Perhaps it’s when you feel least able to run that you most need to do it. I’m having, or (fingers crossed) have had, a bizarre couple of weeks.
For some invisible reason, one day, with no warning, running just ran away from me, and I’ve been struggling to catch up with it ever since.
Demotivation is a terrible blight. All it needs is the narrowest crack to hide in. It descends from nowhere, when you least expect it. The weeks leading up to a marathon isn’t the time for it to happen, but that’s when it happened to me. Frustrating yes, but these past few weeks will prove to have value. If I can understand why this happened, and how to recognise it, perhaps I can avoid it next time. I’m working on it.
Talking of football (oh wasn’t I?), the weekend was memorable. I’d not run for a week, but decided to suspend my gloom for a while and try a spot of anxiety instead. This was it. After 9 months and 90 matches between us, QPR and Bristol City had arrived at the final day of the season, separated by just one point. We had to win. And we did win, 3-1. Promotion was ours.
I’d planned to talk about the day in some detail, but I’ve remembered that talking about your football team is a bit like talking about your kids. It’s a topic of endless fascination for you, but no one else. I’ll just say that I’ve supported this club for 37 years now, and since 1996 when we dropped out of the Premiership, there’s not been a lot to shout about.
So what a joyful sensation it was, standing among 8,500 QPR fans who’d travelled up from London to fill one end of Hillsborough. The poignancy of the moment extended beyond my own blue-and-white-hooped vision. Standing there, at the Leppings Lane end, vibrating with delight, it was impossible not to see the ghosts wandering sadly through the celebrating hordes. Hard to believe that we were gyrating on the spot where 96 Liverpool fans – 96 people – died in the Hillsborough tragedy of 1989 – an afternoon that led to radical changes in the way we watch football in this country. It was like dancing on their graves.
At times the match was unbearably tense, so when the final whistle blew we exploded with relief and elation. We were still admiring the instant battle on the pitch between riot police on horseback and the thousand or so disgruntled Wednesday fans, when my phone started ringing.
One of the congratulatory calls came from Griff of this parish. Thanks Griff. To mark the victory, I had planned nothing more than a quiet cup of tea somewhere with a good crossword, but Griff urged me to "go out and get plastered" instead, and I felt it impolite to defy him.
But he added a stern caveat. "And once you get back home, get those shorts on and get running again."
Which is what I did. Eventually. This evening.
Only 3½ miles, but enough to get a bit of blood pumping, and to feel a slight tingle in my enthusiasm glands. The first run for more than a week, and it felt like it. I’m somewhere between 14 and 20 pounds heavier than my moving weight target, even unfitter than normal, and paranoid about my calf tearing, but I did manage to get back home feeling happier than I’d feared.
After two or three weeks of gremlin-nagging, being told that I couldn’t do this marathon at this time, I’ve decided I will. It won’t be pretty. It really won’t be pretty. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
There are at least three battles in this war, and I have to win them all: mental, physical, tactical.
It has to be a mind-over-matter job. Think positively. I’ve had an extra week’s rest. What an inspired piece of unscheduled preparation. Tomorrow I’ll get my kit ready and hang it where I can see it.
Physically, my time is limited but I have a few days left to shed a few pounds. I need to feel a bit less bloated. Less weight to carry will lift my spirits. I’ll have another easy run tomorrow night to get a bit of air through this carcass again, and to stir the muscles.
Tactics? I’m going to join the 4:45 pacing group and stick with them as far as possible. These guys must become my brothers in arms, and I mustn’t let them down.
Bugger it. Let’s do it.
