My Clever Plan

Right, this ain't funny now.

I injured my back last Friday and despite the fact that I was in serious pain I guessed it would be better soon. After all, it's simply the recurrence of a very old condition that I acquired when I used to lift very heavy weights off the floor, off a bench, or in a squat.

Powerlifting....it lacks the technical aspects of Olympic lifting and is purely a demonstration of brute strength. But get it wrong and say hello to a lifetime of lower back problems.

So right now it's just ten days until the West Highland Way Race and I'm still hobbling around stiffly like the tin man out of The Wizard of Oz. All he needed was a bit of lubrication to get him going but sadly I can't claim the same. I've covered my arse in so much Ibuprofen gel it's greasier than an Asda car park. In fact it's so greasy that if I dared sit on a bicycle I'd have to have the seat surgically removed from my rectum.

It seems to be having little effect, however, and I'm starting to get slightly nervous about starting the race. I've phoned the doctors two days on the trot and failed to get an appointment. I call the moment the lines open to be greeted by a recorded message that tells me:

'Hello, your call can't be answered at present and is being held in a queue. Please hold for a member of staff or hang up and call back later.'

On the first day I hung up and called back later. I was told:

'There's nothing left at all today, I'm afraid. Please call back tomorrow first thing.'

So this morning I called the moment the lines opened. I got the recorded message and held. When I eventually reached the top of the queue I was told:

'There's nothing left at all today, I'm afraid. Please call back tomorrow first thing.'

That recorded message. What it should really say is:

'Hello, your call can't be answered at present because there are two hundred coffin dodgers, asylum seekers and hypochondriacs that called a microsecond after we opened the lines. They are all in front of you in a queue and you don't stand a snowball in hell's chance of getting an appointment. Please hold for a member of staff to disappoint you or hang up and spend a while in blind optimism then call back later and let us disappoint you then.'

So, I have a clever plan, and my clever plan is thus:

CLEVER PLAN 

1. To continue to fund the NHS through my taxes to ensure that everyone bar me gets an appointment at the doctors.

2. Keep slapping the Ibuprofen gel on my arse.

3. Swallow Ibuprofen tablets like a child left alone in a ball pond full of Smarties.

4. Go for a very gentle run tomorrow.

5. Go for a much longer run on Friday.

6. Do nothing physical thereafter.

7. After my admittance to hospital for overdosing on Ibuprofen hope I'm released in time to start the West Highland Way Race.