I ran the Crystal Palace Parkrun in the morning in just over 23 minutes, the slowest I’ve ever run it, then drove home, packed my wife in the car and drove to Dorset. I didn’t warm down. This would turn out to be a mistake.
It began to rain as we drove west. Dorset, if you haven’t been, is 120 miles west of London and 300 years ago. The motorway turns into a dual carriageway turns into a two lane road turns into a never ending queue of caravans, pulled sluggishly along by awful people in large cars. The rain grew heavier. The queues grew longer and more stationary.
We had planned to drive for about two and a bit hours to get to the B&B, change into our glad tags and then drive for 15 minutes to the wedding venue, arriving an hour before the ceremony. Now we were half an hour before the ceremony was due to start, 40 minutes from the venue, wearing jeans and tshirts, and we weren’t moving. The only thing moving was the rain, pissing down sideways on us.
My legs were agony. I felt like I’d run a marathon, not 5k. This is what happens when you don’t train for two weeks. The injustice. Didn’t all the swimming in the pool at the villa count for anything?
On the rain came. Slowly we moved forward. Too slowly, too slowly.
The wedding started at 2. At 2, we were in a carpark, half naked in a deluge, trying to get dressed, then stamping through muddy puddles and slippery gravel, barking “wedding?!” at random staff members, falling through a door into the venue at 2:05, grasping proffered prosecco and realising with some relief that like every wedding, things were behind schedule.
The ceremony started at 2:07. The vows and readings were lovely, the bride was beautiful, everyone was turned out nice, the rain continued to belt down, but a wet knot is hard to untie. After, we necked the prosecco, drove to Poole to drop off our bags, and headed straight back for the party. Not so bad after all.