One More Lamp Post
How I went from zero to 6 Km in six weeks
Writing about running is like sitting in the dock of the bay, being the Pacific. Runners don’t care for my view and non-runners should view me with care.
What began as a cavalier attitude to New Year Resolutions has just resulted in me, the anti-runner, completing 6Km. To put that into context, at the turn of the year, I chose tardiness over breathlessness – I couldn’t and therefore wouldn’t run for a bus. There’s nothing heroic about a sedentary, able-bodied 40 year old lawyer taking up running, but running was absolutely not my resolution. I simply thought that SMART resolutions were for borderline psychopaths and I needed something a little less granular. I decided that “mind resilience training” was nebulous enough to suit me splendidly. I have to make a resolution every year you see – being of Irish descent – I can be more superstitious than a troupe of psychic mediums in a field of magpies.
I awoke on 1 January feeling like the last person on the human centipede; the new year Prosecco wasn’t quite as status affirming as it had been before midnight. It was a day therefore for contemplating other people’s resolutions. Contemplation falls well within the auspices of mind resilience training, and I contemplated my relationship with the classic yet tawdry new year resolution – running.
Despite having been sporty in my youth; running had always eluded me. I saw it as nothing more than an ingredient, a component part of something bigger – defending the ball, a youthful mode of transport. I couldn’t “ just run” and so I didn’t.
Weight loss has been my only foray into running in my adult life. My singular success from numerous attempts with C25k apps that instruct you to dawdle for a minute then run for a minute, with incremental increases on the run, is that my expensive now five-year-old running trainers look and feel eternally brand new. I always gave up around the three week mark. The fact of the matter is, I am one of those people who is too cool to run. Far too stylish. I read philosophy and my music taste is eclectic. I am a pretentious wastrel. I’ve heard a gazillion athletes drone on about it all being in the mind but let’s face it; they don’t have Frank Zappa lyrics, David Lynch endings and Sisyphean stacks of ironing shooting across their frontal cortex before they’ve even hit the snooze button. It must be easy to run through so called pain barriers when the only effort of imagination you’re called on to make in a day is which tracksuit to wear.
Professional runners are horrifying on every level for someone like me; true giants of their sport certainly, but unless you’re looking for a career which is a never ending Physical Education lesson, they offer no flicker of inspiration. Carl Lewis or Carl Jung? Mary Decker or Mary J Blige? Damn I’d even take Linkin’ Park over Linford Christie. Nobody grows up wanting to be Mo Farah; a huge running talent but desperately banal man-child when you take him off the track. I prefer our preposterous sports stars like Eddie the Eagle or mavericks like Robin Friday and Eric Cantona.
So a hungover thought to try and run 1km wasn’t anything to do with running. It was a test of resilience. I wouldn’t have to sacrifice my standards. Being a lawyer I am, of course, on the cutting edge of science and I provided my own disclaimer that it was physically impossible for me not to be able to run 1km In fact, I think it’s probably physically impossible for an able bodied person not to be able to run anything under about 3km.
In this day and age you may be wondering how I have managed to avoid being infected by the fitness craze. It was just good luck. When I was at my most susceptible and being body conscious was mandatory, I’d simply glance in the mirror and pick up a glass of wine to turn the person looking back at me into something more bearable. I wouldn’t have been allowed to leave the house either, “Bad-Touch”, my partner before I escaped, wasn’t keen on me leaving the house unauthorised- if I told you his absolute best feature was his alcohol induced impotence you’ll get the idea. Booze, self-loathing and wife-beaters provide a remarkable inoculation against all the images of perfection that social media can throw at you. Not necessarily a remedy I would encourage though and anyway that’s all water under the bridge now.
My first attempt at 2019 resilience was therefore be to prove to myself that I could run this pitiful distance of 1Km and not give up. It had nothing to do with running. All I had to do was do something I had attempted numerous times but never actually completed – to run through the pain and not stop. Or rather, to keep on going – to be resilient. Being in the slipstream of recovery from PTSD, not surrendering to the first voice of defeat in my head was the objective; running merely the banal medium du jour.
So on January 2 off I stepped into the bear-pit – an odyssey to the very local store and back. A trip I have done a thousand times but never in skiing base layers and performance shoes ( I should caveat the ski attire – it’s for fly-fishing, I don’t actually ski and as the late Mr Lagerfeld said; “ sweatpants are a sign of defeat.” ). Trainers are the only piece of technical kit I shall mention in this blog, there’s no performance gloves or moisture-wicking fabric and for these omissions you should be grateful.
Within seconds of setting off I was titanically bored. The boredom was swiftly alleviated by self-disgust that I wasn’t going to finish. Then the tautness of my anti-running mind dripped into my legs. Lungs swelled, death beckoned and the familiar voice yelling to try again tomorrow almost betrayed me. Almost. I observed the pain but did not embrace it because this was about resilience and not running. Had I decided to run, rather than be resilient, I would have stopped after a minute. But I was app-less and hapless. “One more lamp post” was my mantra, on repeat ad nauseum. It was over in a matter of minutes.
I cannot stress this enough. It is nigh on impossible not to run 1km. It is a deeply ingrained mental untruth that has always made me believe I don’t have the physical fitness to run for five minutes. I have subsequently shoe-horned this mistaken belief into a prejudice that running, along with golf, is for culturally bereft half wits. This, I now know is incorrect, running is mental freedom and golf is for quarter-wits. It’s really that simple.
Set your distance – know your route and take it one lamp post at a time. Just one more lamp post. I travel at the dreary speed of a Jane Austen novel but within six weeks, going twice a week, I can now run 6Km. Physical fitness flows from the mental resilience; not the other way round. Dare I say I enjoy it? I’m not actually running that’s why. I’m not a runner you see. I’m an idle resilience trainer which,as it happens, simply releases the same endorphins as running and has made my mind sharper and energy levels soar. That doesn’t make me a runner. Oh forgive me; I promise I will finish In Search Of Lost Time before I start my marathon ( resilience) training. The key is to set the route first, know exactly where you’re going and just don’t stop. You cannot not run short distances – it really is that simple. Then add about half a kilometre each time. Visualise the route before you go ( easier said than done) and just don’t bloody stop.
One More Lamp Post – either the Tommy-Rot-Woo-Woo train has just arrived in the station of my mind or I’ve liberated running from those suspicious folk who don’t wear denim. There’s a fine line between the two and I know which side I’m on because the proof’s in the ever decreasing pudding. Just don’t call me a runner.
