A Guardian journo is planning to run his first marathon in London next year, and has asked for advice. I was scanning the cerebral replies, and this one stood out:
“Ideally, don’t bother. A Marathon run is a cultural construction and is not worth messing up your knees and/or ankles for, in my opinion.
If, as a journalist, your income depends on doing these things, and you’re going to anyway, don’t compete, with yourself or deadlines (or other runners, many of whom may be “colleagues”). Stop and walk whenever you feel like it. Go to the pub even, but only briefly if you want to finish the course. Long runs for sedentary populations are extremely hazardous, but you can mitigate the worst effects of these extreme endeavours – just don’t think of it as “the race of — life”, or as anything that is worth jeopardising physical or emotional health for.”
I sort of wish I hadn’t seen someone describe it as a “cultural construction”, because in my most cynical moments I’m tempted to send my suspicions to sniff out similar avenues.
Just over 4 miles today through another overcast, damp afternoon. The usual route, but one I remain strangely unbored by:
Out of the gate and immediately past the pub, ancient hotel, primary school and the Hanoverian church that Constable came to sketch. Left past the doctor’s surgery and the social club and the less celebrated, Catholic church. Then a longish stretch which takes me out past the school playing fields into open country. Right into a long, narrow lane by the golf course, between tall, bedraggled beech hedges. A couple of houses appear at the one mile point, then it’s past the reopened pub and out into another stretch of open countryside for half a mile. Across the busy A340 and down a long narrow lane of tidy arts and crafts houses (like my own, built around 1920 as local authority stock). This part of the run has a kind of village green feel to it. There’s an old fire-station and post office, and most of the houses are covered in ivy and wisteria. Today I noticed the pungent aroma of the horses in the large field on the other side of the road. There were a dozen of them there, chomping on hay and looking as magnificent as horses often do in the winter. The unmistakable equine bouquet instantly illuminated a forgotten corner of my childhood – visiting the Horse Of The Year Show at Wembley. Never paid to get in of course. I lived round the corner, and we used to go and wander round the stables, offering sugar lumps and Polo mints to the horses and being generally offensive and boorish to the middle classes.
Just past the two mile mark is the small garden centre, the 15th century church and the deer park. Here I swing left into the best part of the run, a long gravel avenue by the lake, where often I’ll see a graceful heron. It’s quiet and peaceful here, usually with hundreds of deer scampering round beneath the oaks. None to be seen today, so perhaps these delightful creatures have been herded off somewhere warm and safe for the winter. Or perhaps they’ve been butchered for the Christmas table.
Eventually I’m through the gates and across the A340 once again, taking me up to the three mile point. Here it’s back down through the heaps of slippery leaves to the village where I rejoin the main road past the church, primary school, hotel and pub, and home. Some calf stretches, leaning against the car, and I’m done.
I’m slowly beginning to understand stretching, and to see that doing it successfully is pleasant. A good stretch should be a relief, like drinking a cool pint of Fuller’s London Pride when thirsty, or emptying your bladder once another four of the same have been consumed. I get that sense of relief now when I do calf stretches after a run. But only calf stretches. I haven’t yet worked out how to make quad stretches as blissful, so they must remain on my To Do list.
And not very near the top of it, it has to be conceded.
