My neighbourhood WhatsApp group announced today a local weekly session of gentle stretching and movement for ‘older residents’. When I realised they were including me in that decaying demographic, I knew it was time to act. With a sense of outrage and defiance, I would seize the exercise nettle myself. The resulting experience, a sort of run along Eastbourne seafront, was joyous.
This coastal venture wasn’t as spontaneous as I’m pretending. The notion of trying to re-enter the plodosphere, more than 11 years after the 2013 Berlin Marathon, my last serious athletic endeavour [it was the event that was serious, not so much my six-hour effort], has been brewing for a long time. Years. But it’s only in the past few months, since managing to jettison a few unwelcome pounds and harvesting some healthier habits, that the ghost of a plan began forming in the boxroom of my brain. Is it a plan likely to bear significant fruit? Based on past, humiliating experience – No. I know myself too well to make the usual error of predicting any event in my life beyond next week. Seven days or so is the traditional danger point. When resolve dissolves. But I’ll still make the foolishly confident assertion that today’s unostentatious jaunt will be repeated in two days’ time. I’ve mentally contracted in to the idea of the well-known C25K programme — Couch to 5K. And I reckon I can polish off the first three outings before the inevitable disenchantment or injury manifests.
After the spinal injuries caused by the Berlin Marathon had finally drifted away, I tried engaging with the C25K plan several times. The lakeside path near where I lived in Switzerland was an admirable setting to ease my way back into running but I was never able to maintain my enthusiasm for more than two or three weeks. I discovered it had become shockingly difficult to jog for more than three minutes. I had to confront the possibility that my Swiss diet of Amarone and creamy Cailler chocolate might not have been as helpful as I’d hoped.
When rethinking my options for reviving my unadorned athletic career, I decided that instead of jumping into even the gentlest of training plans without preparation, I might try a spell of regular walking first. And so, for four weeks starting in mid-December I walked an average of 20 brisk minutes every day. Since mid-January this has risen to 30 minutes per day. Without intentionally raising it in the last 10 days, I’m now averaging more than 40 per day. The ‘brisk’ element is important. The NHS app I’ve been enslaved by, Active 10, counts only strenuous minutes as legitimate exercise. Typically, a 40-minute walk may yield only 30-35 briskies.
So after more than 50 days of steady, occasionally arduous walking, I reasoned that it wouldn’t take too much additional effort to slide over into the C25K-osphere, as my jogging pace is unlikely to be much faster than my stiff walking rate. And so it proved.
Digging out my old running garb last night, and laying it out ready for this morning, I felt an unexpected but friendly prod of emotion. I could almost feel a distant thumbs-up from my 2001-self. I’d compiled a list in advance; something I never did back in my regular running days except in preparation for a big event. On this new list, there was no need for energy gels, Compeeds, pain killers, safety pins, heart rate monitor, nipple plasters, Vaseline, cap, sunblock, or wrist-sweatband. No bin-bag to wear during the first mile or so. No calf supports. And the ‘to be left in the car’ list had no duct tape, race instructions, notebook and pen, glasses, contact lens case, fleece, change of shoes and clothes.
The list for a 30-minute run-walk session along the seafront in the icy heart of winter did need some items beyond the standard garb. I was never a jacket or leggings man for instance, even in winter. Nor were woolly hats part of my previous plodding wardrobe. Too ticklish once the sweat starts oozing through them. Maybe because I’m ageing, or because I didn’t expect to be sweating much, I made an exception for today. So it was Lycra undershorts, leggings, long-sleeved top, jacket (the one I bought 25 years ago in preparation for external exertion, but almost never worn). Belt for phone. Ten pound note, just in case. Just in case of what, I don’t know, but I took it. Bluetooth headphones. Thin gloves. Old Thorlo padded socks. Pair of old Brooks Beasts trainers. Latest tech-acquisition: Apple Watch. And not just the woolly hat but a buff for good measure. On reflection, some of that seems like overkill for the modest task ahead of me. But old habits, and all that.
The English Channel makes a fine backdrop for exercise. It’s not just that the promenade is unchallengingly straight and level and sparsely populated on a Tuesday morning in February. Something more than that. As I locked the car up near Holywell, at the far end of the town, near the start of the Beachy Head cliffs, and headed down to the front, I paused to look outwards, struck by how empty the world becomes with the sea present. In the very far distance, on a clearer day, the coast of Northern France is visible. But not today. Just that great blank, slate-grey blank slate; a vast drab dappled absence. A canvas to draw from, and upon.
Forty minutes later I was back at the car, my first minutes of mild jogging and strutting safely under my drawstring belt. I doubt if my walking app will have raised much of an eyebrow at the morning’s work. My brisk walking speed won’t have differed much from my traditionally leisurely running pace. For the moment, that’s the last thing I care about. It’s the being out there that matters.
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*Note: Greatest Day is an uplifting song by Simon Eugene and Neil Taylor (not to be confused with the Take That song of the same name), and features at the start of the original NHS C25K app. The latest NHS C25K app doesn’t include music. The one I’ve used here is still available as a podcast.)
