Time for another false dawn, surely. It must be at least a week since the last time I made a declaration about a new regime that I knew I couldn’t keep.
And at least a week since I had a decent run, too. This, yawn, will all change early tomorrow morning, mmmm yeah, when I’ll get out there in the sodden streets of Huddersfield to start off a new era, yeah right, of running and rude good health.
Who writes this stuff?
The weather has sucked the country of energy in the past few days. The weekend was sweltering and humid. This moved seamlessly into two days of torrential rain and flooding. Even the start of a new football season on Saturday couldn’t hoist my spirits too high, as we drew an uninspiring game with Rotherham. I guzzled much beer through the day, then spent the evening with a stodgy Polish meal and some friends down from Lancashire, accompanied by more toxic liquids. Felt gloomy the next day. Not hangover-gloomy but sort of runlessness gloomy.
I’m beginning to believe my own propaganda. Running is the answer is a motto of mine, and I’ve started to suspect that it might actually be true. It really does make me feel good, to the point where the absence of running seems to make me feel bad. Perhaps this is how I always used to feel, but thought it was normal.
Running is the opposite of chocolate. I mused on this at lunchtime today as I bought my Kit-Kat and Double Decker. The ephemeral and almost unbearable pleasure of chomping chocolate, followed by those hours of bloated lethargy, is the reverse of running. Here you endure a burst of inconvenience, breathlessness, joint pain and occasional public ridicule because it’s a great trade for hours of energy, enthusiasm and that glow of physical wellbeing. It all comes down to our ability and willingness to defer pleasure. To invest first and enjoy the reward later. Unhappily, it’s anathema to us. We like jam today and more jam tomorrow, and even though that almost never happens, we fool ourselves that this time it might.
Maybe it’s yet another dismal sign of ageing, but I’m increasingly beginning to think that deferring reward is the better option. I pondered today on where buying my weekly lottery ticket fits into this paradigm. At first I thought it was deferred reward. Discomfort first (shelling out for the ticket), reward later (winning a prize). Hmm, no. The weakness of this view is obvious. I rarely win anything. In fact it’s the opposite, I then thought. Jam today. The pound I spend buys me hope, which is enjoyable. Or at least reassuring. The draw, and the realisation that I’ve not won anything, and the weekly reminder that I’m wasting my money, is the deferred discomfort. But then I thought about it some more, and decided that the hope was the big thing. Well worth a pound. I knew I’d almost certainly never win the jackpot, but that didn’t matter. The pound I spend is a pretty good price for the umbrella of fantasy beneath which I can shelter from those grey incessant rains of routine.
So tomorrow morning, I run again. Tomorrow morning, 7 hours from now, I invite self esteem and energy and appetite back into my life.
And on the way back, I will buy my lottery ticket, and with it, a brief holiday in dreamland.
