<<< last month | next month >>> |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Thurs 3 April 2003Things are not good. My toe-in-the-water three miler the other morning was proceeding... swimmingly until the last half mile or so, when the twinge in my calf reappeared. The twinge then became a sudden stab of pain - bad enough to make me limp home the last few hundred yards. I'm fed up now. After a week of inactivity and recuperative pub visits, I'd dusted myself down and decided to get back to work. But I underestimated the resilience of this injury. It looks like I'll have to get some proper advice and treatment. I've looked up Calf Specialists in the Yellow Pages. Interestingly, they all seem to live on farms. I didn't think I'd miss running like this. Sigh. Perhaps running isn't not so bad after all.... Mon 14 April 2003If I owned a running hat with Give Peace A Chance on it, then.... then it wouldn't have been much use in the past few weeks. What a hilariously miserable month it's been. Since the Reading Half - five weeks ago yesterday - I've barely had a run. What started out as a period of recuperation and recovery from a calf injury has turned into a full-scale beer and chocolate extravaganza. I've put on around ten pounds since Reading, and no doubt lost a lot of fitness. It's time to... to what? I can't just go out running tomorrow as though nothing had happened. I don't even know if the calf is better. I had planned to visit a sports clinic a week or two back, but I got sucked into a vortex of bureaucracy. I can claim the cost of physio as long as I have a referral from a GP. But I'm still not registered with a GP. Or wasn't. I should be by now. But in the intervening period I've descended another few rungs into this deep, and increasingly dark, shaft of lethargy and stasis. Which makes it all sound kind of depressing. Actually it's been pretty good, porcine fun. I've had plenty of extra time on my hands that I'd previously have spent on running semi-naked round the countryside. Guiltless eating is a liberating experience. The joy of eating out. Investing in the local breweries and all those forbidden-fruit takeaways. And much to M's irritation, I've discovered the location of her ice cream collection. Then there's the cheese and the chocolate and the wine. Proper sandwiches for lunch. Sweet, fizzy drinks. But the pinnacle of nutritional decadence came on Saturday, when I shamelessly lunched on pork pies and Branston pickle. Oh god. Is all this saintly running stuff worth it? That warm, smug, self-congratulatory feeling that comes with finishing a long race? Imagine it all piled up on one side of the scales. Yes, there's the sense of achievement. And the weight loss is good I suppose. That energising feeling. I'll concede that the sensation of fitness and good health and vibrancy can be pretty pleasant. All those medals up there. There's also the greater mental clarity, and the self-esteem and self-confidence. But. BUT. But on the other side of the scales, a pork pie and a lumpy pool of pickle. Think carefully. Which would you rather have? Yes, it's a tough one. Sometimes I think: If at first you don't succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried. But I can't do that here. The website is the evidence that I tried, and I can't uninvent it. I'm stuck with it. The only reasonable choice seems to be to get it all going again. Blimey. A marathon is a long way, but the Dublin marathon in October seems a particularly long way just at the moment. I need a plan. And it had better be a bloody good one. Stay tuned. Tues 15 April 2003Crikey. Two entries in two days. I must be getting serious about the possibility of considering getting serious. I've even found myself drifting in and out of the running forums in the last couple of days. Watching the London marathon on TV on Sunday morning must have helped to shake me up a bit. It was another magnificent run from that woman whose surname we have all now forgotten. Like Nayim, that bloke who used to play for Tottenham, and Madonna, and Prince, and Bono, Paula is now a one-word entity. In the running community, at least. Paula sprinted from start to finish in 2 hours 15, hacking another couple of minutes or so off the world record. It was the first time she'd ever run a marathon without me in pursuit, but this didn't seem to bother her. Apart from a couple of glances over her shoulder, she took it in her stride. Is it just me, or do other people discover lumps in throats when Paula heads for the line? Football drags quite different emotions out of me. Every season since 1967 has mutilated me in the Queens Park Rangers mangle. Every two or four years, with my England hat on, I'm dragged down the cheese grater of the World Cup or European Championships. These expose raw emotions too, but rarely positive ones. Fear, bitterness, disappointment, frustration, jealousy, hatred, schadenfreude. Even when something good happens, and I'm cheering, the jubilation is not really a positive thing. It's a primeval explosion of chauvinistic triumphalism. Yeah. That's what it is. But running pushes different buttons. I'm still new to it. Even as a spectator I'm a novice. Yes, I watched people run marathons and sprints in Olympics past - but never with any great sense of emotional investment. Never believing that I was sharing something. Is it just that I'm more interested in, have more knowledge of, running now? Is it the sight of records being broken? That whole personal achievement thing? Is it the waif-like Paula herself? Is it that the individual has a greater power to move the spectator than has the team? I don't know. But whatever it is, there is something indisputably, indefinably magnificent about seeing her out on her own, flickering on the edge some new, undiscovered universe, sprinting for that line like her life depends on it. As though all our lives depend on it. It may be the last time we see it. Her next marathon is Athens in 2004. Not a fast course. So her next record-chance marathon may be London in 2005. The bubble might have burst by then. Maybe she'll have burnt herself out. I've decided that I will go for the Dublin marathon in October. I have to do another of these damn things. I also have the Bristol Half and the Great North Run in September. Probably will do Burnham Beeches Half again in August. The 18 week marathon training will begin Monday 23rd June. I need to get in shape by then. Sunday 22nd June, I need a race to aim for. Something to get me fittish for the start of the campaign. Well, there are half marathons in Torbay and Blackpool that day. Too far to travel perhaps? Ah, but what's this? A half marathon in Boreham Wood? Thank you. That'll do nicely. It's beginning to look like a plan. Thurs 17 April 2003
God only knows how close to reality this will be. It's time to be a goody-goody again. But mercifully, not just yet. In the meantime, lock up your metaphorical daughters and padlock your pork pies to the pantry wall. I'm determined to enjoy these last few days of freedom. Sun 20 April 2003Great news. We're expecting carrots. Loyal readers without a drink problem may recall that some months ago, when the Running Commentary garden was carpeted in two inches of snow, I mentioned my plan to become vegetably self-sufficient by the summer. Crunching through the January snow, it seemed like a good line. Struck the right balance between impressiveness and unaccountability, I thought. But snow melts. Since then, I've been nervously genning up on the subject. More than that. I've made the horrifying discovery that you can't grow vegetables by computer. You have to go into the garden and actually make holes in the ground and throw stuff in there. Bizarre - and grubby. Anyway, I gave it a go, and today, after what seems like several weeks of forlorn gazing at bare earth, I've spotted a tiny explosion of leaves around the carrot area. It's a start. Tomorrow, all fun must cease. Tomorrow is regime-change day. Tomorrow. Always a good day for that sort of thing. Mon 21 April 2003Tomorrow's arrived, and with it, the start of the Dublin Marathon 2003 campaign. Not the official start of the training, but the nine-week preparation for the training. I didn't run today, and didn't plan to. Perhaps I'll not run this week at all. After five weeks of inactivity and over-eating, I'm about ten pounds heavier than I was for the Reading Half, and I need to get rid of this ballast before I do anything else. Every new marathon brings a new attitude. For Chicago, I resolved not to be too obsessional about eating and drinking. I was 40 minutes less slow in Chicago than in London, but I was also 6 pounds heavier. This time I plan to drop down further than I managed last time. The Woodley 10K is less than four weeks away. I need to be 12 pounds lighter by then. Five weeks further on is the Boreham Wood Half Marathon, the starting point of the 18 week Dublin training programme. Should be down another ten pounds by this point. It's a tall order: 22 pounds in nine weeks. But that would get me down to the level I was at for the Chicago Marathon, and would be a great weight to be starting the proper training at. I'm going to give it a go. One reason for this approach is that I need to protect my dodgy calf, and minimise the risk of it reappearing. It feels fine at the moment, but I don't yet know how it will stand up to proper training again. Carrying extra weight won't help. So no running today, though digging a thirty foot flower bed was pretty good exercise, and I'm still feeling the effects. No chocolate or crisps. Good, sensible veggie food. Wholesomeness is normally horribly dull, but after five weeks of binge-eating, it's a blessed relief. [PAUSE] Crikey, I hope it gets more interesting than this. If it doesn't, I'll have to stop reading this stuff... Wed 23 April 2003How interesting are other people's slimming statistics? Here's a test: on Monday I needed to lose 0.41 pounds per day to reach my May 18 target, and by today it's down to 0.35 pounds per day. [distant sound of gentle snoring] I see. Still marginally less dull than traffic jam stories I'd say, but I get the message. Award For Best Thread Title on the Runners World Forum Today: I've had enough of selling Pizza and want to open a running shop. What a corker. *****
The new campaign is up-and-almost-running. This evening I went for a good spin on the exercise bike to remind myself what it feels like to have blood pumping round my veins. It felt pretty good. And afterwards it felt great. It also reminded me that exercise clears your head and makes you feel weirdly enthusiastic about things. I might even go for a run this weekend. Fri 25 April 2003In this great ocean of temptation, my nostrils remain just above the surface, while my feet are a blurred tumult of frantic paddling. Eh? Nothing to do with a weakening of my resolve. I'm more certain now than I was at the start of the week that this is the time to start recovering the lost ground of the last several weeks. But I'm having to absorb some long-standing commitments this weekend that are not going to get me in better shape for a new spell of marathon training. It started last night with a visit from M2, the Dublin sister. We managed to stay on the saintly side with the food but the liquid accompaniment was more problematical, and peer pressure meant I'd no option but to guzzle the best part of a bottle of Vina Sol. Then late this afternoon I was obliged to meet up with her and some of her old university friends in the local pub, where two pints of beer were forced down my throat. Bastards. After M2's departure came the weekend shift: some friends down from Yorkshire for the weekend. I wasn't sure what to feed them, so I ran out and bought a huge bag of kettle chips though I ate these absentmindedly while watching Have I Got News For You?, so had to hurriedly throw together a leek and lemon risotto instead. I was able to while away the traffic jam anecdotes by mixing substantial gin and tonics and dishing out the food. All worked out rather well really. The meal was good, and not excessively calorific though I had to consume a large quantity of wine and beer to avoid embarrassing my guests. Despite the modest excesses of the past 36 hours I'm still focussed on the renewed desire to get out there running. Remarkably, I seem to have managed to lose around 6 pounds this week so far, which should set me up nicely for a fresh start to the running regime on Monday. It will be a relief all round to be able to start talking about running again. Sat 26 April 2003I've spent most of the day in front of a computer, so have little to report. However, I did want to wish Nigel Platt and Ian Painter good runs in the Stratford marathon tomorrow. Nigel ran the Chicago marathon last year too, although we've never met. Apart from the normal anxieties of the marathon, he is also a West Ham supporter, and tomorrow, while the race is underway, his team will be literally fighting for their Premiership lives at Manchester City. If they lose, they are relegated. Post-marathon hours are emotional at any time, but if the Hammers have plunged through that trapdoor, I would envisage a few tears in the Platt household tomorrow evening. It reminded me of 1998/99 when QPR also had to go to Man City on the penultimate weekend of the season. We were both at the malodorous end of the table. QPR needed to avoid defeat to have any chance of staying in the division. City needed to win to have a realistic chance of staying up. I was at the game. What a dramatic afternoon it was. A full house. Throbbing with tension and anxiety. City scored after 90 seconds. Blue Moon. We then went 2-1 up with two bizarre goals. The first was a spectacular own goal by the immortal Jamie Pollock. A pass-back to his own goalkeeper from about 25 yards out. But Jamie badly misjudged the trajectory, and the ball sailed over the despairing goalkeeper's flapping arms into his own net. He's been a folk hero in Shepherds Bush ever since. The second came from an indirect free kick in the penalty area. While the City players were still arguing with the ref, one of the QPR players grabbed the ball from the goalkeeper, tapped it to a team-mate who thumped it into the empty net. The match ended 2-2. We then had to beat Crystal Palace on the final day of the season. We won 6-0 and stayed up, while City went down. Let's hope that's a good omen for West Ham, though it's not looking good for them. [There is a thread on this in the forum for anyone who wants to contribute. Just click the Forum link on the left.] Mon 28 April 2003It's cold and it's raining. I'm sleepy, and suddenly starving. The house is warm, and the smell of M's lunchtime toast won't let me leave the house again now. I'm deferring my return to running till tomorrow. No, this isn't a cop-out. I've had a successful first week of pre-training. Eating sensibly, stretching, deciding on running goals, planning to join the local running club, doing some reading. I'm feeling confident and even quite excited about the weeks and months ahead. And I'm around 6 pounds lighter today than I was a week ago. There's no point in forcing myself to go out on an evening like this if I'm not up for it. If I'm back from London in time tomorrow, I'll make a start then. Anyone reading this should call in at the forum and read Nigel Platt's Shakespeare-flavoured marathon race report from Stratford. It's a good 'un. Well done Nigel, and to Ian Painter, who also got round in a time that I could manage only in some outlandish daydream. Tues 29 April 2003Something odd to report: a run. The good news is that I ran just over three miles without the slightest twinge in my calf. It was a comfortable jog, and no more, but after six frustrating weeks of injury, that was all I was hoping for. The evening seemed bright and fine when I left the house, but my cherished GPS distance monitor watch was showing just 1.4 miles when the rain began. It was so unexpected that I presumed it would be limited to a few renegade drops. But a minute or two later it was belting down. Big, heavy, wet splashes. I used to hate rainy runs. But then I realised that it really didn't matter. Whatever the weather, the first thing I do when I get home is pull my clothes off and have a shower, so a bit of rain - or a lot of rain - is of no importance. I like it. When I see people bent against the wind, wrapped in plastic to seal their flesh from the wet - while I amble past in next to nothing, giggling like a naughty child, it illuminates some of the mysteries of running, and the difference between us and them. For them, rain is misery and inconvenience. For me, liberation and elation. I need to believe that the rain is a metaphor. I ran through the deer park and turned back towards home as it continued to pour. I was tiring now, and an ache was slowly reaching around my ribcage like an ever-tightening snake. But nothing to worry about. To be expected after such a long lay-off. Token protests that I slapped down as I plodded back through the puddles on the back lane. Grinning. Wed 30 April 2003Spring is the best time of year for running. Early this morning it was bright and sunny, but cool. The damp streets almost deserted. I kept to the small back lanes and the deer park, where no cars could trouble me. I now know that, at 6:10 am, the entire population of the world numbers four: there's me, the postman, and a couple of pensive dog walkers. The run was therapeutic rather than joyful. Last night's effort was the first in weeks, and it was hardly surprising that my legs were leaden and reluctant. Everything felt heavy, but it was great to be out there at all. Dublin is still a long way off, but I can already sense it. Just a faint trace perhaps, and insubstantial, like a flickering shadow, or an outline; a blurred silhouette on the far horizon. I don't quite have it in focus yet, but I know it's there, and it's thrilling. Those who hear not the music, think the dancer mad. |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| <<< last month | next month >>> |