I have just finished reading ‘Running like a Girl’ by Alexandra Heminsley and feel like a born again runner. I did ’13k-in-a-day’ on Sunday despite the fact that my meta-physical state could only be best described as like a bowl of leftover sick being warmed up in a microwave. My 10k time that evening was 64.5 minutes and my 3k time that morning was 15 minutes.
I read the 1984 edition of Steve Ovett (he was gold medalist in the 800 metres at the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow, and set world records for 1500 metres and the mile run) out of curiosity, sometime in the early 90s and that did not make me want to run. I was sold that Ovett was a hero and a legend but it left me with no interest in running.
However, I thoroughly enjoyed Hemmo’s experience with the mad majesty of all things track and field. I could relate to all of it, although my experience with ‘what’s the fucking point of running so f*ck it’ days were never shared with friends around the table and I have never eaten a lasagne before a midnight run. Myths were shattered. Shameful feelings of inadequacy and over-imaginative anxieties were exposed. It made me want to eat carbs again! I AM TEAM HEMMO!!! I did 10K in 1 hour and 3 minutes whilst I devoured ‘Running like a Girl’ (not at the same time mind)! That’s 3 minutes shy of my goal of 10K in 1 hour – whooooopmfh! I had stopped believing that I could run. It turns out that the loud and out-of-tune Carribean-steel-drum ant-bands in my knees is nothing to worry about! That’s just crepititus. At the moment an hour or so of running,with a good pair of Asics, will do me no harm: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-bTMbePj0A
I’m running a 10K fun run for Guernsey MIND at the weekend (carb loading like a hot dog at a BBQ in preparation!) and reminiscing about the first time I started out. I would run along the cliff paths in Guernsey and be frequently overtaken by athletic men and grandads. Once I think Jenson Button lapped me twice around St Saviours reservoir! He was running in an expensive ‘wet-dri’ suit and looked like a movie star (this was at the time that Jenson Button lived in Guernsey). But it was the older generation of runner that I copied because they made it look so easy. The olympic Bond giraffes that blurred right by me were seemed unreal and unattainable. I do run like a grandad and I’m ok with that.
On the 3k colour run that I did earlier this year I divided the crowd in the same way that Suzanne Collins described the tributes in ‘The Hunger Games.’ The runners that led the pack were like ‘career tributes,’ they were athletic perfection and ran past all of the fun-runners sweat and care free. They were in a league of their own. I’m not a career runner yet. I am a free-runner! Although I do use a garmin when I’m outdoors as I like to remember what I have achieved.
One moment, along the cliff tops, when I had lost the will to keep running, I remember watching a woman, who was out walking her dog, pause at the foot of a large set of steps. She stopped, she psyched herself up Rocky Balboa style and sprinted all the way up the steps! So, I started to do that. At the time I would tell myself that if I made it all the way up to the top, without stopping, that I would win something back (like luck or hope). It worked. Hemmo brought it home to me that running is all in the mind. My life did improve in line with my time and distance along those cliff paths. I learned, along those big, bad, ugly cliff paths, that if my thoughts were positive I could run longer and faster. If my thoughts were negative and all doom and gloom, I would truffle shuffle to a walk or collapse on a bench for twenty minutes in a catatonic deep depression. It’s all in the mind. You can run! And I am eternally grateful for that gift. My ‘F*ck it all’ days are numbered.
The Bardo Retreat 