Actually I don’t come in last. I
am somewhere in the middle. M, of course, is somewhere near the front. I am
referring, obviously, to the Run for The Animals. The Lanta Animal Welfare
Centre is organising its first ever annual Run For The Animals today, and we
have been lucky enough to have timed our stay, unknowingly, so that we can take
part in it.
I didn’t talk much about the
Welfare Centre itself on the day we cycled there, being rather self absorbedly
preoccupied with my ability or otherwise in respect of a Mountain Bike. As I had explained earlier, it was set up by
the lady who runs the Time for Lime Restaurant, and is funded solely by the
profits of that restaurant and by donations. Vastly oversubscribed, it tries
valiantly to keep up with the increasing population of stray cats and dogs,
largely because they are unsterilized and so reproducing more rapidly that they
can sustain themselves, partly because of the kind of shirking of
responsibility I encountered, (or suspect I encountered) in the case of
Favourite Cat and a tiny bit because there is active animal cruelty. When I
contacted them to ask if they could take Favourite Cat and her kittens, someone
named Ben (psuedonym of course) sent me an email to tell me they simply
couldn’t take them in. Though the email was short and concise, I could feel his
regret through the lines.
When we arrive, to prepare for
the run, which raises money through people paying to take part rather than
through sponsorship, acknowledging that many of the interested runners will be
foreign and only on the island for a few days or a few months at most, a young
man who I immediately suspect to be Ben, is crouching down in the lobby of the
centre, over what looks at first glance to be a pile of chicken bones.
It is only when I leave the
congregating runners, all in various states of fitness and employing various
levels of professional looking outfits (from lycra tank top and hot pants and
muscles to match, to me, with my cobbled together running gear, borrowed shoes,
and the kind of flab which emerges, tellingly as an unwelcome bulge when you
aren’t paying attention to holding your tummy in), to go to the toilet inside
the building, that I realise that next to the pile of chicken bones is a cat. Ben
(I discover later that my assumption is correct) is gently holding the cat down
and carefully emptying the contents of a syringe into him. In as long as it takes for me to realise
there is an emergency treatment taking place, mutter a hurried, “Oh! Sorry..”
and back out again, the cat has relaxed into a chemically induced sleep, been
lovingly picked up and carried to a suitable recovery unit and Ben is saying,
in a voice of authority which belies the incredible gentleness I have seen in
him with the cat,
“OK, this needs to be thrown away
securely and we need to sterilise the area.”
I have seen the Animal Welfare
Centre in action.
Returning to the groups of
milling runners, alternately chatting and playing with the numerous cats who
roam around looking for love, or for a bit of peace and quiet (this, they do
not get, surrounded by well meaning animal lovers), I know from my previous
visits that the cat will be placed in a recovery cage, alongside other animals
who are recovering from treatment, before being returned to the ‘Happy Cat
Home’, a large room with a number of round baskets into which some 70 cats will
return to sleep each night, safe from predators and prowling stray dogs. Out
the back, there are a number of large outdoor ‘pens’ in which carefully
selected ‘packs’ of stray dogs play together. The selection of the packs rather
resembles a match making agency,
“This one is on his own at the
moment,” explains a volunteer who is working at the centre, “because he is an
Alpha Dog. He is such an Alpha Dog
that we can only match him with very relaxed, submissive strays. We have a few
just come in for treatment which we think might get on with him.”
It’s a nice set up. It tries, as
far as possible, to reflect the ideal, in which cats and dogs could indeed be
free, could live as strays but without the accompanying dangers, threats and
hardships that go with the overpopulation and general human intervention. Well
meaning or otherwise. The Centre sends animals for adoption all over the world,
but the appetite for adoption never matches the speed at which the animals are
brought in. The Centre employs all sorts of imaginative schemes to make things
easier, recognising again, that given that Thai culture doesn’t necessarily
match with care of dogs and cats in a domestic setting, many of the people who
will be willing to adopt a dog or cat, will be from overseas. It uses ‘flight
volunteers’ who will escort the animals to their new home, has the facilities
and government backing to quarantine the animals for their required period of 3
months at the centre, rather than paying for this at the airport, and, as we
later discovered when we got chatting to a lady who lives down the road from us
in Lanta Old Town, and works at the Centre, in situations such as ours, we
could have adopted Favourite Cat and the centre would have arranged for her to
be ‘fostered’ until such time as we were at home and ready to receive her. As
it happens, Favourite Cat is much better off where she is and very well loved,
so I am secure in our decision.
We all hang around amiably and
there is an atmosphere of anticipation. It’s a fun run, and it doesn’t actually
matter whether we all complete it or not, it not being sponsored. We’ve all
paid our 300 baht to enter and it is that which will raise the money. Even so,
somehow it still feels as though it is our finishing the race that will,
singlehandedly, save the animals. The sun, which is beating down on us now, as
we prepare for our 5 pm start time, is going to make the run no easier, nor the
stretch on the beach and the rather hilly nature of the island’s geography.
It’s only 5k but it’s still a challenge.
I spend a slightly shameful
period of time surveying the participants and trying to guess where in the
race, they will finish. This person has all the most up to date gear but it
looks a little new for her to be an experienced runner. This lady looks like a
body builder, and will probably come near the front (she doesn’t actually, she
is surprisingly slow). These girls looks pale and delicate, their white
midriffs showing, and their near identical faces look unweathered and unlikely.
I think they must be sisters. I predict they will be near the middle. They come
first. This man is overweight and sweating already. He might not manage to run
all the way. He beats me. This man is muscled and tatooed and tanned. He’ll be
trying to impress so he’ll probably come first. I don’t know in the end. I
don’t see him again. Perhaps he bottles out at the last minute, or ducks into
the nearest Irish pub. This man is slight but lean and lithe looking, he’ll
probably be fast. He is. He is M and he does very well. He’s the only one I get
right and, with him, I do have an unfair advantage.
I am not alone in my inability to
tell from watching people, how well they will do.
“You should drink lots of
water and..oh no. I can see you’re not
new to running,” says the lady who registers me before we begin, “The fast
runners should start near the front, OK?”
I enjoy my apparent ability to
appear sporty, but, as I say, I am somewhere near the back of the middle. I
don’t even try to place myself near the front.
Ben does the quick health and
safety chat before we go. He is wryly cheerful and will be riding in the van at
the back to pick up anyone who is having difficulties.
“What a rubbish excuse,” shouts
someone and there is a chorus of good natured bullying, which Ben, who looks
pretty fit and able to my eyes, shrugs off good naturedly. I have a slight urge
to be teacher’s pet at this point. It’s a problem I have I think, with
authority. I always want to be the favourite. Whatever it is, I want to get an
A grade in it. Also I have emailed Ben to tell him that we managed to get
Favourite Cat adopted and his response is so warm and grateful it makes me want
to make myself known to him. So, presumably, I can bask in my persona as
‘Saviour of Animals’.
And we are off. I begin, as
usual, over confident, but soon drop back and lose my breathing pattern. M, I
can tell, is holding back, and I can see him in front, watching the tension in
his back as he tries to decide whether it is OK to leave me and to power on.
“Go on!” I tell him silently,
trying to send the message telepathically, “do your best time – I’ll see you at
the end.”
Somehow the telepathy works and I
watch him put a spurt on, and pass all the other runners who, like me,
overestimated their ability and are no good at pacing themselves.
I allow a few people to pass me,
including several I had previously marked as being unfit. Which, quite frankly,
serves me right. Never, I think, panting my way past the muscled body builder I
had picked out to come in first, earlier, judge a book by its cover.
About half way through there is a
station at which volunteers are handing out water bottles, relay style, to
runners as they pass. Seeing this hone into view is a mixed blessing. It means
I get water. It also means we are only half way through.
I am wet through with sweat. Even
my underwear is drenched and I can feel the hot blood in my face, knowing that
my usual running visage, beetroot red and shiny, has taken effect.
“Hooray!” shouts someone as I
pass them, clicking their camera, “smile!”
I am feeling rather euphoric, but
I can’t spare the energy to smile. I manage something between a smile, a
grimace and a dribble. Does everyone get an excess of saliva in their mouth
when they run or is it just me?
I have run 5k before, but in this
heat have been known to come over all delicate just walking. I try to drink
some water, but don’t dare stop in case I don’t manage to start again, so end
up just sloshing it over my face, leaving me spluttering, through mercifully
cooler. I pour the rest of the bottle over my head. It’s an added weight
anyway. I’m not sure what happens to the bottle. I definitely don’t throw it on
the ground so I must, at some stage, have found a bin or a recycling point.
Either way I don’t have it as I approach the point at which, to my relief, I
see people beginning to turn off the road and onto the beach.
The route is straight along the
road once we join the main road from the welfare centre. Towards the end we
take a side street down onto the beach and double back on ourselves along the
sand to end up at Time for Lime.
Running on the road has actually
been really nice. Thai people are stopping on their motorcycles, some staring
open mouthed and in frank disbelief at our idiocy.
“Thai people,” says Boris, “do
not exercise.”
M and I have encountered enough
sheer amazement when we walk. Running is quite another matter. But everyone we
pass is smiling through their wonder, several wave at us and a good number of
onlookers, both Thai and tourist, cheer as we pass.
“Keep it up! Well done!” says
someone, perhaps to us in general, but I like to think just to me as I struggle
past on the steaming road surface. I remember how much it matters, how much of
a difference it can make to hear that, and I watch myself put a spurt on and
hold my head up higher.
The turn off onto the beach means
it’s all nearly over and I run down it almost at a sprint, though I slow at the
beach. The sand is hot and hard to run on, even in running shoes. There is no
shade from the burning sun and the sea, which I look at to try to distract
myself, is beautiful but lethal, sending blinding reflections into my eyes as I
pass. My eyes stream, though they are doing that anyway from the sweat in them.
I wonder why anybody actually runs in this climate and then remember that
nobody does. Though, as if to give the lie to that, I have totally lost sight
of M.
I think of the animals. Somehow,
in my mind as I blearily but determinedly advance towards the finish line, I
am, single handedly saving every animal on Koh Lanta. The fact that whether I
stop running or walk doesn’t matter, because it’s the money I paid to enter
that will save them, the fact that even this is just a drop in the ocean for
the Animal Welfare Centre, do not register with me. I am saving the animals.
Look, I have nearly finished and I didn’t stop running. Phew. Thank goodness.
Now the animals are safe.
I reach the row of flags which
marks the finish line. And I realise that coming in near the end as I am doing,
is actually fantastic. There is a crowd of enthusiastic cheerers welcoming me
in at the finish line, and as they, having finished their own runs much
earlier, clap and whoop as I make it through, I get a rush of emotion mixed
with relief and something between tears and shouting floods through me, so that
I make a sort of panting yelp of triumph, and run into the waiting arms of M.
Never mind that he came in quite
close to the front, he encircles me in his arms, hands me water and
congratulates me as if I am an Olympic champion. And really, that’s what I feel
like, a champion.
Later, over the celebration beer
and raffle tickets and cut price food that marks the end of the run for the
participants at Time for Lime, M tells me that the earlier one came in the
race, the less people there were to cheer for you, and that the delicate
looking twins I had noticed earlier, had outpaced everyone else by far. There
are raffle prizes and awards for the front runners, and a general sense of
enormous bonhomie. I bump into Ben who is bemusedly trying to cut spring rolls
into sections,
“I can suture a cat,” he says,
“but I can’t cut a spring roll so it looks edible.”
I tell him that suturing a cat is
much more important, and introduce myself, still, I think, a little in the ‘I
have single handedly saved the animals’ mindset. We have a nice chat about
animals and the centre, and he helps me carry the food back to M, who is
relaxing his ridiculously nonchalant body, in a deck chair in front of the sea.
I absolutely stink of sweat and
my rather thwarted attempt to do what the Thais are always telling you not to
do, and use the shower head in the toilet to wash myself off (it is supposed to
be used like a B’day), has not really made much in the way of inroads against
it.
Never mind though. Today I saved
the animals. Favourite Cat would be proud of me.
Postscript: This was not a sponsored event, but if you wanted to donate
to the Animal Welfare Centre, you can do so via paypal on its website here: http://www.lantaanimalwelfare.com
No pressure. But it would probably be a heck of a lot easier than
running 5K in the 40 degree heat. I’ll even cheer for you, if you like.
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