An Absence (Partly) Explained

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

A couple of you have been kind enough to inquire after my well-being during my somewhat prolonged absence of late, for which I thank you, and I apologise for my lack of communication. I am well, generally, but I have taken something of a Sabbatical from running for a while (now over). Sometimes a combination of events which by themselves are of no particular significance, occur simultaneously and push one in an unexpected direction. As it happened, my having to pull out of my marathon training some weeks back coincided with the tragic death of our dear friend Moyleman, and combined with some local issues here I found myself quite suddenly totally out of love with running.


However, I have been planning my return... strange though it is to think that it needs any kind of "plan". Never-the-less, sometimes it takes a definitive course of action to get things back to normal. Today has been another of those unavoidable medical days: cardiologist in the morning (of which I will talk more later), and then the dentist in the early afternoon, after which it was my intention to spend some time catching up on the news here, not the least of which was EG's remarkable Boston triumph. This now done, it's time to re-enter the fray.


Which brings me to my own running: I started this lark about 6 years ago. During that time I have covered much ground and run a modest number of races. But I've also started several marathon campaigns and have failed to finish the training for each and every one of them. Usually this was caused by illness or injury, but this year saw me fit and healthy and (thanks to doctors, my physiotherapist and especially two podiatrists) I was in the best running form of my life. I could run a half marathon with relative ease, and was doing so regularly. If there was ever going to be a time for marathon success, this seemed to be it. Annoyingly, it was not be. In the end I succumbed to sheer exhaustion - my life away from running was more hectic than I acknowledged, and in the end my body just said "Enough!" At that moment when I abandoned my scheduled long run after 16km, I lay down and immediately fell asleep on the ground, to wake up some half hour later believing, I think sincerely, that in fact I would never run a marathon. Now, many weeks later, I still feel that to be true. Which is of course not to suggest that I will quit running altogether, but I have had enough of trying and failing at the full distance.


EG once wrote a piece about hope and failure which struck me with its truth: he said that it wasn't failure that destroyed us so much, but hope - hope for things we wish for but can never have. My failure at the full distance doesn't actually disturb me so much as the frustration and futility of desiring it. After all, aborted marathon training is hardly failure - I still covered my miles and gained a level of fitness I had never before attained. There were so many positives that I refuse to see it as "failure" as such. But the thought that I may yet again be grabbed by a kind of marathon wanderlust and so repeat the cycle of futility *is* depressing.


If I make any resolutions concerning my running from here on, it is simply this: to enjoy my running and not get so fixated on major goals that require as much dedication as marathon training that it comes into major conflict with other areas of life and living. That said, I still need goals to properly motivate myself - at the end of the day, it's still a difficult activity requiring a lot of effort, after all. A modicum of discipline is needed. I'm not the kind of person who wakes up in the morning and aches to get out there running. I need to ease my way into things: I require momentum, and once that momentum is lost, overcoming inertia becomes as much of a challenge as the run itself.


However, two things are really spurring me on now. The first is that Mrs MLCM has just entered her first race! She has been tremendously inspiring this year, really taking her fitness seriously and certainly putting me to shame. She has worked tirelessly in the gym and covered many kilometres in the streets and has signed up for a 12km fun run in September. As this is her first race I've resolved (work permitting) to enter with her. It's a good race, and one I ran back in 2004, shortly before ending up in the cardiac ward of the local hospital, which brings me to the second thing spurring me on...


This morning I went to a highly respected cardiologist and had him prod and poke and wire me up to machines and do all the things that these white-coated specialists do for an enormous fee. The result was a qualified "you're OK, but...". My heart is mostly fine, but my genetic make up and familial history together with dodgy blood test results makes me a reasonably likely candidate for coronary trouble in the future. Hence the need to keep running! If I'm to outwit the genetic cards I've been dealt, then I need to keep running and to stop getting bogged down in self pity parties about marathon failures.


So I'm back once again. I won't be targeting marathons any time soon, but I aim to get properly fit again, run the odd race here and there, but above all have fun with it.

I know the running will be fun. But getting even more serious about the diet will be more of a challenge. Ah well, c'est la vie.