So why is running the answer? And what’s it the answer to? Had I ever really asked myself these questions before? Maybe I’ve kept away from them, unsure of what the answers might be. Which reflects the barrister’s golden rule of cross-examination: never ask a question to which you don’t already know the answer. But anyway, today I did ask myself those questions.
How civilised it felt to go for a weekday plod in February in the daylight. Traditionally, such outings take place in the cold and in darkness, either before seven-thirty in the morning or after seven-thirty in the evening. But remember, I’m now the retiring type. So bollocks to all those corporate Babylons. I’ve won my freedom. I invoke my right to go for a lakeside run at three in the afternoon. In fact, going for a run at three on a Friday afternoon seemed like a celebration of this new freedom. Moreover, it was very nearly a pleasant experience. I mean, not quite unpleasant either. Let’s settle on mildly disorientating.
Getting past the front door hasn’t got any quicker or easier. It still took ages to locate the diverse items of clothing and equipment required for such an expedition. And while doing so, I found myself vowing that in the future, I’d prepare everything in advance. Just as I always used to promise. Of course, I never did, and probably never will. Shoes posed the greatest challenge. After an extended rummage, I was able to fish seven promising pieces of footwear from the darkest recesses of our apartment. All showed some potential as running shoes, and it wasn’t long before I’d whittled the seven candidates down to six, among which were at least two likely pairs. By carefully comparing the colour and consistency of the mud on the soles I was able, with a fair degree of certainty, to conclude that these two belonged together.
Until the last week or so, any idea of venturing out, half naked, would have been smothered at birth. We’ve had the sort of winter that people think we must have every year in this country, but don’t. Last winter for instance, we were troubled by only the lightest and politest of snow flurries. My two sisters came to stay for the Christmas holiday, but despite me taking them to a fondue restaurant and one or two traditional Christmas markets, and feeding them Birchermüesli and Rösti at every opportunity, and speaking in a comical sing-song accent, the dearth of white stuff meant they went home feeling short-changed.
Last month we had three or four rapid waves of heavy snow, just a few days apart. I bought a camera a few months ago, determined to rekindle a hobby I keenly pursued for spells in the 1980s and 90s. Snow is good for a new camera, and I ventured out after each downfall to record a few impressions. My affair with photography — past and present — is a story I’ll step through another time, once I’ve worked out the best way to display pictures here. But snow seems to bring out the best in the much-maligned Swiss. They rise to the challenge and overcome it, rather than sinking into it.
It may come back, but for the moment it’s all gone. At about 12 degrees, today was sunny and comfortable, and just about perfect for my needs. And so it was that I finally got through the door and set off down the hill to the lake. Based only on the first episode, the NHS C25K podcast seems to be well done, managing to be supportive and positive without quite infantilising its victims. The music so far remains somewhere round the REM-style notch on the dial — an urgent mix of melody and inspiration. Not over-earnest and not disco-ey. That’ll do nicely.
The first instalment, and probably all subsequent ones, starts with the familiar ‘brisk five-minute walk’. The instruction is very handy as it takes just about precisely that time to descend from my front door to the lakeside path via the shortest route. By the time I’d reached the tarmacked walkway, I was ready to launch myself into this first assignment. I stopped to take a phone-snap of a man up a ladder tending to his pollarded trees. The lake and snowy mountains seemed to represent the challenge ahead. Broad, deep, and a bit daunting. Seasoned runners might scoff at that description. The C25K isn’t over-taxing, and nor should it be. Like all run-walk programmes, it’s designed to build up slowly and cautiously. All nine weeks consist of three outings. Week 1 calls for eight single minutes of running separated by 90 seconds of further brisk walking. If all goes to plan, I’ll end up jogging 5K without any breaks.
Will I get there? If history is a good judge, then no, I won’t. My ADHD, for which I’m mostly grateful, makes me faddish and quickly bored. Ideas appear and briefly assume a life-changing quality before being displaced by the Next Big Thing. Perhaps the new sense of liberation I’m enjoying these days will help me stick to something. You might think it would work the other way — that this shedding of responsibilities would make life even more unstructured and more chaotic. Maybe. But I’m hoping some other chemistry can now bubble to the surface, and that a lighter burden of accountability will reduce that frenzied anxiety to constantly refocus on some other, competing obligation.
The first minute of plodding passed quickly enough, as did the seven that followed. But even with the recent weight-loss and fitness-building on the rowing machine, I found myself puffing and panting. What I’m waiting to discover is whether this feeling of unnatural exertion will diminish over time. It should. Or it used to. But does that tendency continue even as you age? I suspect the answer is that yes, it can continue, but to a lesser degree. That the struggle to make gains are harder won and need to be worked on.
The entire 30 minutes passed without much incident. During one running spell I found myself on a narrow temporary walkway approaching three mid-teens girls. Just before I reached them I moved to the side to ensure we all had enough room to pass, but in so doing, the pocket of my jacket caught one of the spikes running along the top of the barrier, and sort of jerked me backwards, nearly capsizing my prodigious presence. In the UK, this would have produced much delight and hilarity among the teenagers. But it’s Switzerland, where kids still respect rather than despise oldies, and so there was a brief shriek of concern and a check that I was okay before we all moved on with our lives. And later on, just as I’d completed the final minute, I heard a loud “Hey hey!” and there was Z, my Dutch friend and ex-workmate whom I’d not seen since lockdown began. Fist bumps all round and, of course, an embarrassed British-style obligation (when there was no obligation at all) to explain why I was dressed like this and behaving like this.
The initial easy five-minute stroll down the hill became a much tougher ten-or-so minutes struggle back up the steep incline. But it was okay. A good hill at the end can only add to the workout. And that’s the story of my first tentative plod. My plan is to repeat it on Sunday before officially starting Week 1 on Tuesday. If these five jaunts leave me intact, I can feel satisfied. But there’s no pressure from me. I try not to do pressure anymore. I can repeat weeks where I’ve struggled, and may have to conclude that an old fat bloke just isn’t designed to plod for more than a few minutes at a stretch. In the meantime I’ll continue my rowing programme to add some cross-training effect. At least I can die sitting down.
Conclusion? A good experience. Lockdown has made hermits of us all. Just getting outside and walking down the hill, and collecting a few bits of human loose change — the man tending to his pollarded trees, the teenage girls, the brief natter with Z — seemed to represent something I’ve not recently allowed myself. These minor incidents amounted to a whole that seemed greater than the sum of their parts. As I panted back up the hill towards home, feeling renewed and optimistic, I realised that this half hour had reopened an inner dialogue that I’d unconsciously shut down over the past year. And that’s why running is the answer, and why it somehow manages to answer its own inherent question.
