Running out of time

There are many things I dislike. Most of them involve activities steeped in principle and hard work. Stuff from whichthere is no place to hide, nosniping from the sidelines, noswerving through clever words.

Occasionally this intersects with two wheels leaving me wrestlinga difficult juxtaposition between good fun and proper effort. Not running tho – that’s a hateful activity carried out by those missing a bicycle in their life. Any personal dabbling with the Devil’s Treadmill generally leaves me bored, injured and entirely bereft of this mythical ‘Runners High‘ pitched by those with product to sell.

I only have two issues with running; 1- it’s impossible to buy your way into any level of adequacy and 2-it’s entirely unsuited for a man of my physical decrepitude. Mountain bikers crash and hurt themselves, occasionally they crock a knee or strain a muscle in pursuit of laudable goals. Runners are basically injuries waiting for somewhere to happen. Having read a few forums, I’m staggered we don’t pass hundreds of weekend joggers lying supine on the roadside raising a last working limb in a vain attempt toattract attention.

No point in responding. Just encourages them. On revival there’ll be some loquacious diatribe on how a lack of mid-sole support stuttered a stride pattern previously perfected by video analysis. Sure I said you can’t buy yourself into faking joggery, but this in no ways stops thosebankrupting themselvestrying.

In my day – and I accept this was quite a long time ago – you’d add a pair of trainers to your football kit before vaguely acceleratinground the playing field under the hateful whistle of the PE teacher. Up front would be three blokes in vests clearly channeling Chariots Of Fire, while the mid pack churned mud in grumpy apathy leaving those’challenged’pupilsout back acting as lap markers.

Guess which group had a gasping Al in? I’m uniquely misconfigured for running. Short legs – once memorably described as ‘He’s a six foot man from the waist up and a dwarf from the hips down‘ – shorter hamstrings and a respiratory system permanently restricted by chronic Asthma.

And that’s before we switch mental gears to my aforementioned inability to get with the worthy programme. Sure hard graftpays offthe long term, but cheating works right now. With any payoffbuttressed by a month of abject misery slogging through the horror of a Northern winter, my excuses book bulged with many reasons why this wasn’t for me.

It hasn’t changedmuch since. A few desultory jogs when there was nothing on the TV. Occasional terrifying flashbacks when latter day football coaches insisted on laps of another muddy field, and a few 100 yard sprints to out-run some angry stove-faced individual keen to smash my face in.*

Until this morning. Nursing my first proper hangover of 2016 whilefocussing almost 100{45ac9c3234d371044e23e276755ef3a4dde8f1068375defba7d385ca3cd4deb2} of my bodily functions to digesting a massive bacon sandwich, some random brain fart gave wind to the idea that a quick jog might be a good idea. On reflection it was a terribly bad idea, hard to know how I could have chosen less wisely? Maybe spent that 30 minutes nail gunning my thighs**

Being an equipment faddy, you may be surprised that I kitted myself out in an outfit starkly reminiscent of thosehated Wednesday afternoons some thirty years past- T-Shirt, pair of ragged shorts, pristine Gym Trainers (bought on a whim during a delusional period where I considered going to one) and my trusty BitFat.

A little subsequent research suggests things have moved on a bit. I was consumed by a fit of giggles on scanning a running forum where two fat people argued endlessly over which£200 shoes were the ultimate running accessories. Then considered the bicycling equivalentof the samein the ShedOfDreams(tm) beforenodding to my virtual kindred spirits.

So I stared slowly and worked down from there. My plan was to run for thirty minutes in an effort to cover five kilometres. On the plus side, this doesn’t even really qualify as running, it’s more of a brisk jog to fetch the papers. On the negative plane, the roads were under water and my running gait closely matches that of a hungry chicken in sight of a tasty leftover.

I tried extending my stride beyond a desperate hobble onceit became apparent I’d barelyreach the end of the drive at the current rate of progress. This resulted inmy legshurting a lot withoutnoticeably increasing velocity. So I switched to shifting those feet a little faster which just leftme very knackered, very quickly.

It quickly became apparent that my ‘limp home mode’ pace was as good as it was going to get. For the first twenty minutes, the scenery passed by extremely slowly while I managed boredom and soaking feet. The last ten minutes had all of that pushed somewhat into the background by stiffening muscles and twinging knees.

On seeing the house, rather than go with my first thought which was to lie in the road and genuflect my thanks for survival agains the odds, I sprinted to get the bloody thing over with. Nothing, and I mean NOTHING, in my entire skeletal setup liked that very much at all.

So much so I slumped in the shed, while Strava mockedmy 10 minute mile pace, perspiring greatly and wondering if this harsh clicking of bones could ever be a good thing. Took me a while to get in the shower on the not unreasonable grounds the bathroom is located above a difficult set of stairs.

I’m running out of time. This is a young mans activity. Any marginal gains to my fitness will be negated by important body parts seizing up or breaking down. I’ve given it a go and shall now consider it closure against some troubling childhood memories.

Except I sort of enjoyed it. For a while anyway. There’s a simplicity to merely strapping on a pair of shoes and going outside that’s mildly appealing. And now I’ve immersed myself in the world of the modern runner, there is clearly much in the shiny / nebulous realmto be acquired.

First things first tho, before I consider running again, I’d best make sure I can walk in the morning. 50/50 chance at best.

*you may be surprised to hear it really is only a few. Most of the time I could talk myself out of trouble. The rest of the time I sort of talked myself into it 😉

**similar result. Saved myself some nails.

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