Here we go:
Positive thinking is A Good Thing; negative thinking is A Bad Thing.
I understand the value of positive thinking, and I am, therefore, a
positive thinker, rarely falling victim to gratuitous negativity, which
I find corrosive, exasperating and boring.
OK?
Right.
I need to get those thoughts nailed to the top of this entry, so they
can flutter freely at the periphery of your vision while you read the
next bit.
I think it’s unlikely that I’ll get round the Zurich Marathon in under
5 hours.
The last time I hinted at such a planet-juddering possibility, I had 3
or 4 emails, and several kind messages on the forum,
urging me to be more positive about my chances. I’m grateful for these
responses, and genuinely touched.
A belief in the inevitability of failure tends to be a self-fulfilling
prophecy, and can only accelerate its arrival. No, I don’t regard
failure in Zurich as inevitable, but I have to be realistic. My recent
long runs have been difficult and a little disheartening, so it’s no
use vacantly crowing that I’m about to reach my goal, when the signs
are clearly pointing in some other direction. A lifelong dedication to
Queens Park Rangers has taught me that blind faith in the irrational is
quite possible, but the same experience tells me that there’s not a lot
to be said for this self-delusion. A positive outlook may be worthy,
but if it’s only ever a glossy coating on reality, it will tend to
deepen the disappointment. Apart from all that, there’s no point in
keeping a training log like this if I can’t express honest doubts from
time to time. Honest, it’s not just tetchy negativity.
Here’s my attitude — as long as I’m not injured, I will definitely be
on the starting line in Zurich on April 9, and I will give it my best
shot. The plan is simple: find the 5 hour pacing group and stick with
them at all costs. The success of this objective depends on two things:
the experience and ability of the pacesetter, and my energy levels —
both physical and mental — in the second half of the race.
What’s the realistic worst-case scenario? Something like this: that
I’ll begin strongly, and by halfway, bang on schedule, I’ll be thinking
“What was I ever worried about? This is easier than I thought.” Then
somewhere round 15-18 miles I’ll begin to feel exhausted, dispirited,
and will gradually drop back behind the pacing group. Around 20 miles,
will probably rally for a bit, then start walking, until some fat bloke
in a uniform courteously ushers me to the side of the road where I’ll
find a seat on the dropouts’ minibus. I’ll perch there, staring out
through the window, my salty face the colour of boiled gammon, and
think that it doesn’t really matter much anyway. And y’know, perhaps
that’s the problem. Maybe it should matter more. It’s the conundrum you
have to navigate when going down the “I’m only being realistic” route.
To carry it off, you need to turn down the thermostat of desire a notch
or two, and it might just be this reduction that turns the
rationalisation of failure into that self-fulfilling prophecy I
mentioned.
I said “as long as I’m not injured” because I’m nursing a twinge or two
— left calf, and left quad. If twinge becomes pull, it will be my
fault. After the Bramley 20, I did nothing for 9 or 10 days, then 2
uselessly short 3½ milers in the middle of last week.
Yesterday I went to the gym for a short but severe session with some
weights, then today set out to run 20 miles. What a pitifully illogical
regime I’m asking my body to fall in with. It’s no surprise that bits
of me are freaking out.
The long run began well enough. The first 10 miles along the canal were
comfortable, apart from sporadic batterings from canoes and dripping
oars as I shared the towpath with competitors in a canoe race. When
their frantic paddling is interrupted by a closed lock, they have to
haul themselves out of the water and run with their canoe over their
shoulder. It’s as hazardous as it sounds, especially as they often
can’t see where they’re going. A sharpened boat on legs, coming for you
at speed down a narrow path, is unnerving, especially with a flailing
oar or two at right angles.
At the halfway point, perhaps I took too long to stretch and rehydrate,
as I found it hard to get going again. At 13 miles I stopped for a
walk. Then again at 14. It felt like rigor mortis.
I began to wonder if one of those canoes had actually hit and killed me
in a TRAGIC TOWPATH ACCIDENT, and that
really, I was floating along in some temporary, posthumous transit
lounge. Around the next bend I might come across my corpse, surrounded
by paramedics and ashen-faced canoe-race marshals. Someone will be
peering at my iPod, saying: “Crikey, and he was listening to Leonard
Cohen at the time as well. Poor bastard. What a way to go.”
No idea where I really am, or where I’m going, but just at the moment,
it doesn’t feel like I’m on my way to heaven.
