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RE: My my, it's July.
Flat-footed and fat.
It’s 4 a.m., the streets are cold and dark and I’m skulking about my neighbourhood like a cat burglar, or at least that’s how it feels. In reality I’m running down the middle of the road wearing a hi-viz fluorescent orange running vest with my feet making alarmingly loud flat-footed slapping sounds as I gallop my way around the local streets, short of breath, flabby of waist and so out of form that I’m glad no-one is around to see my pathetic, wheezing attempts to regain some semblance of athletic fitness.
This, as regular readers will know, is nothing new for me. My off-again, on-again approach to this business of running for fun and health has ensured that I know only too well the pain and embarrassment of starting over, and for this reason I am thankful that the early morning start at work means an even earlier run around the local neighbourhood, fortunately for the sake of my pride now bereft of life at this early hour other than the occasional possum crashing about in the trees and a few rabbits hopping around the front lawns and grass verges.
As is often the case it has been a string of long night shifts at work which has caused the break in my running routine, which then leads to a loss of motivation and another turn on the roller-coaster ride that exemplifies my approach to this sport. It seems to me however that each time I fall from grace and have to start over again it is that little bit harder, the loss of fitness having been quicker and steeper than before. I’m now only a few weeks from my 55th birthday, and if in my forties it seemed I had all too quickly lost the blush of youth, now in my mid-fifties I feel the onrush of my autumnal years with each muscle cramp and aching joint that so often afflicts me now.
Climbing back on the greasy pole that leads to ruddy good health and race-ready fitness is getting harder, there’s no doubt in my mind about that. And yet the harder it gets, the more important it becomes, and so here I am again on the street in the middle of a freezing winter’s night, miserable at the physicality of it, yet buoyant of mood in knowing I’ve once again begun to slay the demon of inertia that so regularly visits my being.
I don’t know what will come of this. It’s only two months since I was happily running half marathons and feeling on top of it all. But so much seemingly happens so quickly these days that all that good work is gone in the blink of a midlife eye with only another couple of dusty finisher’s medals and a few hundred more words in the running diary to show for it. It’s a tedious way to keep fit, but the life of a middle-aged shift worker allows no other way, or so it seems.
Enough of this maudlin talk, as July draws to a close with precious few miles in the running log I’ve fitness to regain. I’d better get on with it.
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My my, it's July.
