Incremental Gains – Couch to 5k week 7

James, if you are reading this, please tell me that it gets easier. I have no ducks to distract me on my run (or geese) and I have discovered what a very long time twenty five minutes is. I realise that when I started this, twenty five seconds would have found me, hands on knees, hawking into the gutter – but if I’m honest, I still feel like that after twenty five seconds, it’s just that I now grit my teeth and plod on for a further twenty four and a half minutes, hating every second and feeling like John Hurt must have done just before the Alien exploded out of his chest. Today I swallowed a fly after about three minutes and spent the next twenty two coughing. People were giving me so much space.

Jo Whiley’s voice in my ear keeps telling me that I must be finding it easier now, that I am probably running faster. No. No, twenty five minutes of running does not feel easier than the sixty second bursts I was doing seven weeks ago. In fact it seems about twenty five times as hard. No Jo, I am not running faster. I could not slow down if I tried. I would need a reverse gear and my knees would not cope with it. If I’m honest, I am beginning to regret choosing to be accompanied by Ms. Whiley. She is just too bloody cheerful. I really should have chosen Sarah Millican, but I feared that she might make me laugh – and I cannot afford to squander perfectly good oxygen on that malarkey, thank you very much.

I have developed a blind and sullen bloody-mindedness that propels me through each run, even though the attitude of ‘I’ll do it, even if it kills me,’ does not provide quite the same level of motivation now as it once did. Although I remain to be persuaded that it won’t actually kill me. At my age, death is certainly closer to being within my grasp than fitness.

In addition to the silken tones of Ms Whiley, I am accompanied on each run by the nagging little voice of my own devilish antonym-ish Jiminy Cricket repeating the words, ‘Why on earth are you doing this? Nobody gets credit for being a fit-looking corpse.’ I have always hated grasshoppers. They pretend to jump, but I think that really they fly. I find it hard to trust anything that rubs its legs together to get a girlfriend. Locusts are in no way lovable. Even with a top hat and cane. I do not need a supernumerary orthopteral conscience. I have more than enough trouble with the one I’ve got, thank you very much. Anyway, despite its chiding voice of caeliferan common sense, I will not give in. Who wants to be a real boy when the puppet gets all the laughs?

I have my Bluetooth headphones back in operation and, working on the policy of incremental gains as employed so successfully by British Cycling for many years, I figure that the loss of the weight attached to dispensing with almost a metre of copper wire must be worth at least a couple of dozen yards on my clock at the end of the run. As I explained earlier, when I am struggling, I cannot actually help myself by running slower, but there are a few things that I have learned on my thrice weekly lopes around the village that help me breathe (albeit painfully). I have learned that, if it is at all possible, it is better to run on the road than the undulating path/driveway/path route offered by the pavement. It doesn’t sound much, but the unevenness of the path is somehow incredibly draining. Besides, there’s always the chance that I might get knocked-over on the road and not have to finish the run. Driveways, however, must always be utilised when crossing the road – lifting the foot high enough to tackle a kerb is a totally unjustifiable expenditure of energy. I have discovered that whenever I think that it might be a good idea to speed up just a little bit, I am unerringly wrong. It is always a bad idea for me to speed up. I have discovered that pretending that I am not at death’s door fools nobody, but simply uses up energy: I will finish much quicker if I just give myself up to exhaustion and shame. If I can just shift this monkey from my back I should be flying…

I realise that you are in no way interested, but I have discovered that the tracks that give me a little ‘pep’ when they play during my run are:

Cocaine – Eric Clapton
Ribcage – Kasabian
Everlong – Foo Fighters
I Feel Free – Cream
Trampled Underfoot – Led Zeppelin
Survival – Muse
Fool’s Gold – Stone Roses
Sowing the Seeds of Love – Tears for Fears
Check Out Time 11 AM – Sparks (I’m fully aware of what you might be thinking. Just check it out – it’s on YouTube!)

If I’m honest, the list probably says more about the speed I run than the music I like to run to.

If you would like to suggest anything else I should try, please feel free.

The previous Couch to 5k instalment, ‘The Extreme Elasticity of the Pain Threshold’ is here.
The next Couch to 5k instalment, ‘The Look’ is here.
Couch to 5k begins here.

Little Fictions

At the request of one or two of my readers (it doesn’t take much) I have started to write a few more ‘Little Fictions’ than I have previously done, and I am just beginning to realise how much more tricky than my usual twaddle they are. For a start, stories need an end. Not necessarily and ending, but definitely a point at which to finish: if not exactly a classic dénouement, then at least somewhere for them to put their feet up for a while and settle down with a large gin and a packet of Twiglets. This requires thought and planning. I am good at neither. Such talent as I have is more ‘Whizz for Atomms’ than ‘A Brief History of Time’. Worst of all, planning often requires me to leave things out. A great line is no longer a great line if it would not naturally come out of the mouth of the character I have just created. The man with a plan has much more use for ‘No.’

My brain does not necessarily work that way. It is more of an off-roader. I have to force it to follow the roadmap and, even then, it has a habit of finding previously unseen cul-de-sacs and exploring them for a little while before getting back under way. I am one of those dreadful people who prefers a stately chug along the ‘B’ roads in a Morris Minor to a motorway dash in a Porsche and, yes, before you ask, I do quite often stop because I have seen a field full of sheep or a church with a crooked spire. Give me a pond-full of ducks and, as far as ETA is concerned, all bets are off.

The ‘Little Fictions’ are forcing me to consider what I am doing much more carefully and to premeditate – at least to some extent – what I intend to do next. I cannot pretend that this comes naturally. Generally, getting lost on the way is one of the highlights of my day. Finding my way back is the great adventure. The joy of ending my journey at a place that I had never intended, compensates for the pain of having to trek back to where I should have been in the first place, and for the embarrassment of having to apologise for turning up two days late, in the wrong clothes, with a head full of feathers.

Not that I always know where I am going when I start the ‘Little Fictions’. Sometimes I have just a first line in my head, or even just the title. Eight hundred words (ish) does not leave much scope for plot development and cunning twists, let alone unexpected conclusions, so I often just rely on things falling gently into place. Mostly they do – although occasionally, just leaving something up in the air can be just as satisfying – ask Icarus. Then, there is the knowledge that all stories have been told before. All that can vary is the way in which you tell them. And, of course, there also remains the lure of the silly – a temptation to which I all too readily succumb. Is it possible to be silly within the constraints of a properly structured story? Wibble.

Anyway, the reason I mention this here is that since I have been on this platform, I have grown to understand and confront my limitations: to understand what I do passably well and what I really should leave to others who do it so much better. And there – I knew that you would be here long before me – is where my problem lies. It is always possible to find someone who does it much better – whatever it is. Lately I have been watching Alan Bennett’s ‘Talking Heads’ and wondering what it is like to do what you do so much better than everybody else? To know that nobody else actually does do it better? An experience I will never share. I start to think, ‘Well, as long as I do the best I can…’ which actually just means setting off from the point of, ‘I know it won’t be good enough, but…’ and that’s really not the way to go about anything, is it? I will learn to embrace my own mediocrity and squeeze it until the seams give out. But I might not manage it every week…

Anyway, happily, this is not a story: this is merely an explanation of what is going on when I do write a story – although it does actually have a beginning (carefully placed right near the start), a middle (about half way through) and an end, which is here…

The Extreme Elasticity of the Pain Threshold – Couch to 5k week 6

One thing that running does give you is the time you need to really torture yourself mentally. To reprimand yourself for things you might have done – or might not have done; for the things you should have done, but didn’t; for saying the things that you surely could have found a better way of saying. It also gives you more than ample time to consider what on earth you think you are doing with your life – and why, from the feel of things, you are making a determined attempt to shorten it? Can it possibly be healthy for a man of your age to feel so very close to Death’s door? Who’d have possibly guessed that that particular threshold was barely a kilometre from your own? If Death was your neighbour, would you invite him round for tea? Hope that he is a little more lenient with the man who let him have the last HobNob? Or would you try to ignore him, keep your head down and hope that he doesn’t notice you? How would you cope with his overhanging branches breaking the panels in your greenhouse roof, or the fact that bits of his fence keep falling on your begonias? It’s not easy to strike the right balance with a man who spends the whole day sharpening his scythe, but never cuts the lawn… Running is intended to put some distance between the two of you, but somehow, it just brings you closer.

I have now grown used to being overtaken by younger runners, usually in groups (What is, I wonder, the collective noun for a group of runners? A Totter? A Gasp?*) chatting lightly as they trip lightly by the heavy footed, wheezy old man checking his heart to make sure it is still going. It does not worry me. Other runners are usually polite. They cross the road when they see me ahead and stoically refuse the opportunity to sing ‘Lip Up Fatty’ as they fly by. Later in the run I may be overtaken by old ladies walking their dogs. That bothers me. Old ladies simply smile as they are reminded of their long-dead fathers and offer me their zimmer. It is difficult to get cross with somebody who is sporting a blue rinse and walking a dog so small that it could possibly be bullied by a buffed-up vole – particularly when they are probably fitter than me – so I always do the same thing: I smile and, as much as breathlessness allows, pass the time of day in the friendliest way that I can muster, before I gather up my dignity and jog on. I might not feel great, but at least I don’t feel like an arse.

Last week I felt as though I might be nearing the fullest extent of my pain and perseverance thresholds. This week I appear to be exactly the same distance from them which, given the incremental rise in effort required in this programme, is I suppose, ok. It doesn’t feel ok, but given that each successive day is currently accompanied by an extra twist on the rack, it’s probably as good as I can expect it to be.

I am still running in a pair of trainers that I found at the back of the garden shed. I can’t face going in to town to buy new ones. The shops that sell trainers have staff and I can’t stand pity. Besides, these are ok as long as I wear very thin socks and wrap my toes in Elastoplast. When I was a boy, playing football in secondhand boots, my dad used to make me sit with the soles of my feet in surgical spirit to toughen them up. Sometimes I watch the news and wish he’d done it to my soul…

*I have just looked it up and, disappointingly, it is ‘a Field’. Exercise and lack of imagination do seem to go hand in hand sadly.

The previous Couch to 5k instalment, ‘The Power of Two’ is here.
The next Couch to 5k instalment, ‘Incremental gains’ is here.
Couch to 5k begins here.

The Power of Two – Couch to 5k Week 5

I see people running in pairs and I cannot help but believe that one of them must feel that they are being held back by the other – whilst the other is trying to devise a means of suffering the kind of injury that means they will never have to do that again! Some of them chat. Unbelievable! What can you possibly chat about whilst running? Surely pain and anguish begins to pall as a topic after a while. There are only so many times you can gasp ‘I seriously think I might die,’ and expect to elicit a concerned response. I thoroughly annoy myself whilst running – I cannot imagine what I might do to somebody else. Not that idle chat is an option for me. To be honest, I’m not even sure that I am up to idle listening. Besides, I still have Jo Whiley plugged into my ear at the moment. Her voice is encouraging, seductive and soothing and really quite irritating after a while. If she tells me how well I am doing one more time, I will seek her out and place a dried pea in her trainers. An idle threat, I assure you, but as a man who has recently run some distance with a Lego Fireman’s Hat wedged under his big toe nail, I can vouch for its effect: it would certainly slow her down. Let’s see how chirpy you would be then, Jo! She keeps assuring me that she has ‘been there.’ Really? When were you last an overweight 60 year-old Ms. Whiley? When did you last look down at your sagging old body and realise that if you lived in Alaska, the Inuit would eat you? When did you last take stock of what might make you attractive to the opposite sex and be quite happy to stop at zero? (Should she be reading this, which quite patently she is not, I must point out that her voice has, in fact, kept me going many times when I wanted to stop. Who could possibly wantonly let Jo Whiley down?)

It’s a very weird thing about losing weight as you get older: you don’t appear to get thinner, you just get saggier. Somehow I appear to have more skin, but less to put in it. Is that normal? I’m not expecting a six-pack from anywhere here – just that my skin might put in some kind of effort to keep up with the rest of me.

Last week’s runs were a real effort after a full day on my feet at work and a thirty minute walk to and from, but I got through them. I look at next week’s itinerary and I can’t help but think that I have already met my threshold. It is beginning to reach the point where I know that one of us is going to have some kind of cataclysmic breakdown. Either I will have broken the Couch to 5k’s back and there will be nothing new it can throw at me – I will have absorbed all the pain it has to offer and come up grimacing chirpily – or part of me will give-way in such a dramatic fashion that it could quite possibly push Meryl Streep into second place. I am becoming quietly determined and it worries me. I have barely told anyone (except for you lot) that I am doing this – they would just think that it is some kind of elaborate joke – and quite honestly, at the moment, I cannot view it as a laughing matter. Determination is not something that sits well with me: I have always got through by simply trying to ensure that whatever washes over me, doesn’t drown me – but now I’m trying to stay afloat. My dog-paddle is ungainly but effective (or would be if I had four legs) and happily, I haven’t sunk just yet.

One last word for Ms Whiley though: whatever she implores me to tell myself, I am most certainly and absolutely NOT a runner. I will never be a runner. And I will never, ever share my run with another soul – well, not unless they’re slower than me, of course…

The previous Couch to 5k instalment, ‘To Dream of Couscous’ is here.
The next Couch to 5k instalment, ‘The Extreme Elasticity of the Pain Threshold’ is here.
Couch to 5k begins here.

To Dream of Couscous – Couch to 5k week 4

I have friends who claim to love running. They are clearly deranged.

I take so long in ‘getting ready’ to undertake my thirty minutes of torture that often, with a little foresight, I could have been back before I started. My overriding pre-run emotion is dread of what is to come. During the run I am smugly satisfied that my dread has been justly vindicated. Only during the post-run shower, in anticipation of the well-earned chocolate and red wine (it doesn’t do to lose weight too quickly at my age) do I feel any sense of achievement. There is certainly never any sense of enjoyment about it. At times I would sooner be water-boarded.

I have re-started work this week after furlough and consequently, after eight hours of miserable monotony (which encompasses ten thousand steps apparently) I return home to run before settling down for the much-truncated evening. What kind of a life is that? It is like being told that you are having quinoa for dinner, but not to worry, you won’t have time for seconds as you have to worm the cat. What kind of person dreams of couscous?

And why do I desperately feel the need to wee within minutes of leaving the house to run? It passes, but only because it cannot compete with the necessity to find oxygen from somewhere, nor the desire to separate my tongue from the roof of my mouth. I have no idea whether men have a pelvic floor, but if they do, I fear that mine must be subterranean.

Despite all of this, my main concern is not of collapse, but of encountering somebody I know. My route is an amorphous, constantly changing beast; adapting at a moment’s notice in order to avoid any kind of social interaction whilst gasping. When forced into a salutary smile, I am aware that it emerges like rigor. I can feel the whispered, ‘Should he really be doing that at his age?’ I would like to yell back, ‘No, he bloody well shouldn’t!’ but I don’t have the breath. Anybody who claims to glean any kind of enjoyment from this torment should be certified. It is not normal.

You may, by now, have begun to share my own amazement that I am still doing this. I am doing it simply because nobody (including me) thought that I would and until I have proved everybody wrong, I cannot possibly stop. Like a character in Eastenders I have weeks of misery in me yet – and I take absolutely no joy from saying so.

The previous Couch to 5k instalment, ‘Return of the Mummy’ is here.
The next Couch to 5k instalment, ‘The Power of Two’ is here.
Couch to 5k begins here.

Return of the Mummy – Couch to 5k Week 3

Being yet another Couch to 5k update.

I am swaddled, if not exactly from head to toe, then certainly from thigh to ankle. In addition to the knee supports which I have worn since week one, I now have strappings on one thigh and one ankle. I am currently running in full length ‘joggers’ owing to my resemblance to Nora Batty if I wear shorts. It can only be a matter of time before my other ankle, which does have a record of giving up the ghost in a fairly dramatic manner, will decide to join in the fun and I will become a running lycra tube.

It’s ironic (I think – I’ll check) that my legs are not my biggest problem when I run. (I use the word ‘run’ in its loosest possible sense. ‘Lurch’ is probably more apposite.) My problem has always been my breathing. My post-jog ‘pant’ would rival a forty-a-day bloodhound. That, currently, is not improving – although I have developed methods of dredging oxygen into my lungs in a slightly more dignified manner that does not involve propping myself up on a lamppost and retching. My legs (shattered joints aside) seem to be relatively happy with the situation.

I have bought myself an arm strap for my phone and a pair of Bluetooth earbuds – one of which is currently working – which has helped. As soon as I have resolved the earbud situation I will be happy – it will stop me running in circles.

My runs are getting longer, my mid-run walks less desperate, and I’ve begun to refine my musical selection a little so that the beat is not quite so erratic and I do not appear to be having a seizure every time the tracks change.

I have one more run this week before the next regime ‘step up’ and I hope that I can approach that without having to brace any further joints. I have to, they’re running out.

The previous instalment of the Couch to 5k diary, ‘An Off-Peak Update’ is here.
The next instalment of the Couch to 5k diary, ‘To Dream of Couscous’ is here.
The Couch to 5k diary starts here.

Money for Nothing

One person that I suspect we in the UK have all become more familiar with during these long weeks of shutdown is Jay Blades. In addition to his role in The Repair Shop, where broken, damaged or just plain worn out items of sentimental value are restored beautifully by a team of very skilled craftsmen, he has become the ‘go to’ presenter for any show that features old and damaged goods being ‘up-cycled’ to create new ‘stylish’ items of ‘utility and beauty’ – or tat as it is more commonly known. In Money for Nothing goods are uplifted as they are about to be disposed of at the refuse disposal site and recycled by expert craftsmen and designers at horrendous cost, into pieces that are the visual equivalent of sandpaper on the teeth. Beautiful old sideboards are up-cycled into asymmetrical, hand-painted book stands that retain nothing from the original but two pieces of veneer, a box-wood frame and a single rusted screw that was just possibly forged by hand (or sold by Woolworths in 1963); a single old bicycle wheel has a cheap quartz clock movement blue-tacked to it to create ‘an elegant and functional wall ornament‘. Or, as we like to call it, a bike wheel with a clock on. The items seem to be always bought by modish metropolitan ‘galleries’, where they will doubtless languish for many years having already earned their keep by having got the premises on the telly in the first place. I am always reminded of Harry Enfield’s I Saw You Coming sketches. I imagine that they will eventually wind up in some Edina Monsoon wannabe’s lounge, pushed up against the wall to disguise the fact that the luminous paint is peeling off and one of the legs is propped up on a brick.

Furthermore, I have, today, caught sight of a show called Home Fix in which Jay invites people to attempt to achieve the same kind of results by employing their own DIY up-cycling skills. The finished articles do appear quite similar, in an unfinished kind of a way, and they look as if they may well add interest to the home – chiefly, I suspect, in the way of waiting to see how long it takes them to fall to pieces and decapitate the cat. Most of what is made appears to involves pallets – which are often found on the side of the road and which provide free wood for anyone prepared to pay the several hundreds of pounds required to get their car fixed after they have attempted them to load them in. I imagine the joy of knowing that the wood used to make your new coffee table was completely free, more than compensates for the fact that the grandchildren wind up at A&E having six inch splinters removed from their tiny little paws every time they have been round to yours. Today, having created a key holder out of an unfinished old piece of Conti board and two hooks, Jay advised that anyone worried about using a drill could simply use glue instead. So, no worry about it falling to pieces and crashing down onto little Johnny’s foot like a melamine guillotine then? I can’t help feeling that if you can’t drill a piece of wood, then you really shouldn’t be hanging heavy stuff on the walls.

Now don’t get me wrong here; I am in no way opposed to the idea of ‘up-cycling’. I’ve been doing it for years. I have recovered, painted and repaired more junk than the dump can hold. It is undeniably a good thing. My problem comes along with the arrogance that says, we have taken this old chair, we have covered the old seat in an artisan dish cloth and painted the frame with bright yellow paint at a cost far in excess of buying a new one, but look, it is no longer a tarted up old seat, it is a ‘super-modern, designer centre-piece’. IT IS NOT! Painting an old piece of furniture can certainly make it look better, but it cannot fundamentally change what it is, any more than oiling my bike chain will turn it into a Ferrari or getting a decent haircut will turn me into Brad Pitt. A pig in a saddle does not become a racehorse – even if you put a screw through its wonky leg.

If, for instance, you have an old garden bench that has rotted over the winter then ‘doing it up’ can only be a good thing, but it will still remain a tarted-up garden bench. First, you remove all the old rotten wood. (If it is a wooden bench and it is all rotten, do not worry, with a little thought you could always create a truly stylish garden bonfire.) Then replace the rotten wood with new pieces either a) cut from your latest pallet find or b) if you want to avoid ripping your trousers every time you sit on it, the wood merchants, and fasten to the frame with suitable screws. If you have no suitable screws, use whatever is available: unsuitable screws, nails, Blue Tack or twine – It doesn’t matter, once taken apart, these things never go back together properly again and anyway, nobody will ever go anywhere near it after you have sprayed it with creosote. If you are ambitious enough, you may attempt to paint it instead. If you do, it pays to make certain that you prop the bench up on three sides to prevent it falling over and removing your toe-nail when you lean on it. When bench legs are of uneven length, always nail something to the shortest. Do not attempt to shorten the longest: after 37 attempts with the bread knife you will be left with a sledge. Although, that could, of course, be a truly stylish addition to your garden – if only you could find that tin of yellow paint…

Art is art, isn’t it? And water is water and east is east and west is west and if you take cranberries and stew them like apple-sauce they taste much more like prunes than rhubarb does – Groucho Marx

Couch to 5k – an off-peak update.

For those few of you who were kind enough to feign interest in my original Couch to 5k post, an update.

Week two and the jog/walk ratio has been cranked up a little: the jogs are longer (although definitely slower) whilst the walks have become a breathless stumble. Definitely felt that I was moving backwards today: towards the end I was overtaken by a tortoise yelling ‘Up yours Aesop!’

My knees, which have loudly complained about mis-use since my late twenties, are shredded and steadfastly refuse to support my body without reinforcements of their own, but I plod on (although, for saying so, I fear that I probably leave myself open to being sued by The Plodder’s Union). Throughout every run the mellifluous tones of the iridescent Ms Whiley assure me that it should all be getting easier, whilst I actually feel that death might be a release. I believe that my lungs may have been harvested in my sleep and replaced with those of an asthmatic shrew.

I have never had a talent for running, but in my prime I had more than sufficient stamina to see me through three football matches per weekend. These days I fear that I would struggle through a Subbuteo tournament without a substitute flicking finger.

Anyoldwayup, what I’m hoping for is an improvement next week because on the 15^th I return to work and, whilst my job is not madly active, I am on my feet all day and I have a couple of miles walk to and from where I park my car, so an evening work-day run could become a whole new ballgame – or ignominious defeat, as it is known in this household…

The first part of the Couch to 5k odyssey is here.
The next instalment of the Couch to 5k diary, ‘Return of the Mummy’ is here.

Couch to 5k

A picture, they say, is worth a thousand words. Well, I am in no position to comment upon the veracity of that statement, but I’ve got a thousand words going begging, so that is are what you’re getting from me. I feel that we are friends now, you and I; I can tell you things. I am in my sixties, overweight and the most physically exerting thing I usually do is to open the breadbin. These things you already know. What you don’t know is that having downloaded the couch to 5k app on my phone many months ago, I have finally opened it this week and embarked upon the journey that will turn me into an Adonis. It is a voyage for which I am in no way prepared. I do not own trainers of any kind, certainly not specialist running ones, so I’m currently wearing a natty pair of striped espadrilles. They are matched with over-long swimming shorts, a baggy ‘T’ shirt and a pair of wrap-around sun glasses so that nobody knows who I am. I look like a man who really should not be jogging. Who needs a picture to realise that it is a sight that once seen, you will never be able to un-see?

If you are not familiar with the app, it leads you slowly, slowly, slowly from zero exercise to regular 5km runs via an ordered run/walk routine, which in my case, amounts to a regular curse/gasp/stagger. My ‘companion’ on these jaunts is the lovely Jo Whiley, who I thought (correctly) would be quietly encouraging, but who, I now realise, I feel quite embarrassed to be out and about with in the state I am in.

As a child and young man, I was always ‘sporty’ and I played football until well into my fifties, but I have never been a runner. I can sprint over short distances in a heavy-footed, forward-stumble kind of a way (think hippo) but my endurance is shorter than a bus driver’s temper. At school I learned the benefits of being a plodder when our sports teacher, an ex-para, whom I always suspected of being a member of the Hitler Youth, would send us out on a 1500 metre run at the start of ‘Double PE’. Following the run we all trooped inside for tortuous circuit exercises – except for the last five to finish, who had to run an extra lap and, crucially, if they did the last lap slowly enough – possibly with a short stop for a fag behind the hedge – missed the circuits altogether and turned up just in time for ‘crab football’. Guess where I was? In my prime I could, on occasion, speed myself up to an ungainly lope, but these days I am a one-gear lumberer. My ‘jog’ is generally slower than my walk. At times I do have the feeling that I am actually going backwards, but I plod along.

I have tried to find routes where I will not encounter anybody I know, but I live in a village. I know a lot of people. I have discovered not only that wrap-around sunglasses do not sufficiently disguise me, but also that when I am jogging, I myself recognise no-one. People speak as I pant my way past, but I have no idea who they are, and I cannot hear them because Jo Whiley requires me to have my headphones in. In consequence, I reply to anyone who looks as though they might be greeting me, which can startle those who are merely watering the geraniums and have no idea who I am. I have no idea how far the run (warm up, eight jogs, eight walks and warm down) might take me (hint: nowhere near as far as you might imagine) so I simply head off and when the little bell rings to tell me that I am half way through, I retrace my tottering steps. I pass the same people twice. They see me coming (I am not the kind of sight that they can ignore) and scuttle inside if they are able. Geranium waterers suddenly sense the onset of rain; dog walkers find imaginary dog crap that they just have to clear up; solitary walkers pretend that they have lost their dog. I try to keep my head down – this is pure expedience on my part. The paths around here are pretty much as pot-holed as the road. I am concerned that I might trip. I am much more concerned that I might trip within sight of somebody that knows me. Most of my near-neighbours believe that I am useless enough already. It would be too much if they were to discover that I can’t even jog in slow-motion without floundering. Especially if they have to help me up.

And here’s another thing! I carry my phone a) because Jo Whiley is on it, b) because my music is on it and c) in case I can’t get home – and it’s a real pain. If I put it in my pocket it bangs against my thigh at every step and pulls my shorts down, when I hold it in my hand it leads to a partial garrotting at every step. Should I carry on with this malarkey, I fear that I am going to have to buy equipment: shoes that do not look as though I should be strolling along the promenade at St Tropez; shorts that do not start at my knees and end at my ankles half an hour later, and some means of attaching my phone to a portion of my body that doesn’t move about too much even at full speed (e.g. in the last couple of yards when the biscuits are within sight). Well, they did tell me that I might shed a few pounds.

Anyway, it is all out in the open now. I will try to keep it going and I will keep you informed, but don’t expect a photo. A thousand words is definitely worth not seeing the picture…

The Photo on the Corkboard

Climbing

Behind the desk where I spend most of my evenings hunched over the laptop keyboard is a corkboard that is home to family photographs, children’s paintings, newspaper cuttings, various precious knick-knacks and an assortment of bits and bobs that serve as a reminder of who I am. Among these photographs is the one that you see at the top of the page, and it is this photo, or more precisely the circumstances that surrounded it, that forms the basis of today’s sermon.

Before we can get onto that though, there are one or two things that I have to tell you about the image itself.
• It was taken with a very long lens and shows only the very toppermost portion of the rockface that was being climbed.
• The moustachioed man at the top is Paul. Paul is a rock climber. Paul is, a man on whom you would stake your life. Paul is holding the rope to which the ginger geek on the rockface is attached.
• The ginger geek on the rockface with the fat arse is me.
• I do not know what that is near my elbow, but I do not recall there being any flower-arrangements present.
• The ginger geek with the fat arse is terrified of heights.

So, now perhaps, is time to slip back to the beginning. Paul and I had headed out into the country for a walk with our wives. We parked the car and walked. I was a little mystified as to why Paul required such a large rucksack for a wander around the Derbyshire countryside, but Paul is resourceful. He is always prepared. I presumed he may have been carrying anti-venom, first aid requisites, Kendall Mint Cake, beer – that sort of thing, and it wasn’t until we arrived at the bottom of the craggy rock monolith, whereupon he delved into the bag and pulled out the pair of soft, rubber-soled boots with which, he assured me, I would be able to walk, Spiderman-like, up a brick wall, that I began to feel uneasy, and my suspicions, being somewhat slow on the uptake, began to be aroused. I tried to explain that I had no intention of walking up anything more perilous than the loft ladder, but Paul had helped me into the boots even as my toes had begun to curl. ‘I’ll go first,’ said Paul – six foot plus, slim, toned, fit – ‘I’ll tie-up at top and you can follow me.’ I nodded. I had understood every single word he had said, right up until the bit about following him.

‘I can’t do that,’ I said – five foot seven, chunky, baggy, tired – ‘I think I may need the loo.’

‘Just watch what I do,’ said Paul. ‘Use the hand-holds that I use and I’ll talk you up from the top.’ With which he was gone, gazelle-like (Do I mean gazelle? I’ve a feeling that I may be thinking of a mountain goat. Anyway…) up the rockface, tied to nothing, but dangling a rope behind him. ‘It’s really easy,’ he said, from a height that made my head spin. ‘Other than the overhang, you’ll walk it.’ I think I might, at that moment, have expressed a very definite preference for the walking alternative, but it was not to be. Paul was at the top and beckoning me on. I moved to the rock with the kind of lead in my soul that you can only normally get by being tied to a barometer.

I looked up at the first handhold. I reached for the first handhold. I jumped at the first handhold. I could not reach the first handhold: it was definitely beyond my grasp. It presented, you might conclude, the ideal opportunity for packing up and going home, but people were watching and injured pride is very hard to swallow, so I looked around me for the answer. I dragged a small boulder to the foot of the cliff and stood on it. I could still not reach, so I fetched another rock, and then another. Eventually I was able to curl my fingers into the tiny fissure in the rock. Triumphant, I prepared to climb, even as an unfamiliar voice behind me chided, ‘You’re supposed to climb the rock, lad. Not build a f*cking staircase.’ I refused to turn. I gritted my teeth and I began my laborious, grimly determined ascent. The handholds were always just within my reach and the boots did offer grip where there really shouldn’t have been any. I was not feeling confident, but I did not feel death tapping quite so insistently on my shoulder until, probably half way up the face, I realised that, however I tried, I could not reach the next handhold. The fingers of my left hand became numb in their tiny, rocky lair whilst my right hand groped in vain for something to hold onto. My feet began to slip. My knees began, imperceptibly I thought, to shake.

Paul could sense my predicament, but could not fully see the position I was in. He remained calm as panic began to grip my soul. Paul would, I knew, climb down to me if he needed to, but I wasn’t sure what he would do when he got there. I sensed myself slowly taking an all-body limpet-grip on the rock-face. It could well take dynamite to move me. It was then that I started to hear voices. Few at first, but rapidly increasing in number, all offering advice on how to progress, some of which I somehow followed and found myself moving on just before my legs gave way completely. From that point, my pace increased and the scramble to the top became ever more ungainly but effective. I clambered over the brow and, after taking my first proper breath in about thirty minutes, I looked down. There was a lot of it. At the bottom of my little cliff the gathered gaggle of rock climbers gave me a spontaneous round of applause. I stood, unsteadily, and gave them a ‘thumbs up’, with a grin like rigor attached to my face, whilst I waited for my spirits to soar and my confidence to grow, but, sadly, neither occurred. What did occur was, ‘How do I get down?’ I asked Paul. ‘You abseil,’ he answered. I died a little.

Well, such was my desire to be back at base level that I did it, even, to my recollection, managing a little bounce here and there along the way. My tiny fan club watched on, shook me by the hand when I reached them, and dissipated instantly. I took my boots off quickly, lest Paul should appear at my side and encourage me to climb a more ‘exciting’ route. I reflected upon my achievement: I battled my fear and, with much encouragement from Paul and a handful of climbers who had recognized a bottle that was about to be lost, I won.

And now, I look at that photo on my board and I smile in recognition of a victory over myself and in the recollection that I have never climbed anything higher than a kerb from that day on…

There are only 3 real sports: bull-fighting, car racing and mountain climbing. All the others are mere games – Ernest Hemingway