If 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.
