Final night in the US, in a hotel twelve floors up, looking across the Charles River to the illuminated skyscrapers of Boston. If I could open this window I could probably hear the Rolling Stones playing at Fenway Park. I just heard an interview with the mayor on the radio, explaining that the area around the venue would be heavily policed. It reminded me yet again how the world has changed. When I was a kid, the apoplectic local mayor would be trying to get the Stones banned for corrupting the youth. Now?
“Let me just say”, he drawls in his thick Boston accent, “that I can’t get no satisfaction from handing out all these extra parking tickets to fellow Stones fans…”
It’s been a good trip, though I’m enjoying a crisis in my running.
Enjoying? Well, yes. Enjoying.
Running is a cerebral activity; every bit as cerebral as it is physical. We wouldn’t have it any other way.
Running has been good this year, but now it’s stopped, just short of the final 6 week stretch to the Loch Ness Marathon. Yes, my running has capsized. It will be rescued, and it will be better than ever, but not in time for the monster.
What went wrong? Hard to say. What ever goes wrong? A cocktail too strong; a cocktail too far. I shrug, and I smile.
I’ve been running for 4 years now, and it’s long enough to know that plans will self-combust when least expected. There will always be collapses, gaps and explosions. Just as often, unlikely new enthusiasms will pop out like frogs from the compost heap. At times like this, you remember who your friends are, and you listen to them. I’ve been grateful that people have continued posting messages on the forum, emailing me about one thing or another, and even (in Nigel’s case) inviting me over for an evening run and a curry – even though it was that curry that finally helped to break my weakening resolve.
I’ll get back home, and I’ll begin again, though perhaps not immediately. I need to do some thinking. If the regular crises always get back on track with a quarterly pep talk, this one needs something more. This one needs the annual conference; the shake up. Internal heads will roll.
I know what I need, and it’s not a new target or a new destination. What I need is a new roadmap. New tools. New perspectives. I need to change my attitude to food and nutrition. The weighing scales and the old metrics are moving out of my thinking. It’s attitude that must change. I need to dispense with determination. If you need determination, it seems to me that you must be starting from a position of weakness. You’re in the boxing ring with your fists up, ready to fight your way out.
No more.
I’m climbing out of the ring and walking straight to where I want to go.
That’s it, isn’t it? Up till now, I’ve seen the road to a marathon or to my current running goal as some long path with a boxing ring every now and then. Every couple of weeks I reach the ring and have to fight myself before I can proceed.
No more.
I’m fed up with this endless schedule of useless and strength-sucking confrontations with my own will. Bollocks to it. I eventually stopped smoking by getting fed up with fighting myself. In the end, I beat it intellectually. I walked away from the fight, and away from the problem. I just refused to accept that it was a problem, and the perceived enemy shrivelled up and blew away.
This is how I will deal with running and nutrition and health. I’m approaching a watershed, and I have decided to walk over it and carry on without noticing. Fighting talk I know, but it seems to me the better way. Give me a few days, and I’ll explain how I’m going to do it.
