So nuts

The lack of activity in here might suggest zero activity out there.

Almost, but not quite true; and less true this week than at any time since we arrived in Switzerland, four months ago.

My Garmin strap remains split, so my phone, and Runkeeper, have been called in to keep tabs on anything approaching athletic bustle. They tell me that before this week, I managed just 41 kilometres of disidleness — if I may offer the world a new word. This 4-month marathon was composed of very short joggy-walky jog-walks, and a couple of leisurely flora-centric Sunday afternoon strolls in the dense woodland bordering the end of our road.

You’d struggle to detect more than a sprinkle of sweat anywhere in among that lot. The peak of exertion was reached a couple of weekends ago, when we spent an hour or so flopping about on cross-country skis. And even then, most of the perspiration came from being stuck inside arctic-standard gear on an unseasonably warm February day.

It’s been discussed before — many times — how running and writing bump each other along. That’s one reason for the relative silence, but there are others.

Perhaps there’s just too much to talk about. This is a big new experience. So big, that there just isn’t the time to sit and log it, as I’d like to.  I’ve tried. Several entries have been started, but they got so long and rambling that I ended up killing my darlings and concealing their corpses beneath the WordPress floorboards. I’ll probably smuggle a few limbs out here and there, and use them to pad out future entries. Can one plagiarise oneself?

Anyway, here’s the news. It’s time to force myself into action, so I’ve entered the Winterthur Half Marathon, which takes place on May 29. That’s 13 weeks away.

In the best days of the old regime, 13 weeks would be a long time to prepare for a half, but I can’t stress how thoroughly fat and unfit I am. The cheese is too good here, and the supermarket wine shelves are crammed with interesting and unusual bottles that reach out and grab me as I try to race past. Not so much the Hay Diet as the Haywire.

Christ knows how much blubber has been added since we moved here. If the weighing scales, purchased from Sainsbury’s just before we left England, had actually worked properly, I would know. But they don’t, so I don’t either. I do know that I’m heavy and creaking and within an age-brittle whisker of telling myself to stop, stop, stop. Stop the self-delusion and the bravado.

And I’ve tried listening to myself. But look at the f-f-facts. There are 643 fatty items on the STOP side of the scale, and 644 nuggets of protein on the GO side.

So nuts.

But anyway, I was saying, that 13 weeks isn’t long in these times. The truth is that I don’t know if it will be enough. I’d normally spend a few weeks just shedding ballast before doing any running, but I don’t have that opportunity now. I need to crack the whip and get going.

Which is what I’ve done. The project has started. I’ve been out three times this week so far – Sunday afternoon, early Wednesday, and early today, Friday.

The distances, and the pace, have been so bad this week that I would incinerate with shame should I place them in the public domain. Fortunately, they don’t matter. What does matter in this initial, pre-schedule fortnight is a) getting out there in the first place, and b) so far, having no recurrence of the calf twinge that blocked out nearly all the cells in last year’s spreadsheet.

After all the technical blah-blah (as they like to say here) — core strength, musculoskeletal imbalance, overuse injury — it’s quite possible that the answer might have been the simple one suggested by the local Theale podiatrist: new shoes needed. Or rather, new make. Last year, I had four brand new pairs of shoes in a 12-month period: all of them Asics. It was a previous generation of Asics that gave me blisters in my first year of plodding, a decade ago. Before I came to Switzerland, I picked up some Adidas Supernova Sequence shoes, and a pair of Brooks Adrenaline. So far, so good.

There are three main types of outdoor running available here in Horgen: lake, woods, town.

After venturing into the woods last Sunday, and early Wednesday, this morning was the turn of the lake. I left the apartment at about 06:40 as it was starting to get light, and jogged the 1 kilometre or so down through the back alleys to Lake Zurich, or Zürichsee, as it’s known locally. It was a cool, damp, misty morning. I saw only one person — a man carrying his dog, which seemed odd. Only other wildlife were ducks, and a bunch of shrieking seagulls.

There’s a well-maintained path along the lakeside. For all I know, it goes all the way around, and seems like an ideal companion for long endurance runs — should I ever need them. No idea how long this path might be. 80 to 100 kilometres? An adequate length, anyway, and scenic. On the other side (assuming running in this anti-clockwise direction), we aim at the handsome, churchy profile of Zurich. On this side of the water, the distant destination is the awe-inspiring spectacle of the snowy Alps.

To crush the idyll before it gets out of hand, I’d better mention that beside this morning’s path is the railway line that links Zurich with the string of small, pretty towns situated along this south-west edge of the lake.  One of these precious stones is my own town, Horgen, and I am grateful for the accessibility afforded by the railway. So I don’t mind it being there. In any case, the double-decker trains are pretty cool and, of course, clean and quiet, so I will not hear a word against them. And once every 15 minutes or so isn’t unreasonable. The lakeside railway goes as far as Wadenswil, about 3 miles up the road, before it leaps up the hill

The down-side of the railway line is that it prevents, or at least discourages, the runner from circling back at any suitable point. You have to wait for a bridge / crossing, or just stop and double-back the way you came. Not knowing the path, I opted for the latter, managing just another kilometre or so before deciding to turn on my heel. With the immovable object of my 9 a.m. Friday departmental meeting in prospect, I couldn’t risk getting stranded on the path. Next time I take in the misty lakeside air, I’ll do it at the weekend, and spend the time needed to find the right crossing points.

We live at the top of the town, meaning the final part of the jaunt was more walk than run. These hills are steep enough to put hairs on the chest of even the Sussex boys. For me, just at the moment, they are a step too far. But once I’m  a few kilos lighter, and a few weeks closer to my half marathon goal, they’ll be the sort of cruel-to-be-kind terrain I’ll be grateful for.

Three runs and a weekful of salad. Good to get a healthy 6 days under my belt — and it’s my belt that’s grateful. Tomorrow, we take a step back with ‘Ski Day’ – the company’s annual jaunt to Laucheren, in the Hoch Ybrig. I’m not ready for the skiddy-slidey bit this year, but we will join the apres-ski, and treat ourselves to the wine, the cheese fondue, and (I’m told) the even cheesier traditional Swiss band that will accompany us through the evening in the restaurant up there. The 10 pm tradition, it seems, after 5 hours of wine-drinking, is to get back to the car park by tobogganing down the mountain in the dark.

If I live to tell the tale, I might just do so.