Monday 30 October 2006

It's not been a good month in the plodosphere.

Things had been going pretty well, it will be recalled. I’d finally disembarked from my blotchy, shirtless summer and the Svengoranertia of another World Cup failure. All on my own, I’d somehow got down from my shingley sick bed. How heroic, and how very pleased with myself I looked when I glanced down to see my reflection in that highly polished -- and slippery -- floor.

Others probably saw it coming, but I didn’t. What a sense of liberation when those crutches were cast off. I seem to remember raising my arms aloft, and grinning… before falling flat on my face.

And here I still lie, peering upwards through the mist at this circle of faces. They look gratifyingly concerned, but slighly embarrassed, like shoppers crowding round the old man who’s slipped on a patch of spilt milk in Asda.

No use crying over it, but how did it happen?

Last time I tried going for a proper run, more than a month ago, something went wrong. It didn’t work out as it was supposed to. So be it. It happens. I went out again a couple of days later, and this time, within half a mile, started to feel my calf ache. Back in 2003, I had a bad calf strain which kept me out for weeks, and I’ve been wary ever since. I don’t want it to pop again, so I played safe and returned home. Better take a few days off, I decided.

The few days turned into a week. The week was then stretched by an unfortunate double whammy. After 20 years without a death in the family, two happened in 24 hours, one on M’s side, one on mine.

It’s not an excuse, but it meant that real life had to take over for another week or so. Two weeks without a run, my new eating regime in splinters, and I was back where I started.

The upshot is that, before this evening, I’d not run for 5 weeks or so.

It’s back to basics. I think I’ve said that before, but this time I mean it. I’ve rewound the clock 5 years. I’m as lardy and as torpid as I was then, October/November 2001, when I was still struggling to run my first-ever 3 miles. I’ve got to accept that I’m back where I started. Just at the moment, the chances of doing the Two Oceans Ultra next year seem about the same as the chances of getting round the London Marathon in 2002, viewed from the previous November.

I did go out this evening for a 3 mile plod. Can I even call it a plod? I probably ran about a mile in total. The rest was pant-walking, arms akimbo, or on the back of my head, hoping I’d not been spotted by anyone I know.

I’m staring failure in the face. If I’m going to get to Cape Town in April, I have to act now. This is really it. I’ve got 18 running days to the Brighton 10K. If I don’t get myself to the finish line of that race I’ve had it. Only a 10K, you might say, but you have to understand that I’m still 30 pounds heavier than I was in Zurich, and can’t run more than 100 metres or so without having to stop. I’m not just back at square one; my feet are in a block of concrete. My lack of fitness is something to be marvelled at. Just bending down to tie my shoes this morning left me breathless. Seriously.

Why bother? I’ve asked myself this a few times recently. Isn’t it all rather a lot of trouble? Well, yes it is, but these months of lethargic failure have reminded me of how much I need this diversion. I could never have imagined saying this 5 years ago, but life sans running seems strangely pointless.

Out this evening, puffing and floundering along the narrow moonless lanes, I remembered that running really isn't that much to do with the physical exertion. Or at least not for me. It's about shaking hands with the world in which I live, and which I usually see only through a car windscreen, or reproduced on TV. That sense of separation becomes more acute at this time of year. Pitch-black evenings, temperatures dropping... the tendency is to isolate yourself yet further behind extra clothes and less exposure to the elements.

Most people won't know this, but almost every book about learning a computer programming language starts with a practical lesson that leads to the same thing - making the words "Hello World" appear on your screen. In such a youthful universe, it's good to have something that can be regarded as a tradition.

I thought of those words this evening as I pounded and panted. "Hello World". I was reminded not so much what running gives to the runner, but what not running deprives him of.

It's a thought I need to hold onto as we head towards winter.

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