearing on the soul. He read with weight and gravitas, mopping sweat from his brow, but thinly veiled is a little boy blowing raspberries. Afterwards I fell into conversation with a fascinating English expat who moved to Paris to undergo and study psychoanalysis after giving up a career as a painter. The Spring evening sunshine moulded his face and I read fascinating lines on it, although I am sure I saw a story entirely of my own devising.

On the back of his urging, the next day I went to the Louvre, anticipating happy hours among great paintings. The Louvre is closed on Tuesdays. So I took advantage of the Velib scheme instead, and roamed through Parisian traffic. This a brilliant idea; you find one of the stations sprinkled liberally about the city, get a code from the console which costs you 5 euros a week, unlock the bike from its docking station and every first half hour is free. Its a cheap sliding scale for every hour thereafter, which is debited from your card. It works well, although I had some initial difficulties releasing my chosen bike from the lock. Once I discovered that a little violent persuasion was all that was required, it was plain sailing. Violent persuasion where appliances are concerned is one of my notable talents, to my husband's despair... I ended up in the Marais, a district to the East of the city, where you will find meandering cobbled streets stuffed with medieval churches, bijoux boutiques and Jewish bakeries. Happily, I am a fan of all three. I didn't brave the queue of American tourists waiting for their falafels from the Falafel King, endorsed by Lenny Kravitz as the best in the world, but I did wind up in a shop that sells ribbons, buttons and bindings in every permutation a girl could dream of, and cursed my meagre budget. I plunged my hand into the jumble basket in a vintage shop instead and came up with the reward of two exquisite silk scarves for 3 euros apiece, which eased the pain somewhat. I bore them home to wash, wondering who made Lenny Kravitz the Michelin judge of all things falafel as I did so, before hanging them out to dry in the soft breeze that wafted sultry jazz through the apartment from the kitchen radio. I have been seduced by the charms of DSF, a station which keeps a girl supplied with a steady stream of good jazz and delicious French. Dominika and I would have it on as we cooked and ate simple, delicious meals of pasta or fish with vegetables in her sweet kitchen while the tuberose candle flickered. These are memories I treasure even more than the nights we ate out at lovely bistros in the spring evenings. It is a sweet surprise to meet a friend again after eleven years apart, and to find her so unchanged from the graceful, brilliant, gentle girl I first met at school. Although she confessed that she finds herself less thirsty for knowledge than she once was, and I deplore the way growing older can deplete curiosity. We had a good laugh about the hideous brown shoes and regulation knickers that Roedean made us sport as twelve year olds. A particularly great evening in was comprised of some tuna steaks fresh from the fishmonger/showman downstairs on rue Montorgeuil, a bottle of white and the three hour epic of the first show of Nouvelle Star, which is the French version of Pop Idol. The French have fairly catastrophic taste in pop music, but their contestants are terribly pretty. Popular culture in someone else's culture is always charming and funny, and nothing like the grating presence it is in my own reality.

I made a fresh attempt on the Louvre the next morning, one made atmospheric by rain, and was brought up short by the snake of tourists slithering around the Pyramid and out the courtyard. In a huff, I took the Metro to Montmartre. I climbed the slippery staircase, still feeling gloomy and hating tourists everywhere, up to Sacre-Coeur, that silly white eruption of ecclesiastic fantasy, and was gratified to see a large sign pointing around the corner to the dome and crypt, which didn't seem to be luring a single tourist. Triumphantly, I bought a ticket and went through a turnstile. Immediately, I was in a spiral staircase circulating ever upwards in a cylinder of stone. I was suddenly aware of being entirely alone, as the tiny windows offered watery light and I heard ghosts cooing and weeping in the walls. Vertigo suggested itself as I climbed higher and higher and I was afraid of not being able to go either up or down. My thighs begged for rest, so I fumbled for a seed bar secreted in my purse for just such an emergency. I am amazed at how quickly my equanimity returns with a bit of sugar, and the ghosts in the walls became just sighing winds. I continued on, to suddenly find I was at an iron door that let on to a spectacular view of the city spread below me. The wind was lashing and the place was deserted. The view was all mine. I walked around the entire circumference of the dome and relished feeling cold and wet and young and alone and alive in the silvery day. Down the whirling staircase again, I went into the church itself and sat, awed and humbled by the staggering display of wealth and time and talent that manifested such fantastic ambition. It is magnificent. I lit a candle, watching it jig and sway in the sea of its fellows, and prayed for a while.

That evening, I raced to the Theatre De L'Atelier to meet Dominika for a production of Tennessee Williams' Baby Doll, translated into French, which is nominated for several French drama awards and features a rising star, Melanie Thierry, in the eponymous role. She plays with an eager, bold freshness that is adorable in any language, and the show was good entertainment, but I confess to finding it a mystery as to why it is such a success. This is not a culture starved of good drama, and why they decide to rave about something so American and hardly topical is beyond my uncertain grasp. Clearly there is much I do not understand about these people. But I want to learn...

I find the male French attitude to the feminine extremely interesting, in particular. I hadn't expected them to be so Latin. I discovered that the wearing of a skirt and/or heels, as I saw many French women doing, was to invite conversations to be initiated and proposals of marriage to be offered. This latter I assumed to be a rather extreme way, on the behalf of the fishmonger kneeling at my feet, to flog his wares, until an amused passer-by translated that the man was offering me a lifetime of all the fish I could eat. I gave up on heels entirely after an incident in one of the pretty alleys in St Germain which nearly required the pressing into service of my handbag as a weapon, and I was glad that I was close enough to seek refuge in a gorgeous flower shop. In flat pumps and long skirts I became invisible, and could wander through the city unmolested. Dominika remarked that she grew tired of the attention long ago and only wears skirts below the knee. Around the reserved British male, skirts are free to retire upwards, it would appear.

Travelling back on the Eurostar, accompanied by French Vogue, I was heartsick to leave such a beautiful place. I have only dipped my toe in its fountain, and I am thirsty for more. But I have memories of my final run, on the day of my departure, that took me around the Louvre and the Paris Opera, through the Tuileries where two girls in traditional kimonos tripped along on their wooden clogs, and down the rue de Rivoli, to sustain me. As I arrived back at Dominika's front door on rue Montorgeuil, another day of commerce was beginning to the tune of a thousand sizzling Gauloises, fresh baked baguettes and the holler of the fishmonger. Its my kind of place. Hemingway hit it when he called it A Moveable Feast.

La Belle Dame Avec Merci

Running a marathon is, from all accounts, similar to the experience of giving birth. I know nothing about the latter, but having spent four hours and twenty seven minutes of my Sunday doing the former, I see striking parallels. You prepare eagerly, if a bit apprehensively, for months. And, as the final act sweeps you inexorably along, you find yourself thinking, with a mind fogged by exhaustion and pain, how you could possibly have believed this was a good idea nine months ago. Then suddenly its over, and they give you something to clutch (in this case a particularly hideous medal) and the sense of triumph swells as the delirium ebbs. And so you start planning the next one.

It was with a light heart that I got up yesterday morning, gingerly testing the cramped calf to discover that the Arnica oil had worked its magic overnight, and armed myself with the essentials (breakfast, sunscreen, running cap, metro tickets, watch, gels, ipod, etc.) Stepping out into the blossoming Parisian morning, there was a sun rising clear into a wide sky and as I joined the ranks of runners all making our way up the Champs Elysees to the inflatable arch that marks the start, I wasn't the only one looking about about with a sense of privilege and wonder. We were awake and alive, now, in this splendid town, the city was putting on her glad rags for us; we were the lucky ones. Naturally, I used the moment to do a spot of window shopping and was passionately grateful to be alone to do it. Men never understand... I fought my way through the milling hordes into the Green pen where the problem, as it always is, is ablutions. This was a particularly bad case. In each pen of a couple thousand runners, there was one, I repeat ONE, portaloo. It beggars belief. I stood in queue more as a testament to hope than anything else, while the announcers peppered us with irrelevant facts and badly read sales blurbs to help us await the inevitable. When the moment was upon us we began rolling forward, not running, but picking our way over the discarded clothing and used bottles and banana skins of those gone before. I'm a little perturbed that my chosen sport needs to be so messy; it seems a contradiction of the ethos of running. But I had the stirring strains of Chariots of Fire to take my mind off the chaos underfoot. The music made me thrilled and sad and I wished my parents were amongst those along the route to see me.

The pace settled into my feet and I ran the first kilometre faster than is my wont, pricked by the enthusiasm around me. Five kilometres was easy; now all I needed to do was exactly that, another seven times I told myself blithely. I amused myself by having a conversation in my head, switching into whichever accent was currently being spoken around me. My favourite was the pneumatically cheerful Canadian. Less amusing was the state of my bladder, and my eyes were peeled for the first bank of portaloos, but I was becoming increasingly disappointed with every passing block. Then, on a corner on the opposite side of the road, I spotted a free public toilet, one of those automat things that I never entirely trust not to lock me inside or suddenly swing open to reveal me to the street. Today, it was a lifebelt. Offering up a silent prayer, I dived into the river of streaming flesh with a volley of Pardonnez-mois but, alas, reaching it safely my hopes were dashed to see that it was overflowing and its door was jammed. As I reeled away in disgust a woman came up to me waving a sarong and gesticulating wildly. It seemed she had got up this morning and taken a pretty beach sarong down to a corner of the rue de Rivoli with the express purpose of assisting lady runners in their hour of need. Truly, saints do walk the earth among us. I wish I could say that I did not squat behind an automat on a street corner in one of the loveliest cities in the world, but... I also wish I knew her name. A thousand blessings upon you, whoever you are.

I was heartily cheered by this unexpected brush with kindness, and flew along to the Bois de
Vincennes, which was filled with families and brass bands. It was so warm and I was happy, if a little disheartened that I was running slower than my target time of four hours. It was moments when I thought of that that the sense of despair threatened to overwhelm me, and I bit down on it and forced myself to think of anything else. Even to count in French! We turned around and headed back through Paris and along the Seine. I didn't like the long eerie tunnels into which we descended for for what seemed like ages, but some were delighted by the acoustics and let rip with schoolboy yells that bounced about our heads and harmonized with the thousands of falling feet. Then we would rise back up into the sun and smile-lined streets and I appreciated the balmy air. The voluptuous statues lazily regarded our damp efforts from their plinths, and we plodded on through feed stations, where the tables groaned with sugar cubes and raisins and the cobbles were littered with oranges skins, past more bands in crazy wigs, and under the chestnut trees decked in new green.

It was in the final ten kilometres that the pain started to bite. My knees and thighs protested with every foot fall and the nagging voice whispered What if you can't? I am a lonely runner; I don't talk it out. Some people around me were beginning to broadcast their internal monologues, and others had running partners to share the pain with. But something stops me, almost as if admitting the pain is to allow it to win, so I lock it down grimly and attempt to look serene, if sweaty. The route had taken us into the Bois de Boulogne, a mythical name I associate with Audrey Hepburn movies, but by now I was past nostalgia and could only scan the road ahead for each mile marker. Inside, I was screaming and bleeding and elated with every mile that I achieved. The pace had slowed, and people were walking stretches, myself included. The only problem with this is that breaking into a run again detonates explosions of protest from the thigh region, and finally I resolved to get it over with tout suite and push on to the end. Which seemed like it was always around the next corner, and when I finally did see it, I wasn't entirely convinced it wasn't a mirage. Because suddenly there you are, another silly inflatable arch and its done. The final five hundred metres are the truest test; some sprint, some grunt and gasp, some limp, some look as if its all been a stroll in the park, some stumble and shove their way across. The point is not the end, but how it is reached, in my little opinion, that shows you what you truly are deep down, and its possibly the real reason we undertake the exotic exercise at all.

I collected the garish medal and donned the fetching plastic poncho to stabilise my body temperature and grazed my way past the final feed tables with the thousands of others. It was agony and bliss. I missed my family and thanked God for my wonderful, wonderful husband who supports and believes and nurtures me. Then I asked a gendarme where the nearest Metro was and hobbled down the stairs with the rest of the crazy crippled people in the silly plastic ponchos. I stopped in at L'Atelier du Chocolat de Bayonne for some dark chocolate turtles before dragging my protesting legs up the five flights of stairs to Dominika's pretty flat, where she had cooked a sumptuous lunch of sweet potato soup, steamed salmon and quinoa. I felt like the luckiest girl in the world!

So now I've done it. My legs today feel like they've been ripped off my body, used to beat carpets with and stitched back onto me with meat hooks. I can't think of a better reason to spend the day sitting in a Parisian cafe reading something by Philip Roth! And I have the memory of the Saintly Lady With The Sarong to cherish forever. I think I'll do the Amsterdam marathon next; its at the end of the year, which gives me time to train to do it in four hours, and to forget how much it hurts... Anyone want to do it with me?

On the end of the beginning...

I am running my first marathon tomorrow. So many months of meticulous preparation, and now I just have to put my shoes on and do it. This is a milestone; a chapter end. I feel so sleepy from the day of leisurely picnicking in La Place des Vosges and wandering the alluring streets of the Marais, and I'm a little annoyed about the calf that has been in a cramp for the past two days. But I have nothing else to think about now but remembering to put my timing chip on my shoe and finding the start on the Champs Elysees. Which is another reason why I love running. It has all the ingredients a dancer needs; simplicity, routine, autonomy, discipline, the beauty of seeing the world from within a heightened state. And, of course, plenty of pain. Vive le footing!