IT’S less than a week away, and your mate who’s running it believes you need a full rundown of their marathon training schedule. Here’s how to shut that down:
Don’t hide your boredom
Rather than bite down on yawns and make generic encouraging noises, show off how uninterested you are. While they drone on about hydration belts, start making a risotto, mop the floor, pop in some earbuds and call your mother. Whatever it takes to make them f**k the f**k off.
Go one up
Unleash your most boring self. They show the lube they use to prevent chafing, you discuss Doctor Who chronology. They bang on about compression socks, you work through your favourite Fast Show sketches joke-by-joke. Conversation will soon judder to a halt, replaced by blissfully awkward silence.
Throw them off the scent
Close down shin-splints chat fast with a distraction; the more theatrical the better. Stage a catastrophe that means you have to vacate the room immediately: an earthquake, a cardiac arrest, the Queen’s ghost rampaging through the streets tearing apart children with her bare teeth. Or simply announce you shagged their partner in 2021.
F**k with their head
Counter their boasting by planting doubt. ‘What if you push yourself too hard?’ ‘What if you don’t push yourself enough?’ ‘What if you’re so focused on your time you get lost and end up in Acton?’ Invent tales of runners who trained for years and ended up lame for life because they wore the wrong shoes. Then kick back and enjoy the horrorstruck hush.
Physically attack them
If they continue monologuing about sweat-proof headphones, you’re within your rights to do whatever it takes to make it stop: a wireless keyboard to the face, hot tea to the groin, murder. If the police become involved, explaining what a dull insole-obsessed bore-bag you were faced with will ensure no jury can convict.
