A Sedentary Life

It was a tiny moment. In some ways like glimpsing a passing reflection of yourself, in a shop window, and seeing yourself as if you were a stranger and realising you look slightly different than your normal self image.

I decided to clear my desk. Not a momentous event, just something that has to be done periodically when my effective working area becomes too reduced by piles of stuff I accumulate. Then everything has to be swept away as I have an overwhelming desire for open space. Yesterday, after I had finished, I looked with satisfaction at a worktop with only a computer screen, keyboard, mouse, notebook and pen. I sat down and felt happy. It was then that the tiny moment of insight and realised how much of my time is spent sitting down. Damn I thought, there is no way round it, I lead a sedentary life.

My self image is of being quite active, someone who enjoys a certain amount of physical challenge and the satisfaction that comes from justified tiredness. In short: someone who runs. But in terms of time this is small beer - most of the time I sit.

I don't know what to do with this insight. I don't know whether I ought to spend more time on easy runs, cycle rides or just being outdoors or whether I ought to be more generally active. At the very least I ought to be aware of my posture, because what you do for most of the day is bound to have a great impact on you body form. I will have to look afresh at the physical component of my whole day, rather than focusing on the bits I enter into my running diary. In other words think about health in general.


Postscript

Whilst I was sitting around thinking these things I came across this article on Jerry Morris. It is based on an interview given a shortly before his death and is quite inspiring. He is an obviously great figure (though perhaps little known outside his speciality) who is important to all of us mid-pack runners and general exercisers because he was the first person to show the link between vigorous exercise and a reduction of heart disease. The piece is titled 'The man who invented exercise' and so we obviously owe him debt.

An Unexpected Reminder

Last Sunday was really dark. As everything was falling away I wondered why I spent so much time not only running but thinking about running. It was all a waste as I was achieving nothing. How could I say it was good when there was only struggle?

These thoughts were worst around half way, when it would have been easy to abandon as the course is a squashed figure of eight, and the end seemed a long way away. But as one foot followed another the distance gradually reduced and I knew I could finish and by doing so find some consolation: prove to myself that I could at least carry-on. Important because I have always believed that all the benefits of running flow from the simple act of keeping going. Consistency is everything.

So I finished and rested and as the feeling of physical weakness receded my spirits started to lift. On Saturday I read this poem in the Guardian and for some strange reason they lifted even more. I know that the metaphor of the marathon is one of the most common in the language (and applied to almost everything) but as I read it here it became inverted: I was the marathon man and the metaphor was the ageing poet. When I thought of 'the first flower in the world' or the 'original bird' I thought not of verse but of the excitement of those early days of running when everything seemed fresh and clear.

My continuing project is to try to maintain that sense of clarity. And this poem brought me back to my purpose. It also reminded me that the only way to see the flower and hear the bird is to be outside, with your senses opened up.

Oh and I also like the idea of being a rowdy at deaths door for whom the last moment is not too late

Some Older American Poets
Borders Bookstore, White Plains, NY


Tired of the accomplished young men
and the accomplished young women,
their neat cerebral arcs and sphinctral circles,
their impeccable chic, their sudden precocious surge,
their claims to be named front-runner,
I have turned to the ageing poets – the marathon men,
the marathon women – the ones who breasted the tape
and simply ran on, establishing their own distance.
Home after another funeral they walk by the pond
with a sense of trees thinning and cold in the air,
yet thrill to the dog's passionate slapstick,
his candid arse-up in the debris of last year's storms.
You sprightly mortals, you rowdies at death's door,
for whom the last moment is not too late to begin!
I can't get enough of you, bright-eyed and poetry mad
in the fields next to the cemetery, where you drop to your knees
before the first flower in the world, where you lift your heads
to that bare cry among brambles, the original bird.

Frank Ormsby from Fireflies.
Published in the Guardian 17th October

Henley Half

Enough time has passed since Sunday's race to allow me to develop a certain amount of detachment and not dissolve into a puddle of damp-eyed self-pity.

It was bad and most of the time I was my mind was completely filled with thoughts like: 'I am not enjoying this.' 'This is not fun.' 'What am I doing?' 'When will this be over?' For me the race was about survival and not quitting; rescuing a certain amount of self respect through stubbornness. It shouldn't have been that way but sometimes things conspire and all you can do is just get through.

The background is very simple. I made a late decision to run the race and although I had not trained specifically for it I was in fairly good shape and was confident I could give it a good crack. I completely ignored being surrounded by sickness and people coughing and spluttering: why should I catch anything?. On Friday I was not at all worried; in fact I so relaxed I wanted to find a butcher's dog just to compare fitness levels. However by Saturday the outlook changed as I started coughing.

I had a decision to make. Things were not too bad, I wasn't dying and I do so few races I didn't want to abandon. Once signed-up that's it. On the other hand what is the point if you are unwell? It does no good and nobody is let-down if you don't turn-up. What is more the time, if you do run, is meaningless. Common sense says no, stupidity says yes. So I, of course, went with stupidity.

Once that was decided everything else then fell into place by going wrong. All the little things multiplied until nothing was right. It started with being a little late leaving and getting stuck in the frozen traffic of Henley. Nothing was moving and it was getting nearer and nearer start time and all the time I was getting anxious so that my judgement was completely clouded as I rushed to the start to collect my number and so left the safety pins in the car and had to go back. The toilets, of course had huge queues and I was desperate for a pee but there was a hedge, so that was OK. (One of the interesting differences between races in England and Canada is that in Canada peeing outside is seen as anti-social, but they provide a lot of portable toilets. In England there is always a line of men peeing I a hedge). Anyway I managed to get to the start but found I had left my heart rate strap at home - not an essential but I like to use it in the first 20 minutes to make sure I start at an easy pace. Just another indication that it was not going to be my day.

The race started and immediately I knew it would be difficult. Although I could keep my legs going, they had no strength. Right from the beginning I started to wonder whether I could finish. In one ear was the siren voice telling me to give up and in the other was the voice of duty telling me to resist temptation and not give in. My only tactic was to keep a rhythm but not push anything: circle the legs and just keep moving forward. This worked for the first half but at 8 miles there is a hill that goes on and on and on. It is tough and I could not run it at all. I knew it was beyond me and so I had to trudge slowly to the top. After that the downhill was fun and the run to the end flat but all my energy reserves were completely spent.

It was a slow time, slower than the halfway point in any marathon I have run but at least I finished. In terms of my self esteem that was ridiculously important. I had to prove to myself that I could finish what I had started. I took consolation from the fact that I did.

Since then I have been ill, coughing continually, throat torn and sore, head achy and dull, with time passing in a muzzy haze (which is the main reason I haven't written this report sooner). I think it will be a couple of weeks before I attempt any type of exercise. I will ease back with some slow easy runs to remind myself that running can be enjoyable and life enhancing. Then I will take myself to one side to tell myself that just because I run it does not mean I have to be stupid as well. After which the experience of Sunday will then have been assimilated and I will move on.

I might even do the race again next year because, paradoxically I would recommend the Henley Half. It might not be a course for a PB, because of the hill, but the scenery is pretty, the course interesting, I love the river and the challenge of the hill is character building.

Waiting for the Weekend

At the moment I am busy doing almost nothing, or to put it another way: I am in the middle of a half-arsed taper. Yes I have a race coming up, with little or no sensible planning and certainly no schedule to bring me to a peak of physical perfection, I can at least I can do the right thing and take it easy in the last week.

It was ever thus with my races: either a total lack of planning or schedules falling apart due to injury or illness! Sensible people plan their racing calendar, know well ahead where they are going to be so that they can train properly and perform at their best. Others are less disciplined and wake up one morning knowing that if they don't do something quickly the year will disappear without a single medal or memento. Dear reader that disorganised person is me.

Last week I decided it would be a nice idea to try a race on the same day as my sister, the 11th, when she is once again running the Victoria Half Marathon (my account of running that marathon last year are ,here, here, and here). The Henley half marathon had places available and so with a click of a button I was in, on a whim. Apparently it is mainly flat but with a hill at mile eight. Hmm that will be interesting. I have not been doing much hill training: another example of being slightly under prepared.

My sister and brother-in-law, on the other hand, are both very methodical in their training, know what they are doing and encourage each other to keep on track. They will run well and I am sure they will feature well in their age categories. Alongside them I feel rather haphazard but not at all downhearted. I run fairly consistently so should not be in too bad a shape (even if not in tip top form I should be able to get round OK) and there is something about doing things on the spur of the moment that I like.

So bring on Sunday and good luck to anybody else doing a race that day (especially the Royal Parks half).

The House as an Expression of Identity

Yes I know that we all display our identity in all sorts of ways: the clothes we wear, the products we buy, the places we go; and I also know that most of us devote a lot of time to fixing up our houses so that they reflect our tastes and aspirations. But you have to tip your hat to someone who will boldly decorate the outside of their house to demonstrate their interests to the passing world.

Yesterday I discovered this rather wonderful house when out cycling. I love the moulded panels. They look so much like illustrations from a Victorian comic I can imagine the way a line drawing would be embedded in a story of sporting valour (probably involving a public school and self sacrifice for the sake of the team). I have no further information about them - there was no one about to ask and I have found nothing on Google. I don't know if they are original or added more recently. I don't know if they were a one off or there are more houses like this. I know nothing apart from what I can see from the road.

It is however something I can add to my list of Hertfordshire curiosities. I can put an X on the map at Bricket Wood (which deserves another mention because it is the home of the UK's oldest nudist resort: Spielplatz).

P.S. Until I wrote the last sentence I had no idea I had a list of Hertfordshire curiosities but if I worked on it, such a list might even bare comparison the Anthology of Huntingdonshire Cabmen

It can hardly be claimed for the newly published Anthology of Huntingdonshire Cabmen that it is, in the words of an over-enthusiastic critic, 'a masterpiece of imaginative literature'. The Anthology consists of the more striking names (with initials) from each of the three volumes. It is a factual and unemphatic work, and the compiler has skinned the cream from the lists. Here are such old favourites as Whackfast, E.W., Fodge, S., and Nurthers, P.L. The index is accurate, and the introduction by Cabman Skinner is brief and workmanlike.