Running – Page 4 – Getting On

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.

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.

Tag: Running

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

To Dream of Couscous – Couch to 5k week 4