It’s good to be reminded that running makes a difference to the world. Today saw a spectacular illustration of this.
The running week hasn’t been trouble-free. It was good to get that first ‘revival’ jog on the board on Monday. The rest of the week though has been hit-and-miss. I’ve managed another couple, but both were shorter than planned. Work has been encroaching on my life again, squeezing my running time.
Today I was up early, planning to get out for a decent long run. The schedule says 7 miles as it’s a ‘step-back’ week, but I planned on at least 10. Races are beginning to loom from the mist, and with bloody daggers in their teeth. Silverstone Half on March 7, Bath Half on March 14 are the immediate threats. I may have beaten off the Kingston 16 the week after that, but I can’t be certain it isn’t just hiding round the corner. So I need to extend my weekend runs to prepare for battle.
It’s always a mistake to check email and the odd website just before heading off for an early run. I got trapped in the Crimson Room for a while, thanks to Seafront Plodder on the forum. One trap led to another. What were Brentford fans saying about their match against QPR yesterday? It hadn’t been a great spectacle, but there was so much pre-match venom from the Bees about one of their ex-players who made the sensible move over to us, that a little peek at their verdicts on the 1-1 draw couldn’t be resisted. This turned out to be another Crimson Room. Finally escaped, but there was a further delay while I cleared the room of the smoke pouring from my ears.
Now, suddenly, it was mid-day, and I remembered that the Arsenal-Chelsea game was on TV in half an hour. On another Sunday I may have talked myself into missing my run completely, but I did that last week, and couldn’t face the evil eye of another blank Sunday spreadsheet cell gazing out at me, accusingly, for the rest of the week. I told myself I’d go running immediately after the game, though there was some kind of rubbery quality about this resolution that made me nervous.
I’d blown it. I could have been out at 8 and back by 10. My gloom deepened as Chelsea, the football enemies of all right-thinking people, began playing uncharacteristically well. Coinciding with Arsenal’s unusual timidity, it was time to worry. The appalling inevitability happened just before half time when Chelsea scored. Ten minutes into the second half, with Arsenal still out of sorts, I’d had enough. The depression was threatening not just my run but the equilibrium of the entire planet. Apathy was not the answer here. I had to be proactive.
A minute or two later I was strolling nervily down the drive. If dread would be too strong a word, mere apprehension doesn’t seem quite strong enough. I’d not run ten miles for about five months; since the Great North Run in September. Add to this the recent crumbling of self-discipline, the interrupted rhythm, and I couldn’t look forward to it. Lethargic, unenthusiastic, unfit.
Hal Higdon came to my rescue. It was almost as though the man himself fluttered down through the dense grey clouds to offer me words of comfort. As I was priming young _colin, my Garmin GPS gadget, to keep me to the usual 10:30 to 11:00 miles, I remembered Hal’s stricture: long weekend runs should be run between 45 and 60 seconds slower than race pace. Caramba! This was a lifeline. With my modest race target of 4 hours 50 minutes, I’m aiming for around 11:07 a mile on the day which meant I had to throw a metaphorical bucket of cold water over _colin to slow him right down.
This gave me renewed heart, and I set off through the fresh puddles feeling better. The day was overcast but not cold. It’s been a great winter for running. Apart from the celebrated ‘cold snap’ 2 or 3 weeks ago, it’s been mild and fairly dry. It seemed much colder when I was training for London in 2001/2002. Or am I just being nostalgic, the way we think that it snowed every winter when we were kids?
Despite the welcome intervention from Hal, the first half mile was still nasty, as first half miles always are. Down the High Street, right past the station, along the industrial fringe of the village, and SPLASH! – we’re out in the countryside. Another few hundred yards and the canal appears. The point where I join the towpath is 9/10 of a mile from home. It’s always a good moment because those first mile blues have largely dissipated by now, and I can begin to enjoy the rural scenes.
Plenty of birdwatchers and anglers about today. The former line up on my left, gazing through their binoculars at the lakes beyond the canal, while the latter sit on the right. All are motionless. It’s eerie, like running through a hall of statues; or perhaps I’m playing a run-on part in a B-movie where the world’s population has been forced to dress up in bizarre costumes before being immobilised by some alien power. I alone can save the planet, but I need to keep up this pace because of what is pursuing me. What was that rhyme from Poe’s “Tales Of Mystery And Imagination”?
Like one that on a lonesome road
Doth walk in fear and dread.
But having once turned round, walks on –
And turns no more his head.
Because he knows a fearful fiend
Doth close behind him tread.
And isn’t running itself a bit like this? I was thinking about this today as I trotted for ten miles along the canal. It can be my thought for the week. I’ve said before that training for a race, and for a marathon in particular, really is a journey. Not in itself an original thought, though most people conceive of this as a one-way journey towards something. Perhaps because of my unathletic past, I seem more conscious than some that training is a journey that has a source as well as a destination. It’s easy to forget what we’re moving away from, but this can be just as inspiring, and just as motivating, as focussing on where we’re hoping to get to.
This particular leg of the journey was good, and not as punishing as feared. I got home tired but not deflated. After a shower I started feeling suddenly optimistic again. It’s what a run gives you back after you’ve invested all that effort and time.
I sat down in front of the TV with my bananas and raisin bagel and my pot of tea, issued a deep sigh of foreboding, and hit the Play button on the video. But within 30 seconds, Reyes of Arsenal picked the ball up 25 years out and thumped a tremendous equaliser, before, a few minutes later, with the team now playing sublime football, hitting the winner.
Only running can do this for you. Get those trainers on, and make the world a better place.
