Anything is better than nothing

I never wear a watch. Only when I run. I'm following Paula Radcliffe's "How to Run" and I need to a stop watch so I know when to run and when to walk. I watch the seconds as keenly as a woman in labour timing contractions. And now I can't find my watch, so therefore I can't "run". I glance at the running program and my heart sinks. I've been trying to achieve day one for ten days. I could never read instructions. Or count. Which is why I need my stopwatch. My running partner's voice sings smugly in my head "Anything is Better than Nothing."
My running partner is my younger-by-a-decade sister. When she runs she only wears make-up so she perspires dew like beads. I sweat buckets from a face like grated beetroot. She runs like a gazelle. This is also the first time that I am going running without her. And no stop watch. I also can't find my running pants. My other options are maternity leggings that I will have to hold up with one hand or ones that give me a corker wedgie. It's getting dark now and the chances of me becoming road kill are increasing. I settle for a pair of shorts that in hindsight are my husbands old underwear (boxer not jock style!). Anything is better than nothing right?

I have a friend in Scotland that runs marathons like other people run to the shops for milk. Her advice was to run till I stop. This seemed good advice for someone trying to run with no stop watch, no running partner while wearing her husbands underwear. But something is watching me from the side of the road. A deer with two fawns quickly evaluate me as unable to outrun them and come closer for a look before flicking their pert tails at me like giving me the finger before they dash in the forest scoffing "You call yourself a mammal." Wildlife can be really rude. And scary till you identify it. I'm still not sure what those five creatures crossing the road orderly in a line were ahead of me. I don't think skunks live in families. These were too big for mice, too small for a bear and with long tails. I think they were raccoons. I started getting excited there was something up ahead but it was just a mail box.

Actually it was our mailbox. A miracle or lucky underwear, you decide. I ran the whole way.