Saturday 4 October 2008

The party to celebrate my neighbour's fortieth birthday went on late. I drank so much wine that I was persuaded to totter round the dance floor waving my arms in the air to Dancing Queen. Yep, that bad. I went to bed drunk, at 3:30 a.m., regaining consciousness around 4 hours later to be reminded that we had a long drive down to East Sussex ahead of us. It wasn't what I wanted to hear at that moment, but duty intervened and demanded I deliver my wife and friend Sally to Brighton for a day's shopping, and myself to nearby Lewes for another day's carousing with forum legends Sweder and Seafront Plodder. Or Ash and Andy, as they are known when off-duty.

I arrived chez Sweder to find a reassuringly domesticated scene, with a grinning SP in the kitchen, behaving like some B-list celebrity chef, peeling potatoes with aplomb and tossing unsolicited cookery tips at anyone within earshot. Mercifully, he reverted to type shortly afterwards, and before long we were in the sort of old hippy pub that I would normally relish. Trouble was, with my headache throbbing in time to the thrash metal jukebox, the quivering pint of Harvey's in front of me held little appeal. I should have stuck to my plan: to consume a couple of large Bloody Marys and leave the beer until later. There's nothing quite like a Bloody Mary with lashings of Worcester sauce and Tabasco and celery salt and freshly-ground pepper, to seize a hangover by the gonads and sort it out. And I did have one of these marvellous items, but peer pressure forced a pint chaser on me. If that was a bad idea, it was an even worse one to shout up another round of Harvey's. And another.

With my hindsight spectacles on, I can state that the least good idea of all was to move on to the legendary Dripping Pan, home of Lewes FC, and hand over a pile of beer tokens to watch the Rooks confront Ebbsfleet United. Goalless draws can occasionally be thrilling affairs but sadly, this wasn't to be such an occasion. Instead, we donated two non-refundable hours to the elements. The greatest thrill, by some distance, was waiting to see if our 'golden goal' tickets would bear the minute matching the time of the first goal. The £3 investment at least ensured that we had three top-notch minutes to enjoy. I'll say no more about the other 93.

Just before half time I elected myself burgermeister, and went off in search of some food poisoning ordnance. It was on this expedition that I realised just how bad my left knee had become. The nearby catering hut specialised in hot dogs only, and I was directed to the burger bar, in the opposite corner of the end, instead. Part of this trek involved descending about 20 concrete steps, each of which sent a ripple of pain shooting up my shinbone to jangle the knee, like one of those "test your strength" sledgehammer jobs at a funfair. The ache had started early that morning, and got steadily worse. By now it was giving me real discomfort. Back with the boys, mission accomplished, soundless bar the munching and ketchup slurping, head and knee throbbing, grimly watching the game in the wind and sploshing rain, stomach drooping ever closer to the earth, I reflected on how shit this all was. Not the company, or even the game, but me. The state of my health, and how much I'd declined in just two or three months of inactivity. Afterwards, as we traipsed up a short slope from one hostelry to another, I was left well and truly winded, as though I'd just climbed a steep hillside.

At this second place, we were joined by a character I'd half suspected had been manufactured by Sweder's vivid imagination. A sort of Bunbury figure. Bunbury? I'll let Wikipedia do the work for me:

"Bunburying is a term introduced by Oscar Wilde in the play The Importance of Being Earnest. It is the art of inventing a friend whose troubles are so compelling that nobody will question the need to visit that friend at short notice, and for any length of time. The art of Bunburying, when perfected, enables a person to follow their whims without fear of backlash from meddlesome friends and precarious family obligations."

But no, "Captain Tom" is no Bunbury. He's sort of real after all. I say "sort of real" because while he answers to this lofty monicker, his real name is Tim, not Tom. Or so he says. It's sometimes hard to know what to believe in this Summerisle of a town. You half expect someone to step from a shop doorway and utter: "Welcome, fool. You have come of your own free will to the appointed place. The game's over."

Health concerns aside, we spent a jolly hour in this second boozer where, after another few beers, SP felt able to reveal that he was keen to enter the Brighton 10K this year. He will deny this, but before the day was out, he was inviting all and sundry to witness him in a couple of months time, prancing along Brighton seafront with nothing but a pair of lycra shorts separating him from total indignity. Even more rash was my promise to join him. The dodgy knee should have made this a forlorn aspiration, but such petty details are easily swept aside by a torrent of Harvey's finest ale.

So what's the point of all this? After all, it happened a few weeks ago now. Well, it serves to reintroduce the subject of alcohol, health, and running -- three well-worn RC themes. Despite the excellent company through the day, and the later hospitality of Sweder's hastily-arranged barbecue, my sleep-deprived bad head made the succession of beers that day really rather unappealing. I kept thinking: "I don't want to drink this, but I am going to do it anyway."

I reflected that I'd had a rather unhealthy couple of months, even by my low standards. Maybe not overly alcoholic (though again, my benchmark is probably not to be aspired to), but certainly in the food department. The usual culprits: red meat, cheese and crisps and peanuts. (Though strangely enough, very little chocolate. Am I losing my taste for it?) My troublesome knee had been a partial excuse. I couldn't do anything active, the argument went, so I may as well regard this as downtime. I'd had a relatively abstemious year pre-summer, so perhaps I could afford to.... to write off a couple of months? Yeah, too hot to run anyway, even if my knee was OK. (Conveniently forgetting that we'd had the coolest, wettest summer since the days when Ye Olde Runnynge Commentarye was etched on parchment with a quill pen...) After this supposed rationalisation back in June, I then took an immediate step further than this, and concluded that my running career was as good as over, as was this website.

And they both may well be: I could have drifted on like this for a while longer. But a variety of things are forcing my hand, and straining to turn the clock back a season or two.

First of all, there was that sense of disgust at just how unhealthy I'd become; something that hit me quite squarely between the eyes during my day in Lewes. It was lot of fun, don't get me wrong, but I was startled at how far I'd sunk.

Second, and this was something good that came out of my meeting with Sweder and SP, was the decision, finally, to have my knee looked at again. They nagged me. And it was looked at again, initially by the local doctor, then by one of the county's leading orthopaedic surgeons. After prodding it a bit, the GP declared that this was a job for no less than "Dodds the Knee Man". The name was uttered with reverence. And last week, I finally got to see the great man. Richard Dodds was captain of the gold-medal winning British Olympic hockey team in Seoul in 1988, and seems to know his stuff.

As I sat before him, it was impossible not to draw comparisons between us. We are pretty much the same age, yet he is one of those slender, hyper, lissome, grinning 50 year olds with a darting, gimlet eye; and I... and I am not.

He peered at the x-ray of my knee, and startled me by saying: "Are you aware that you have a piece of metal lodged above your knee...?

What?

He pointed at the x-ray, and sure enough, a small white lump stood out clearly. Good god. As the blood drained from my face, he leaned towards me and exposed the zip that runs around my trousers above the knee. "Fortunately", he went on, "the lump of metal is attached to your trousers and not to your skeleton". He guffawed at his own excellent joke before declaring that my knee was fine and I should carry on running. He then got down to the real purpose of the meeting: to compare marathons, and have a good old natter about running. He had first run London in 1982 as a medical student, and had been evidently dropping in regularly ever since. I wheeled out my usual lines about the marathon being about the journey, and not the destination... about the race being the reward and not the target ("I say, that's profound").

A good egg though. Apart from the x-ray, he gripped the troublesome joint in a number of exotic ways and observed that it was less muscley than the other, concluding that I'd probably gone down the classic over-compensation spiral: knee hurts, so I give more work to the other one to do, which then gets stronger as the other weakens, thereby making the weak one even more susceptible to injury. So he recommended some gym work, but thinks the sporadic knee pain is all about the basics: running too much on hard surfaces, carrying too much weight, and needing to check the suitability of my shoes. But that, taking on board these caveats, there is no good reason for not getting back out there.

Here's an extract from his report (my emphasis):

.....Fifty-one year old man who took up running about 8 years ago and has done a number of marathons. He has had 3 recent episodes of severe patello-femoral anterior knee.... He has stopped running because of this, and is concerned that he will do more damage. He is in pretty good general health.....

.....On examination, he is a big man generally, but his hips move beautifully. He has no effusion in the knee, but slight wasting of the left quads. His knee moves through a good range of movement. He has no tenderness on the joint line and his patello-femoral joint is non-irritable. The knee is stable. X-rays show a bony spur off the proximal pole of the patella, but nothing significant.....

....physio is recommended to get him back into his activity though I think we should MRI scan him first to guard against significant pathology.

And the MRI scan happened a couple of days ago. I've often heard of footballers having one of these experiences, but I'd never stopped to wonder what it actually was. I now know. You have to dress up like one of those Monty Python ladies, in a flowery gown that barely covers the midriff, then sit in a waiting room with other plump middle-aged men wearing similar garb but pretending not to be. We all discover that the patch of carpet immediately adjacent to our bare feet is extraordinarily fascinating, to the point where we do not have time to have a conversation, or even concede that we are not alone in the waiting room.

Eventually I am released from this British torture, and invited onto the second stage of the process. Here's what happens: you lie on a table with (in my case) my left knee encased in a tube. Then they clamp headphones on you and make you listen to a selection of Frank Sinatra's greatest hits as you drift in and out of a giant Polo mint. It's all rather surreal, and even the Filipino nurse seemed sworn to secrecy, and just looked at me blankly when I asked about the link between Ol’ Blue Eyes and my knee. All she said was "The report will explain everything". We'll see.

So anyway, despite the claims of the knee god, I've been feeling in pretty bad health generally, and nowhere is this more obviously manifested than in my expanding girth. Yes, weight has been as permanent a topic in these pages as the plan to run the Dublin marathon, but things have taken a turn for the worse. I've spent the last year mostly working from home. This is a tremendous privilege, and I would hate to lose it. It should be a perfect arrangement for a runner: the opportunity to snatch an arbitrary hour here or there to get out into the rolling plains of West Berkshire. In earlier years I would have seized this miraculous change in circumstances with both feet. This year, for some reason, I haven't. Maybe it's even become too easy. Maybe you have to be time-poor to appreciate the opportunities. I'm the guy working in the chocolate factory who never thinks of nibbling the product because it's all too easy and too available, and therefore lacking excitement. Being atavistic, maybe we need the thrill of the hunt.

The bald statistic is that 12 months of sedentary domicentricity has added around 25 pounds to my central regions. Trousers are painfully tighter these days, with all my belts groaning on their final, despairing notch. We like to joke about our... personal density on this site but while I was always overweight, I do now feel genuinely fat for perhaps the first time ever. Combined with my age, I've entered heart attack territory, and the verdict is clear and non-negotiable: something must be done.

Next reason is the Boston Marathon. It's one of those events you have to do before you die, even if it kills you. Oldest, most celebrated marathon on the globe, now in its 113th great year. Entry by qualifying time only -- unless you're one of the lucky 5% who can grovel well enough to pick up a charity place. The great JDRF has given me that opportunity in April 2009, and I should seize it.

Then we have the economy. The economy? A bit left-field, admittedly. Only posterity knows how this mess was resolved, but at the moment things are looking bleak. Bad enough for the lamest lame duck president of the modern era, GW Bush, to exclaim memorably in the last week that "If money aint loosened up, this sucker could go down" -- by which he meant the entire house of cards we've all been casually constructing, on the quicksand of dodgy credit and mixed metaphors. But that's how many of us are feeling at the moment, that "this sucker could go down". It's no time to be complacent. I can't be certain of keeping my job, and need my wits -- what's left of 'em -- about me. Or within reach, anyhow. I'm not an Armageddonista, creeping through the undergrowth with a serrated survival knife between my teeth, and a few solid gold coins sewn into my underpants. But let's face it: things are gloomy at the moment, and not helped one bit by the deepening chill of autumn, and the prospect of a long winter ahead. It's a time to be clear-headed and resourceful.

There is yet another reason, and perhaps the most compelling of all. As most people who read this will know, Chris Moyle, a good friend of this website, is not well these days. Why these things tend to happen to the most decent, fittest people, is one of those mysteries I gave up probing a long time ago, because no reasonable answer exists. Chris will be out of action for a while as he goes through his treatment and recuperation, and I know that he is missing his regular running, and the social life attached to it. I received a mail from Chris recently, and couldn't help thinking of the essential, touching truth in the sentiment often seen expressed on marathon teeshirts: I run because I can. If Chris can't do any running at the moment, then we all need to do it for him.

And so, this week, I've been reawakening those muscles in the gym. Three good sessions so far, with around an hour of cardio-vascular each time. Treadmill, static bike, rowing machine, cross-trainer and stepper. Each time, I've emerged into the night dripping with sweat. How good that feels; how very good. I'd forgotten just how good.

This evening, just as I was settling down to watch the live football on TV, I had a quite bizarre thought. It must have been the sound of the heavy rain on the window that made me glance up, and notice the darkening sky. I hoisted myself from the sofa, and went to look out. There was quite a storm brewing out there, with the trees at the end of the garden bending in the strong wind. My bizarre thought was this: "I should go for a run."

And I did. Within a few minutes, I was crunching up the gravel drive with the chilly wind whistling round my ankles. I reached the gate and set off on a 3.08 mile jog. My first run in four months. It was slow — very slow — but it was 3 miles of plodding, without a single walk break. The bad news is that I managed to ignore the advice of the great Dodds: I wore the same old shoes, didn't warm up or stretch, and ran on the pavement instead of grass or trail. The very faintest of knee twinges as I got home was a reminder to me that I shouldn't abuse this new opportunity.

A hot shower and clean clothes, then sinking back in the couch to watch the dregs of the game, feeling bloody marvellous. Certainly better than I felt on that wretched, hungover afternoon in Lewes, when my knee throbbed with pain, and the ketchup dripped from that deathburger as though it was my own blood, and my own sense of hope, seeping out of me.

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Friday 10 October 2008

Are we there yet? No one knows for certain, but it's sure beginning to smell like Armageddon. Forgive the typos; it's dark in this bunker.

So the much-predicted, much-derided day of financial meltdown may, we think, have finally appeared. It's like the ghastly fiend whose threat invisibly haunts the first two thirds of a horror film. We don't want the ghoul to appear, but we know it's there, and when it does finally step from the shadows, darting a deathly hand towards the jugular, it's almost a relief. At least we know what we're fighting at last. It will all work out just dandy in the end, but there's a fair bit of torture and fear to withstand first.

And so, as the banking system dissolves and seeps away through the cracks in our complacency, how best to mark the occasion? I guess the textbook temptation is to turn to hard liquor, but as hinted in the previous entry, I've decided I need to be lean and mean to defend my homestead. So instead of hitting the bottle, I hit the gym instead. A run through the sumptuous forest would have been a purer choice, but there is no forest -- sumptuous or otherwise -- within striking distance. And anyway, I ran yesterday. Sort of. I managed 3 miles along the canal towpath, but it was a juddery trip. with the final mile including two brief....ish walks. I'll try again in a couple of days.

But this evening, it was the gym, and my 6th visit in 12 days. I normally lose interest after two or three, but this time I've persisted. Why? Hard to say. It helps that it's a small, local gym within walking distance. There's rarely more than one other person there, and often I'm on my own. It's quite intimate -- just me and the 100 decibel sound system, pumping out disco music. I'm almost enjoying it. There's something gratifying about seeing your own sweat dripping off your face and splashing off the equipment. Perhaps it's a middle-aged thing. I don't remember feeling so delighted with it as a kid, playing football. Then, it was a nuisance. But now, an hour of steady cardio-vascular works up a good half bucket of the lovely stuff. I guess it's a manifestation of effort.

Despite all this feverish activity, my weight hasn't shifted much since the first couple of days of last week. Losing the lard seems to get tougher as one matures. I'm not making the classic error of filling myself with carbs to compensate for the physical effort. Nutritionally, I reckon I've been leading a pretty exemplary existence.

There's been no beer, indeed no alcohol of any description, since the penultimate day of our holiday, three weeks ago today. We'd spent three days in the delightful medieval city of Tallinn, in Estonia. It's easy to see why it's become a magnet for stag and lads weekends. The accommodation is cheap; the girls are absurdly pretty, and become increasingly so after a few glasses of beer which is cheap, plentiful and occasionally interesting. All these delights are contained in and around the gothic walled city, an architectural caricature that looks more like a Disney dreamscape than a recently-liberated outpost of the Soviet Union.

Each day, as my shopping energy receded, and thirst increased, I'd make my excuses and head off to the Beer House, just off the main square, where I would sit with my book (Part 3 of A Dance to the Music of Time), and my notebook, and my sunlit thoughts, and enjoy as happy an hour as I ever had. Despite the loud Bavarian music and the undoubted touristiness of the place, I liked its spaciousness, and because they brewed their own speciality beers, all of which I managed to sample over the three happy days.

[Aside: I just found this infomercial on YouTube: BeerHouse, which shows me what the place is like later in the evening. The population rarely exceeded half a dozen while I was there. Warning: it's 4 minutes of your life that you'll never get back.]

On the morning of the fourth day, we packed up and headed down to the ferry terminal, from where we made the short trip across the Baltic to Helsinki.

The girl in the Tallinn tourist office had done her best to dissuade us from going. She hadn't minced her words: "Tallinn is very nice but Helsinki is a very horrible place. If you must go there, you should have gone there first and Tallinn second so that your holiday ends happy."

The reality didn't bear out her assessment. Maybe she was just a dyed-in-the-wool medievalist. Helsinki is certainly different: relatively large and serious, but handsome and efficient. We walked from the dock to the city centre, stopping off at the tourism office to pick up maps and tram tickets. A half hour or so later we reached our hotel in the suburbs. Pleasant, Scandinavian style.

An elegant enough city, but there is something oddly subdued about the place. Finns, particularly men, are notoriously reserved and sombre, and drink a lot. Few tram rides pass without the cranky burbling of a solitary drunk. I didn't participate in this national pastime with too much enthusiasm, mainly because I never quite found a decent venue. One afternoon when M wanted to 'do' Stockmann, the department store, I was allowed to sneak away and explore the city's social substrata for a couple of hours. I stumbled on an English-style pub and sampled a couple of local brews -- Koff and Lapin, but they were nothing to get excited about.

The only other attempt I made to join the Finnish drinking culture came on our last night when, after my steak, I slipped away for a nightcap at the Irish bar close to the hotel. I was served up a massive glass (must have been a litre) of cold, neutral fizz. Coming straight after a weighty meal it was a troubling experience. I just remember staring at that daunting receptacle, thinking how unappetising it looked. But I can't blame it for what happened the next day.

Sod's law meant that the day we were due to spend almost 12 hours travelling, was the day I awoke feeling sick. It must have been the slab of beef I'd eaten; there were no other plausible culprits. For an hour or so I writhed around in bed, groaning, hoping that M wouldn't mention the greasy processed meats she'd eaten for breakfast. In the end, instead of hoping I wouldn't be pushed, I decided to do the decent thing, and jump. I'll spare the filthy details, but it involved forked fingers heading down the throat.

It helped a bit -- eventually -- but I was still destined to spend the entire day feeling deeply wretched. The kindly (and possibly embarrassed, given that I'd eaten the meal in their restaurant) hotel staff allowed us a very late check-out, and we set off on the long journey home in mid-afternoon. It began with two tram rides across Helsinki to the main railway station, where I really didn't want to run for that train -- but did. Then a 2 hour train journey to Tampere, the provincial town whose airport departure seemed such a good idea when I was comparing prices. At Tampere we spent an anxious hour trying to track down the airport bus, with me trying not to hear M mutter about needing food. We eventually found it, and got to our destination, but my hopes of a bit of comfort went unfulfilled. The tiny airport is barely equipped for cattle-truck international flights, and isn't a good place to feel ill. Hundreds of weary, cranky people were crammed into a small, airless departure area with only a couple of dozen seats to fight over. It was truly grim. And there was still a 2½ hour flight to come, and a two hour drive home from Stansted.

Climbing into my own bed at about 2 a.m. was probably the highlight of the entire holiday. It was like clambering back into the womb. As I drifted off, still clutching my stomach, I resolved to live a healthier, more active life again. I like to find positive things in adversity. It's the best way, the only way, of rationalising and reconciling myself with bad stuff.

So being ill was nasty, but it did me a favour. It was the kick-start I needed. Two days later, I was back to subnormal, and thinking about all the stuff mentioned in the previous entry. I'm just surprised I've managed to keep my promise for three weeks.

Which reminds me of a conversation I once had with a policeman in Newcastle. He told me that he had once suffered a heart attack while out on the toon with his mates. In the ambulance on the way to the hospital, with two paramedics pummelling him and trying to drag him from the jaws of defeat, he whispered a desperate prayer: "If I get through this, I promise I'll go to church every Sunday without fail, and I'll never drink another drop of alcohol as long as I live. Just get me through this." And had he been true to his word? "Oh yes", he said, slightly indignantly. Then after a pause: "Well, OK, I haven't actually been to church, but I've definitely cut down a bit on me drinking."

I'll try to do better than that. A good incentive is to think of that enormous glass of Finnish fizz -- the last beer I had. It's like being winked at by some old hag.

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Wednesday 15 October 2008

So, 17 days into the new regime, and it's 9 gym sessions and 3 runs under the slightly loosening belt. Good progress: I'm pleased and excited again.

The third 3 mile run was yesterday lunchtime, a relaxed but unbroken trot along the towpath. Maybe I've been too hard on the canal in recent times. The only dull aspect is that runs here are normally out-and-back. Having to retrace your steps, or do more than one lap of the same circuit, is strangely dispiriting for a runner. Why? I guess it reinforces the idea that you're not really going anywhere, whereas with one big loop or point-to-point, you can kid yourself that you have a destination. You have a greater sense of purpose.

Yesterday I decided to try appreciating my surroundings with more generosity of spirit than usual: it seemed to work. Two things worked in its favour: one is the blanket of economic doom under which we're now slowly suffocating. The news has been bad for months now, but has recently turned distinctly apocalyptic. Being a news and current affairs addict, I subject myself to greater doses of this global melancholy than most, so it was especially heartening to escape for 40 minutes or so, and offer myself up to the silence and solitude of the gently meandering canal. It replenishes something sucked out by macro-political news. Yesterday, I truly experienced the benefit of this. It felt good.

The second helping hand came from a set of broken headphones. Last Sunday in the gym, one earpiece died, and despite bashing it several times with a hefty clawhammer and putting it through the dishwasher, it never revived. It's an alarming admission, but I was tempted to feel a faint sense of panic when confronted with the possibility of going for a musicless run. I'm vehemently against iPods in races, but I've come to regard a throbbing soundtrack as a fundamental part of my training routine.

I came to my senses, quite literally, as I set off down the canal without being strapped into an iPod. I was glad of the change, and the new perspective. Would I have heard the heron splashing over the surface of the canal behind me otherwise? I doubt it. The silence, instead of being the feared threat, was a big chunk of the journey's pleasure.

The run itself, though only 3 and a bit miles, wasn't easy. There's no shame in admitting it. I'm pleased with the recent activity, but I'm still desperately unfit. I feel myself lumbering rather than running, and would have struggled to have added another mile. The positive news is that there was no walk break. It was slow but steady, and I'm happy with that. The flab is continuing to melt, albeit slowly, and the pace and fitness should improve in line with it.

The most recent of the 9 gym sessions came at 7 a.m. today, in the very well-equipped 'health centre' here at the Radisson, Stansted. It's an interesting hotel, with a pretty remarkable, if kitsch, central feature of a 'wine tower': an illuminated square perspex tube around 60 feet high, filled with wine in racks. When someone orders a bottle, an acrobatic girl in a leotard attached to some sort of rope, is launched up this tower to retrieve the wine. Weird, and annoyingly compelling.

Wine is a lovely liquid, but my current preoccupation is with another. After 37 minutes in the gym, huffing on the usual string of cardiovascular machines -- treadmill, elliptical trainer, static bike, rowing machine, stepper -- I was able to produce a decent quantity of that glorious, salty wet stuff.

More tomorrow.

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Saturday 18 October 2008

Another small step for man late yesterday afternoon, as I chased the remains of the sunshine up the canal towpath for 4 unbroken miles. A trivial distance for most runners, and indeed for me in the past, but this is now. It's a new world. A tabula rasa.

The run went pretty smoothly, though at the precise moment I realised I wasn't struggling, with a half mile to go, it went and got all uncomfortable on me, and I had to fight a little to keep going. I nearly used the word "painful", but that needs saving for a more deserving moment. Discomfort is good, as long as you're sitting in an armchair just thinking about it, and not actually experiencing it. On the other side of the pleasure scales was the simple joy of crossing off another number. It's a small one, but bigger than the last one. Three miles, four miles: these are the briefest of stretches, but after a few months of sitting on an expanding arse, munching a range of 'high energy' (i.e. bad for you) snacks, washed down with too much showy vino, they represent something bigger to me.

But calm down, calm down. I have to remind myself that this isn't marathon training. This is nothing more than preparation for the Brighton 10K in four weeks time. Perhaps it isn't even that. I should think of this outbreak of exercise as elementary anti-lard measures, and the preliminaries to Brighton training. Whatever it is, or isn't, it's making me feel a lot better.

Here's a weird thing. Lewis Hamilton. Every time I hear that name mentioned on the radio, I don't hear Lewis Hamilton, I hear "Lewes hamburger". I then think of that recent afternoon with those stout-hearted, indeed just plain stout, gents, Sweder and Seafront Plodder. I alluded to it a few entries ago. The Lewes hamburger moment was pivotal, and every time I hear "Lewis Hamilton" it's a reminder to me of why this change must be pursued. When the name appears, you think of a grinning kid in a scarlet superhero catsuit, while I think of my nadir on the terraces of the legendary Dripping Pan.

I very much hope that no one else reading this will start thinking "Lewes Hamburger" every time they hear "Lewis Hamilton". That would be most inconvenient, and very annoying for you.

Today, I forced myself to take a rest. After 5 gym visits and 2 runs in the last 7 days, it was time to relax a little. That was the plan, and despite it, I did walk an accidental 4 miles, from Notting Hill to Loftus Road and back. A cad, or a 'number slut' as Hal Higdon's acolytes used to say, might class this as cross-training, and sneak it onto the spreadsheet. But not me.

Where was I? London. I visit my home town every other Saturday to attend a religious ritual at the temple of Queens Park Rangers. We usually park way out of town and get the tube in, but today we fancied a change, and plunged into the heart of this great city. I dropped M off in Kensington High Street and headed up Campden Hill Road to the Notting Hill Gate end where, miraculously, I found a parking spot on the street -- very close to where Harold Pinter lives with Lady Antonia Fraser. Or used to, when I worked round the corner in Oddbins.

[PAUSE]

I like Notting Hill; I feel comfortable here. One of several 'old manors' I seem to have: bits of London I've lived or worked in. W11 has become impossibly posh, but retains a comforting Bohemian streak. You see it in the second-hand book and CD shops, and in the ethnic cafés; in the two old independent cinemas, and in unspoilt backstreet pubs like the Uxbridge Arms, where you can sup a decent pint of ale with the garrulous locals without distractions from TV or jukebox or fruit machines.

My instinct was to turn towards the tube to travel the three stops to White City. Normally I wouldn't have questioned this, but I suppose my recent reactivation has jolted something. Instead, I turned round again and strode off down Holland Park Avenue towards the Bush. According to GoogleMaps, I travelled precisely 2 miles, with only a short detour to buy some fruit. I'm always hungry at half time, but nothing on the traditional matchgoer's menu (burger, hot dog, chips, pies, chocolate and crisps) was going to appeal to me at the moment.

Just as I got to the turnstiles, a short brawny man in an unflatteringly-tailored fluorescent jacket, put his hand on my arm. "Quick look in your bag, please Sir?" He peered into my carrier bag, and asked: "What's this then?"

I took another look too, assuming that someone had slipped a knuckleduster or nail-studded baseball bat in there while I wasn't looking. But no. "Fruit", I replied.

"Fruit?" He didn't look at all pleased. He called over to his mate. "Pete! Fruit! Dangerous?"

I had a sudden fear that in this cathedral of idiots, where greasy, fast food was the prescribed sacrament, frugivores might be regarded as the enemy they'd been warned to watch out for. The food terrorist, caught bang to rights. I hereby charge you with the possession of a dangerous satsuma. I felt that the accusatory spotlight should have been pointing the other way, with me reading the man his rights: "You have the right to remain stupid, but anything you say will be taken down and may be used in evidence against you."

Fortunately, no fruit sirens were activated, and I was allowed to proceed with my suspect goods.

The fortnightly worship is less feverish this season. This will surprise some, as QPR have entered a supposedly exciting new phase. The club was bought up by a handful of very wealthy people last year, and expectation levels are high. Trouble is, co-owner Flavio Briatore seems to be only now coming clean about his true vision, and it doesn't quite square with the previous version. He now talks about his dream of making QPR a "boutique club" with an exclusive image that will attract rich bastards like himself, willing to pay far more than the matchday experience is worth. He didn't express that last bit quite like that, but it's what he meant alright. It's annoyed a lot of us. This season, I'm in a remonstrative cul-de-sac, with my season ticket already bought. But next year I'll think hard about renewing. We all expect the prices to rise again, but it's more than that. I'm sure I could still afford to go, simply by economising elsewhere, but it's the feeling that the loyal fans are being trodden on that will make me think again. They have plenty of remedial PR work to do before next season.

In the meantime, I'm keeping my hand in my pocket as much as I can. I've been to only two away games this season so far, and am unlikely to go to many more. We've been drawn away to Manchester United in the Carling Cup, but shockingly, I don't plan to go. I've seen QPR at Old Trafford 3 or 4 times before, but not for well over a decade. It would be fun. If this match had happened last season, there'd have been no hesitation: I'd have my ticket bought already. Not this time. Anyway, this is private grief. I'll shut up.

We won today's match, beating an unimpressive Nottingham Forest 2-1. I've seen countless matches against Forest in the past, including battles against the great sides of the seventies and eighties; but not even Andy "Call me Andrew" Cole could conceal the lack of quality in this particular iteration. Only the trademark scarlet shirts remain as a ghost of the great Forest tradition.

I walked the two miles back to the Gate, where I realised I didn't have quite enough time to pop into the Coronet to watch Brideshead Revisited. Instead, I lounged in Waterstone's for an hour or two, reading PG Wodehouse, some Ted Hughes poetry, and the opening chapters of a book about the low GI diet. And then it was time to collect M, and drive back to my seat of power in the shires, where further unspecified challenges await.

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Monday 20 October 2008

It was clear some weeks ago that autumn was here, but today still came as a surprise. It was a blustery, empty afternoon. The sky was deep grey. I don't mind running in the rain; indeed I enjoy it, as a sort of expression of defiance. But I still used the threat of its arrival as a spur to get out there.

I've taken to driving to the canal to run, avoiding the mile each way of concrete pavement. I left the car in a secluded parking area that was 6 inches deep in fallen leaves. It looked like no one had stopped there for a year. A faded sign said: "Cars parked without a valid ticket will be towed away". I called their bluff, and trotted off up the towpath.

I saw only two living creatures in my 50 minute plod, both human. An elderly man in a trench coat, his collar turned up against the stiff wind, and a young guy in a teeshirt, sitting on top of a barge moored to the bank. No one had told him it wasn't the summer anymore. Maybe that's the secret.

The run was annoyingly tough. I'd got complacent after my 4 miles on Friday, thinking that I might just push on for 5 today. But I felt ponderous and dense today. I had a hard gym session yesterday, and the lead was still in my legs. They were hard to lift. At one point I tripped on a concealed bump, and thought I was going to go sprawling again. I've fallen only 5 times in 7 or 8 years of running. It should be more. I felt myself plummeting earthwards, but an instinctive shimmy, and unlikely shuffle of the feet, somehow brought me back upright before I felt my face sinking into the damp leaves.

The iPod's been rehired. Today I listened to a blues compilation I'd not heard in full for maybe 20 years. I found it yesterday while looking for something Miles Davis-ish to keep me company in the gym. I saw this instead, and listened to the first half while plunging through my cardiovascular routine. 12 minutes each on the static bike, elliptical cross-trainer, stepper, rowing maching and treadmill, with a token spot of manly weight-lifting halfway through. Second half today, while shambling through the thick layer of leaves. Good music for such a featureless day. It reminded me that I should pick up that electric guitar again sometime, and blast out a bit of noise while there's no one else in the house.

Just as I got home, the rain started to fall. I don't mind running through the stuff, but as I stood half in, half out of the car, trying to retrieve all my paraphernalia, still in my teeshirt and shorts, it felt horrible. Just goes to prove that running turns you into a different sort of person.

Tomorrow I'll take the rest day I should have had today.

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Thursday 23 October 2008

A couple of weeks ago, I received a small parcel, postmarked Ireland. I didn't recognise the handwriting, but assumed it was from my sister, who lives in Tipperary. I don't know anyone else over there who's likely to send me anything. I made a cup of tea and retreated to my small office to open the package. Inside was a book of Leonard Cohen poetry, and a card. On opening the card, I was perplexed. Who was this from? The message was quite long, covering both inner sides of the card, and ending with a woman's name that didn't ring an immediate bell. But then, as I started to read what was written, I remembered. I read the message – twice – before putting both card and book back into the envelope, and squeezing the package into the far corner of a rarely disturbed bookcase. I felt a sense of shock, and didn't want to think about it for a while.

Today, in the early afternoon, I drove down to the canal again. There had been a couple of messages on the forum (here and here), posing the question of whether there was a "global vibe" today that was ensuring that everyone would have a surprisingly good run. I don't disbelieve in the idea of a global vibe, indeed I think we'll experience one in just a couple of weeks, when Barrack Obama is elected President of the USA. But a running version? I wasn't so sure. The menacing sky didn't hold out too much promise, but I had to give it a go. My training plan, if I can dignify my jumble of belligerent impulses with that title, says that I should alternate gym session with run, where practical. Last night was 90 minutes in the gym, so today was the run.

I'm trying to avoid planning too far ahead, though the temptation is formidable. I risk developing a common skin ailment called egg-on-face syndrome that manifests itself as uncontrollable blushing over an extended period. It's a mistake I've made before. Another related one is to do too much, too soon. It was what scuppered me last time, when my knee buckled under the colossal burden of conveying my staggering corpulence across ten miles of bumpy Wiltshire countryside. I'm trying to mitigate the risk of this happening again through:

Wearing new shoes
Running on softer surfaces
Losing weight
Doing more cross-training to both strengthen and take weight off my knee

The new shoes are actually pretty old, but unworn. I heard of an English teacher, a Jane Austen devotee, who read and reread all her books except one. That one – Mansfield Park I think – remained unread as she wanted to store up some joy for her retirement. The pleasure of expectation, and the expectation of pleasure. Well about three years ago, I bought two extra pairs of New Balance 854s and hid them at the bottom of a wardrobe, knowing that one day these fine shoes would be discontinued, yet I wouldn't feel eternally deprived of the glee of pulling on a new pair. Which is a pretty threadbare analogy with the Jane Austen lady, but... but I will keep it here as a monument to good ideas that end up not working. Which is possibly the raison d'etre of this entire website, now that I think of it.

NB 854s have indeed been discontinued, to the eternal shame of New Balance, so today I fished one of the boxes out, sat on the bed, lifted the lid, and felt myself beaming as I gazed upon the contents. It was like that scene at the end of Pulp Fiction, in the diner, where Pumpkin (the Tim Roth character), flips open the briefcase and gapes in wonder at what he sees.

Before I put them on, I marked each shoe with a "1" to help me track their usage. They felt lovely. I hummed a couple of lines from the great John Martyn song: "You've been taking your time, You've been living on solid air". They weren't just embracing my feet, they were making love to them.

I parked up, fired up the iPod, and set off down the towpath. As always, the first half mile, perhaps three quarters, was awful. I've been doing this long enough now to know that the start of every run is a penance; an advance payment for the sense of luxurious joy to be offered and consumed later on. Running itself is a pay-now-enjoy-later pleasure, but even within a run the same motif is seen. I'm trying to think of a name for it: this brief period when I think: "Why am I doing this? It's horrible and unnatural". I'm still working on it.

Through the headphones, U2 were doing their best. After a few songs, I decided that their early stuff is superior. With or Without You, I Will Follow, In the Name of Love, Sunday Bloody Sunday. Corking stuff. A shame that Bono went and became such a risible twit.

The phone rang. It was M.

Where are you?
Running.
Reading? What are you doing in Reading?
Running! Running!
Eh? Why are you running in Reading?

By this time, I was well into the final mile of what would turn out to be a 4.5 mile jaunt. I was pleased with that. It was another half mile further than I'd been recently, and quicker, and brings me ever nearer to the 6 miles I need to cross off in Brighton, 3 weeks on Sunday. Was I getting the global vibe? I certainly felt pretty good; better than I had done on any previous recent run. Just as I was starting to feel smug, something strange happened. I suppose U2 must have still been in my head, because I started thinking about Dublin, and Ireland, and people I had known.

Whatever it was, the Irish train of thought suddenly made me confront a more recent memory – the package I'd received a couple of weeks ago. For the first time since I opened it and read the card, I went through the story again in my mind.

In the summer, we went to see Leonard Cohen in Manchester. He played 4 nights. In the end, we went to the second concert, but I had also bought two tickets for the previous night, because I'd thought I might want to go twice. I would happily have seen the great man two nights in a row. But M wasn't as keen as me, so reluctantly I put the tickets on eBay for their face value of £75.00 each. One went quickly, but the other hung around. Eventually, just before the sale ended, I had a mail from an Irish lady, enquiring about the ticket. She was keen, but by the time she'd agreed to buy it, the auction had timed out, and she could no longer pay with a credit card. I didn't want to readvertise and incur the cost again, just so she could buy it through eBay. On the other hand, she was unwilling to send me the money electronically outside the security of eBay. We were at an impasse. She explained that she already had a ticket, but she now wanted this other one for her husband. He was, or had been, ill, and hadn't thought he'd be able to attend, but he'd changed his mind. In the end, I suppose I was touched by her desperation, and felt sorry for her and her husband, who was willing to leave his sick bed and travel to England to see one of their heroes. Perhaps rashly, I told her she could have the ticket free of charge, and arranged to send it to Manchester for her to collect. She telephoned me from Manchester on the day of the gig, and was obviously overcome with gratitude. If I'm honest, I was still unsure whether I'd gone over the top in giving them the ticket, but it was too late now. I was glad that they were happy.

And then I forgot all about it, until I received this package. I can't bring myself to read it again, and copy it word for word, but in part, the message went like this:

Dear Andy, Donald bought this book for you at the Leonard Cohen concert because he was so touched at your gift of the ticket. He also chose this card for you. He made so many attempts to write the card, but he just didn't have the energy. Sadly, Donald died on August 20th. He kept the ticket by his bedside as a reminder that he had finally achieved his ambition. Thank you so much for giving him this final moment of happiness. It meant so much to him......"
Oh God. As I thought of these words, I couldn't help myself. Reaching the car, and not caring who might be walking past, I leant against it and wept: sobbing my eyes out for a man I didn't even know.

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Wednesday 29 October 2008

Since we last met, I've chalked up 3 more runs and another gym session.

I’ve avoided detailing the trips to the gym. On a superficial level at least, they're not interesting, and nor should they be. The aims of this concentrated 60 minutes of cardio-vascular cross-training are to take some strain off my knee, to help build up under-used leg muscles, and to accelerate the delarding process. Does anyone really want to know more about my 10 x 6 minute tour of duty? No, I thought not.

So that dimension is dull, dull, dull. More interesting are the psycho-sociological aspects of the gym. Why are people there? How do users interact? Or rather, why don't they interact? A banal answer to that last one is that in the gym I attend, there aren’t many users. Or if there are, they tend not to be there when I am. I’m often there on my own. It's the third best thing about the place, after its propinquity and cheapness.

I've experienced gym fervour many times in the past, but this stretch is different. The current spell has lasted 31 days now, and 14 of those have witnessed trips to the gym. (Just to complete the stats, I'll add that another 9 days have included a run, with 8 rest days interspersed.) This is remarkable for me. My eagerness normally fades after 3 visits. There's something about the sterility of these places that sucks the spirit, until you conclude that going to the gym is like visiting yourself in hospital.

But this time, I seem to have overcome that. I've grown to appreciate the relative solitude of the gym. Regardless of which piece of equipment I’m using, a treadmill mentality descends, and lends itself to a rather pleasing sense of solitary suffering. It’s an inward-looking, self-contained experience; one without spectators, or any reference to the outside world. It’s like being in a tumble drier (and yes, I speak from drunken experience). It’s a lot noisier and more frantic in there than it seems from the outside. This goes not just for the gym itself, but each individual session on a piece of equipment. It’s an intensely personal, private battle. There is no social life to speak of in the gym, so other people are strangely incidental: they rarely drift beyond the status of blurred object, a suspicion of colour at the periphery of my vision, interesting only because they impede my seclusion, just as I must impede theirs.

Three runs to record: two 5 milers along the sodden towpath (Sunday and today), and interspersed, a painful, post-gardening 3½ miler round the block – my old stamping ground. None of these outings was perfect, but all retaught me things I'd forgotten.

The two canalside fives were bogged down by technology. I recently won a Flip video camera. A handy little device that takes good quality video, but is perhaps let down by it being battery-only. I took it with me on both towpath trots, but spent too much time and energy fiddling with it. I thought I'd hit on a good idea on Sunday, by tucking it into my water-belt so that the lens peeked out over the top; but I didn't get the angle right, and ended up with 20 minutes of puddled mud paths, and little else. Today I adopted a different approach, and hand-held it for a few bursts. Just as I returned to the car, the battery expired, so I've not been able to view what I'd shot. I'll try to rectify this over the next few days, and post a link. (Cynics tempted to recall my chequered history with video, need to know that the Flip comes with an integral USB widget that plugs straight into your PC for easy download.)

A whole new RC world may be about to open up – and very possibly swallow me...

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