Tuesday, 23 October 2007

I wrote this on the forum a couple of weeks ago:

After my great week last week, I’ve had a setback.

Monday it was painful, Tuesday and today I can feel it without it being too unpleasant. I’ve had calf injuries before, and I know they can stretch on for weeks if not treated properly. So much against my instincts and renewed enthusiasm, I’m going to take the week off running and see how I feel towards the end of the weekend. Even when it feels back to normal, I know it can ‘go’ again, and more seriously, if it’s not fully recovered. A nuisance, but I need to do what’s right.

——–

My prescribed two static weeks have now passed. No further calf twinges, but no running either, as there’s a new complaint to puzzle and weep over. Or rather the return of one: the mystery left knee-ache.

Crikey. I have to ask myself whether this is it. Am I irretrievably knackered? For now, I’m resisting the idea. The stately second-gear ambulations of fat middle-aged plodders like me, is supposed to keep us insulated from the strains that blight the recklessly athletic. Or so I thought.

I’m not too disheartened. I’ve been hopelessly unhealthy recently, and am taking holistic steps towards recovery. The crumbly knee will solidify as my diet improves and the Rugby World Cup refreshments drain away.

A bit annoying though, especially as I’d just about pronounced the calf fully testable. This verdict followed a few hours of tramping round the garden, attending to mandatory autumnal jobs.

These seasonal duties are a delight. We claim to hate the long winter months, but there are benefits. It felt good to know I was shaving the corrugated face of the back garden for probably the final time before spring.

But it’s the front garden that’s been the richest source of excitement. I’ve been fighting this ugly ruffian for four years now, and 2007 was the year I gave in, and summoned the reinforcements.

This space has been a challenge. It began its life as a garden just after the First World War, when the house was built, and was designed to allow the original householders to be self-sufficient in vegetables. We continued the tradition for a year or two before apathy set in, and it became a coarse meadow again. The wild flowers liked it, but I didn’t. I accepted recently that desperate gardens call for desperate makeovers, and it was time to make that phone call.

And so it was that three cheerful young levellers arrived one day, like a travelling circus, with caged trailers of wild, growling creatures: a collection of roaring, spluttering, diesel-belching landscaping toys. Sometimes they stood and scratched their heads and argued, and ran muddy fingers through their hair – which may be why they scratched their heads – and chuckled, and drank gallons of coffee, and stuff that looked like red diesel from unlabelled plastic bottles. Then they got the machines fired up again, and continued the destruction and creation, and the manicured flattening.

That last week of September. Did the earth move for you?

It did for me.

Along with four days of sweat and pain (theirs rather than mine) came more than 40 tons of gorgeously friable, stone-free top soil. It’s the stuff that British Sugar washes off the beet. It’s filtered and graded to remove the grit and the stones, and enriched with nutrients and left to settle and develop a personality over long years, like decent wine in a cool, dark cellar.

This is the vintage Champagne of top soil. If our gardens were the rugby-playing nations of the world, you poor people would be peering through your kitchen windows at mere Australia and New Zealand, while I gaze over pure, wholesome, unblemished England. (I wrote that bit before the final…)

One misty morning early, two gargantuan truckloads of this beautiful sandy loam were shipped down from Lincolnshire, and ended up at the end of the driveway, causing much indignant honking throughout the village, and very probably all the way down to Swindon, where (it should be said) they are more accustomed to traffic outrages.

Not all of us were displeased. After centuries of munching through gritty gruel, our worms suddenly find themselves dining at Gordon Ramsay’s — day after incredulous day.

I can’t wait for spring, when we’ll have a velvetty bowling green, embracing the new 30-foot wildlife pond. Perhaps when I’m setting off for those long February-March Sunday runs, I’ll be inspired by seeing the first signs of spring spreading across the front garden.

Which takes us back to running. I hope.

If there’s no trace of knee or calk discomfort the day after tomorrow, when I get back from Nottingham, I will try a gentle plod around the block to see if the pain monster is gone, or just sleeping.

On the day that I finally despatched my signed acceptance of my Boston offer to the tireless Adele at JDRF, I have to be full of positive thoughts. A no-show in Boston is unthinkable. Even if it’s my last marathon, or especially if it’s my last marathon, I need to get there, and I need to carry the RC pennant with pride. Even if it’s the Andy version of pride, which I fear doesn’t always match up with the efforts of some of the other guys around here.

Changing the subject, I recently had a conversation with an Indian friend about Varanasi, the holy city on the Ganges, where good Hindus go to die. To visit this place is one of those experiences that one can truly describe as awesome. You don’t have to be religious or overly spiritual to be deeply affected by the sights and the smells of this place.

To wander down to the banks of the Ganga in mid-evening, as the darkness thickens and incense swirls and fills your lungs, and to see the grieving families along the ghats, praying and wailing around the burning corpses of their loved ones, before the ashes are pushed into the holy river, and allowed to float away towards eternity, is a memory too mournful and too profound ever to leave you.

If the Indians have Varanasi, the English have Bournemouth.

This occurred to me last week, when I found myself in that fine seaside town, attending a conference.

The highlight was a talk by David Magliano, the Director of the London 2012 Olympic Bid Team, who gave us a gripping insight into the mechanics of winning the business.

The strategists had worked out that the fate of the London bid rested with about 40 IOC delegates who were likely to be faithful to Madrid until (as the London team predicted) the Madrid bid was eliminated. In Singapore, where the final presentations were to be delivered, these floating voters were targetted by a team of ‘spotters’ who hung around the hotel lobby on the morning before the big day.

Before they were able to disappear for a day’s sightseeing, they were invited up to the 40th floor to meet Tony Blair – and of course vanity prevented them from resisting the invitation. Each flattered delegate was beaten to the 40th floor by a quick phone call to the waiting team to let them know who was ascending. This gave them just enough time to brief Blair on the person about to step out of the lift. Blair greeted them all personally by name, and using the knowledge he’d just that moment acquired, was able to exhibit an astonishing knowledge of the delegate’s specialisms, hobbies and concerns. In the meantime, the delegate’s spouse and children were led off to make small talk with David Beckham and Sven Goran Eriksson. Blair managed to meet an impressive 35 delegates in this way.

The attention to detail was staggering. The British presentation consisted of 7 speakers. In the preceding week, each of those seven were given 20 hours of professional tuition and mentoring in how best to deliver their 3-minute, carefully scripted speeches. Blair had to leave Singapore to chair the G8 summit, but had made a recorded speech to be shown in the hall. He was asked to wear the same shirt and tie he’d worn to meet most of the delegates so that it would appear that he’d just that minute left the city.

Probably most interesting was the effort made to appeal to the sentiments of the voting delegates, most of whom were ex-Olympians. The other four presentations centred on business, politics and good facilities, while London concentrated almost exclusively on tweaking the emotions, and the memories, of the delegates, by stressing how they were determined to allow today’s kids to fulfil their dreams as athletes. Tip of the day: If you can find it, dig out the promotional video shown during the London presentation. They’ll be weeping in the aisles.

Clever stuff, neatly summed up to us by Magliano when he solemnly opined: “Frankly, there were no depths to which we would not sink”.

But it paid off.

There are plenty of useful lessons there about the value of rigorous organisation, creative planning, and downright ruthlessness.

None of which, of course, I will remember as I try to haul myself back on track for my own personal 5-hour Olympics –- Boston 2008.