Mr Whiplash

Having started running again, it was all going swimmingly (should that be runningly ? Ed.) until last Thursday. The run went well it was the cool down afterwards that was not so clever. I had navigated my way running through huge quagmires of mud and partially concealed tree roots with comparatively little problem. My feet were a bit wet and I had some splashes of mud on my lower legs by the time I had finished. All I had to do was to walk down the steep slope of the grassy meadow back to the car. This proved to be more of a challenge than I could ever have imagined. It was like an ice rink with a layer of mud on top of the firmly trodden footpath. I was not even walking that quickly when I began to slide. But my weight and the inevitable tug of gravity down the slope soon turned my slide into a cartoon-style, wild flailing careering followed rapidly by a huge backward somersault onto the ground landing on my head and shoulders with the kind of thud that is invariably described as "sickening".

I was certainly completely winded. I don't think I passed out or if I did, the dogs soon brought me round by leaping on me and licking my face as if it was the best game ever. I lay in the mud for a few minutes until the dogs were pacified and the black spots and stars had stopped spinning in front of my eyes. When I got up, I was so covered in thick wet mud that I looked like something from a horror mud wrestling competition for fat old blokes. Good job I did not meet any women walking on their own during the short walk back to the car. I could have attempted to bluff that I was trialling a new cold mud beauty treatment, but I doubt they would have got close enough to allow me to make that sort of quip.

When I got back to the car, my head already throbbing quite badly, I had some difficult decisions to make, including the question, was I fit to drive ? Having decided I probably was OK to drive, the next big question was how was I going to avoid completely ruining the cloth seats in the car. There was almost no part of me that was not covered in a layer of mud about 1cm thick. I looked like a walking clay model for an Antony Gormley Sculpture. I searched the car for something to cover the seats with and came up with a tiny welsh dragon tea towel. It was not going to cover both the base and the back of the car seat. There was nothing for it clothes had to be shed and the worst of the mud wiped off.

I climbed carefully and practically naked onto the tea towel spread as best I could over the seat of the car and started the engine. I put the car into drive and put my foot on the accelerator and to add insult to injury, the wheels began to spin wildly on the mud under where I had parked. Perhaps the car felt sorry for me and wanted to spray itself with as much mud as possible to help to conceal my nakedness or at least draw the yes of passers by away form my state of undress. Of course, it probably had the opposite effect. Naturally, there was lots of traffic and I had to crawl through the busy town with people on the pavement staring at close quarters through the windows at my unusual state of undress. I just hoped there was enough mud on my face that no one would actually recognise me.

Having returned home and showered, I began to realise that my head felt quite swollen. When I awoke on Friday morning, I found myself unable to lift my head from the pillow. By the end of Friday the stiffness had spread down my neck and into both shoulders. Many ibuprofen later...I am still feeling a bit of a chump.