Tyra-knee-saurus Rex
Yesterday, for the first time in nearly 40 years, I went to see the dinosaurs at the Natural History Museum. I wanted to look upon these mighty works and despair, just as I had done as a kid. But I fancy the Tyrannosaurus Rex has shrunk a little since I was 10. Back then it was an unimaginably frightful behemoth. Yesterday I was surprised and disappointed to find that something in the intervening years had drained the shock and fear from the experience.
By the time I left the museum it was harshly wintry and dark, with the temperature dropping to freezing. I walked past the outdoor ice rink that’s become a regular Christmas feature of the Cromwell Road. Beneath the illuminated trees the ice glistened like glass. The skaters’ delighted squeals mingled with the distant sound of a brass band playing Hark the Herald Angels Sing. For the first time this year, I felt a pang of Christmas.
A couple of minutes later I was sitting in the glorious foyer of the V & A, waiting for M to finish her exhibition visit. She’d invited me to accompany her, but The Golden Age of Couture, Paris and London, 1947-1957 hadn’t roared at me in quite the same way as the dinosaurs had.
With a few minutes to kill, I reached into my jacket pocket for the book I’d grabbed on the way out. I haven’t read any George Sheehan for a few months. With my Boston training due to start in a couple of days, I need to summon all the help I can. I opened it and read these words:
For every runner who tours the world running marathons, there are thousands who run to hear the leaves and listen to rain and look to the day when it all is suddenly as easy as a bird in flight. For them, sport is not a test but a therapy, not a trial but a reward, not a question but an answer.
Cheers George. Unlike the Tyrannosaurus Rex, you never disappoint.
I reflected on all these matters this morning, as I chugged my six stately miles up and down the canal towpath. It’s my last day of freedom before the Boston schedule kicks in. I’ve been here several times before: marathon kick-offs, but I have to concede that they haven’t always lived up to their billing. I can think of at least three occasions when the marathon bugle would have been better off kept in its case.
My main worry this time round isn’t motivation. If you need motivation to run Boston, you’re in the wrong game. Apart from wanting to take part in the world’s oldest and most celebrated marathon, I’ve committed to raising at least £1500 for the JDRF. It’s the least I can do for the charity which has been a friend of this site for some time now. In fact I should acknowledge that without the JDRF, I wouldn’t be taking part in this race. Apart from a handful of charity places, Boston is a qualification-only event. Someone of even my advanced years would have to have a recent marathon time of 3:35 to get a place. My existing marathon PB would win me a qualifying place only if I was more than 80 years old. Check your qualifying time here.
I’ll be reminding people of the charity sub-plot as the campaign proceeds. Thank you in advance. 🙂
I’m not going to whine on about my knee, but it remains my biggest worry. I know that I weigh too much, but it’s in my power to lose a few pounds. I know that my stamina is poor, but I can work on that — it’s up to me whether I do the long runs that will extend my energy. Motivation can be worked on, as can my charity target. All these things are within my power, and I’ve no one to blame if I fail. But my knee? My knee has been troubling me for several weeks now, and I expect it to continue to do so. I can do a few things to help it along like wear an elasticated support and limit the ratio of concrete miles against those softer and kinder ones. I’ve become a glucosamine nut. But the fundamental problem — whatever it is — remains, and I have to hope that it doesn’t become the spanner in the works of my training.
Today, as with all recent runs, I could feel it with every step. I won’t exaggerate and say that it is horribly painful: it isn’t. It’s just a sort of uncomfortable twinge that flashes on and off each time I put any weight on my left foot. It’s not disabling. I can live with the discomfort. The fear I have is that it’s a flag for some bigger problem that will finally reveal itself only at the end of some half marathon.
Just six miles today but I felt them all. I’m unfit and overweight, but a week or two of regular runs and a moderate eating plan should tighten up a few nuts.
It’s been interesting to read the slightly panicky messages from johnnyb on the forum recently, as they remind me of myself, 6 years ago, when I too realised that I’d talked myself into a first marathon. I occasionally glance back at those early entries to remind myself of what it was like.
It’s where the T. Rex comes in. You never forget the fear of meeting your first dinosaur, but once you’ve survived one or two, you get a little complacent. Perhaps it’s where my dodgy knee has a valuable role to play after all. I’ve been lucky with injuries over these past six years. The knee anxiety is a new experience for me, and I’ve no idea down which path — success or failure — it will lead me. As long as it continues to worry me, that necessary tension exists after all — the tension that separates us from our goals and hopes, and keeps us keen and competitive and industrious and resourceful and focused.
