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Tortoise Versus Hare
Once upon a time slow and steady Tortoise beat indolent Hare in a race. But, I wonder, what happened next? Did Hare sulk in a corner? Did Tortoise’s unprecedented win inflate his wrinkly little head? Or did they learn, as my Mum might have said, to never again ‘judge a book by its cover’?
Don’t you just hate a story that has no…
As children, my brother and I had been fond of the Tortoise and Hare fable since our father dubbed our neighbours, Mr and Mrs Harris, the Hareoises. Old Tom, a fen farmer, carried his small head and walnut face forward of work-rounded shoulders, and would peer around before drawling his words so that his wife would invariably finish his sentences.
He’d begin, “It said in the..”
and she’d bark, “paper”
“there’ll be a heat…”
“wave”
“next”
“week”
“No, next…”
“What,? Month, summer, what?”
And Rose, with her long nose, short chin, and unblinking see-all eyes was the perfect complement, particularly as, with her hair scraped into its French twist, her ears protruded.
But it was more than looks. Take the morning Mum bumped into Mrs Haroise at the market. Mr Haroise, it seemed, had been sent to buy eggs so that Rose could make her giant Victoria Sandwich for the Queen’s Silver Jubilee party – I guess it must have been 1978. She had waited for an hour until, unable to restrain herself, had rushed after him. Old Tom had taken the park route, paused to enjoy June’s morning sun, and dozed off on a bench. Rose bought her own eggs and that might have been an end to that story, but… in the evening Tom arrived with a cake for us. “May I say…,” he began, and took an age to tell us Rose had made two cakes because she had a lot of eggs and knew of a couple of boys who loved cake. Well, not this cake, we didn’t. Sponge? It could have been a door stop. But it was kind and Dad offered Tom a glass of homebrew as Mum disappeared out of earshot muttering, “Good cake isn’t fast, and fast isn’t good cake.”
On another occasion, a dark and stormy day as they say, Mum sensibly decided to postpone our weekly laundry despite it being Monday. However, by eight o’clock, Rose Hareoise’s lines fluttered and flapped with socks and vests whipping and slapping until, mid-morning, the line reared up like a snapping snake. Towels and trousers made a break for the trees as Tom emerged from the house and began to peel pillow-covers off privet and sheets off the shed. Mum went to help, and Tom told her that Rose was visiting her sister and would likely burst a blood vessel if she had to do the laundry again. Luckily the wind had already dried it and Rose returned to everything neatly folded. However, when Mum did ours the next day, she found a pair of long-legged bloomers in our hydrangea that, she claimed, had not been given enough of a soaping. She put them through with ours then handed them back advising, ‘Best not to air your laundry in public’. Mum likes cliches, even if she doesn’t always use them properly.
Years passed. Tom went south to Bristol and I headed to Newcastle, where I stayed. Our parents downsized and The Hareoises were consigned to history. That could have been the end of the story but it can’t have been a coincidence that my brother and I both became runners. Tom started a couple of years after me despite being older and, to my chagrin, turned out to be faster over a thousand meters, ten thousand, a half marathon and the full marathon. He calls me Tortoise.
We still run though we’re slowing a bit as we nudge our sixties. Tom grumbles about his knees and my feet give me trouble now and again. I fear the end is in sight, which is why I invited Tom to join me on this year’s Great Northern Run.
The day is perfect, cool and cloudy, and I’ve trained hard. I’ve been Tortoise too long. We breakfast on porridge and bananas and warm our muscles striding a mile to the start. Tom struggles his legs into compression socks.We stretch and lunge and stride and slap each other’s backs, wishing each other good speed whilst hoping the best speed will be our own. We tug our laces and pin numbers to our vests and trot to our allotted corral where I plug in my earbuds, press play on my running playlist, and high five Tom.
Then we’re off. My eyes skim the swell, search for gaps. I whisper my mantra, Your pace, your race, and pass between two women. Five minutes in and I am joining the earlier group. Fifteen minutes, I’m flying. I gulp water and chant, Your pace, your race. At twenty-four minutes I pass the 5k marker, feel energy pumping, glance over my shoulder and see Tom, twenty yards behind. He waves. I grin. Faster runners pass me, I pass slower ones. Laser focused, I visualise the finish line. I don’t need to win but I need to cross before Tom. More water. My mind has slowed, my feet echo the pulse of music in my ear, The Eye of the Tiger, and I sing, ‘Eye of The Hare’.
At the halfway marker I check my Google watch, see I’m averaging 5.6 miles an hour and I’m 54 seconds ahead of my predicted time. Brilliant. I drop my shoulders, drop my arms, lengthen my neck, chant Your pace, your race’. I pass the 7m, 8m, 9m markers. Four to go. My hamstrings are tight. I’m down to 5 miles an hour and, glancing back, I see Tom ten yards behind. I suck a tube of energy gel, pump my legs, visualise a hare running. It morphs into Tom and passes me. I shake my head. He’s behind. He's behind. Your pace, your race. The energy gel kicks in and I see the double-digit 10m marker. Behind me I hear feet, louder, catching, passing me. It’s not Tom. I breathe, focus. My legs are heavy, am I shuffling? I snatch another energy gel from a warden and drop it. Water. Water. Only a mile to go and I’m still in front of Tom. Adrenaline hits my legs, my feet. Taylor Swift swells in my ears. I’m touching 5.3 miles an hour and am still ahead of my time, though only by twenty-nine seconds. I kick into my legs, try to smile, try to catch the runner in front, to pass one more person. But my legs are heavy, my feet are numb. My lungs hurt. I inhale, send oxygen to muscles. I have twelve miles behind me, I see the 13m marker and beyond it, the finish line looking, oh so good. My feet are dragging. I push into my leg, my knee buckles. Almost there, another hundred strides. Your pace, your race. I can’t breathe. I can’t see. I’m weaving… Forty more strides. Thirty. I’m stumbling. Twenty-five. There’s a hand on my arm, there’s a face at my side. Tom has caught me. I can’t do it. But he’s holding me, running with me. The finish line is 10 paces away. Five. We cross together.
“Good one, Hare,” he says.
And that, my friends, is the end of the story.
Or, the beginning of another story.
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