This morning yours truly, along with another three hundred or so souls will be charging off round the course of the Ormskirk 10k.Not an overly momentous occasion, every weekend tens of thousands involve themselves in a competitive race of some ilk. But I'm up early due to a youngest son's determination to play with lego, and he has no interest in me joining in, so as is often the case on these occasions my mind begins to wander, and what with the impending race I've started thinking about running, about what it means to me.
Now, as a young boy I wasn't particularly sporty, I had a passing interest in it but no more, I was, however, fond of cake. And books. And being left alone in a quiet corner to eat and read same. The end result of which doesn't really need spelling out, suffice to say that by the time I had begun to notice that there were creatures called "girls" I wasn't really in much of a condition for them to notice me, other than,perhaps, to hide any cake they may have about their person. I wasn't entirely sure how to rectify this until one day, almost entirely out of the blue, I decided to go for a run.
I was watching some athletics, in the absence of anything else particularly compelling to do (it was a Sunday, it was rural Cornwall); and whilst I had always known, in an abstract sense that regular exercise helps with physical condition it was only whilst watching this that the penny dropped. The guy was running. I could do that. I may not be able to kick a football in the right direction, I may go out to bat more in hope than expectation, but I was pretty sure I could put one foot in front of the other at slightly faster than a walk. For a bit, at least. If nothing else I could try, I had to try.
So moments later I was out of the house, and wheezing my way ignominiously up a bastard of a hill (Cornwall, remember). Not a stellar beginning, true, but a beginning nonetheless, and what do you know, I came to enjoy it. Not merely for the disappearance of waistline but for myriad other reasons. Solitude, time to think, general calm and serenity, scenery (Cornwall), all the usual guff. Truisms are truisms for a reason. .I became a regular runner, and as it turned out not quite the sporting dunce I'd always imagined myself to be. I even received flickers of interest from the odd "girl" (now, it's screamingly obvious that this was more an increase in self-confidence thing, duh, but you think back to your teenage years, did you think with any degree of self-reflection, WELL DID YOU? No, no you did not, and nor did I). All to the good.
I kept it up for a good few years after moving away from Kernow, dutifully pounding my way round the pavements of prestigious West Lancashire (not as much in the way of scenery, to be fair), but as adulthood kicked in properly,so the running began to fade out of my life. Never completely, but it became the tiniest of footnotes, the odd jog every couple of weeks. Then, of course came the great cataclysms of 2007, the birth of my first son, the opening of my business and the destruction therefore of anything even remotely approaching free time for the foreseeable future as a result. The running dwindled further.
Until a horrible evening about eighteen months ago when a fat, drunk man elbowed his wife and said, loudly "Don't be eyeing him up, I know you like fat blokes". I looked around, surely he couldn't be referring to me? He was. I was a Fat Bloke. I had slid disastrously out of condition, one pint at a time. I looked at myself properly for the first time in years, and to be brutally honest was not a fan of what I saw. Having always been a fairly healthy and energetic sort of bloke, even now, I had been able to convince myself that I was in reasonable nick, which was, patently, not the case.
Now it is entirely possible that a change of lifestyle would have effected the necessary changes. I am overly fond of a bottle of wine, true, and unlikely still to refuse cake, should cake be had. I'm a chef, I like to feed and to be fed. I like to cook and I like to eat. I could maybe tone these impulses down a little, but frankly I don't want to be one of those people who resists every urge. Saints preserve us from the holy. I like being able to say yes to things. I like to cook with butter. I like breast of lamb, chicken skin, pork belly. This state of affairs is unlikely to change, nor do I want it to.
So I turned back to my old friend, running. I saw that there was a 10k in ormskirk and aimed to complete it and not disgrace myself in the process. I forced myself up out of bed at quarter to six every morning to give myself time to get a run in before the kids needed getting ready. And duly I managed it, not a great deal lighter, but a little fitter I managed to wheeze my way around in a little under an hour.
So the running is back in my life, as I crossed the finishing line last year I swore I'd be back this, and do better. I'm certainly a good whack lighter, so it is to be hoped I shall. I've kept up the early mornings and in doing so I've got a part of myself back. Reclaimed a portion of life as my own. That's what running means to me.
Now, as a young boy I wasn't particularly sporty, I had a passing interest in it but no more, I was, however, fond of cake. And books. And being left alone in a quiet corner to eat and read same. The end result of which doesn't really need spelling out, suffice to say that by the time I had begun to notice that there were creatures called "girls" I wasn't really in much of a condition for them to notice me, other than,perhaps, to hide any cake they may have about their person. I wasn't entirely sure how to rectify this until one day, almost entirely out of the blue, I decided to go for a run.
I was watching some athletics, in the absence of anything else particularly compelling to do (it was a Sunday, it was rural Cornwall); and whilst I had always known, in an abstract sense that regular exercise helps with physical condition it was only whilst watching this that the penny dropped. The guy was running. I could do that. I may not be able to kick a football in the right direction, I may go out to bat more in hope than expectation, but I was pretty sure I could put one foot in front of the other at slightly faster than a walk. For a bit, at least. If nothing else I could try, I had to try.
So moments later I was out of the house, and wheezing my way ignominiously up a bastard of a hill (Cornwall, remember). Not a stellar beginning, true, but a beginning nonetheless, and what do you know, I came to enjoy it. Not merely for the disappearance of waistline but for myriad other reasons. Solitude, time to think, general calm and serenity, scenery (Cornwall), all the usual guff. Truisms are truisms for a reason. .I became a regular runner, and as it turned out not quite the sporting dunce I'd always imagined myself to be. I even received flickers of interest from the odd "girl" (now, it's screamingly obvious that this was more an increase in self-confidence thing, duh, but you think back to your teenage years, did you think with any degree of self-reflection, WELL DID YOU? No, no you did not, and nor did I). All to the good.
I kept it up for a good few years after moving away from Kernow, dutifully pounding my way round the pavements of prestigious West Lancashire (not as much in the way of scenery, to be fair), but as adulthood kicked in properly,so the running began to fade out of my life. Never completely, but it became the tiniest of footnotes, the odd jog every couple of weeks. Then, of course came the great cataclysms of 2007, the birth of my first son, the opening of my business and the destruction therefore of anything even remotely approaching free time for the foreseeable future as a result. The running dwindled further.
Until a horrible evening about eighteen months ago when a fat, drunk man elbowed his wife and said, loudly "Don't be eyeing him up, I know you like fat blokes". I looked around, surely he couldn't be referring to me? He was. I was a Fat Bloke. I had slid disastrously out of condition, one pint at a time. I looked at myself properly for the first time in years, and to be brutally honest was not a fan of what I saw. Having always been a fairly healthy and energetic sort of bloke, even now, I had been able to convince myself that I was in reasonable nick, which was, patently, not the case.
Now it is entirely possible that a change of lifestyle would have effected the necessary changes. I am overly fond of a bottle of wine, true, and unlikely still to refuse cake, should cake be had. I'm a chef, I like to feed and to be fed. I like to cook and I like to eat. I could maybe tone these impulses down a little, but frankly I don't want to be one of those people who resists every urge. Saints preserve us from the holy. I like being able to say yes to things. I like to cook with butter. I like breast of lamb, chicken skin, pork belly. This state of affairs is unlikely to change, nor do I want it to.
So I turned back to my old friend, running. I saw that there was a 10k in ormskirk and aimed to complete it and not disgrace myself in the process. I forced myself up out of bed at quarter to six every morning to give myself time to get a run in before the kids needed getting ready. And duly I managed it, not a great deal lighter, but a little fitter I managed to wheeze my way around in a little under an hour.
So the running is back in my life, as I crossed the finishing line last year I swore I'd be back this, and do better. I'm certainly a good whack lighter, so it is to be hoped I shall. I've kept up the early mornings and in doing so I've got a part of myself back. Reclaimed a portion of life as my own. That's what running means to me.
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