Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, ‘cause I failed me bloody run.
A little poem there that I wrote for W. H. Auden back in the 1930’s. He mucked about with it since and, in my opinion, got a little detached from the original sentiment.
It’s been a while. How’s everyone doing? Running marathons without breaking a knicker-sweat I imagine. All the time I’ve been sat here, idling away in a yellowing string vest and a pair of ‘Y’ fronts with a knot tied in the side to compensate for the bygone elastic.
I’ve got a can of Special Brew in one hand and I’m gesticulating at Jeremy Kyle with a lit cigarette in the other. Needless to say, I’ve fallen by the wayside.
Now, cast your mind back to the grainy, black-and-white days of February 2019. Things were going well for your lovable idiot, Paul. He was charging through week 6 like it ain’t no thang, gearing up for the baying monster that is the 25-minuter.
I had my Mizuno Vimove Analysis session booked, which I thought would be conducted in some kind of underground, futuristic laboratory.
I’d be asked to strip down to my keks, smothered in sensors and placed in some giant hamster wheel all under the quizzical gaze of a dozen white-coat donning scientists, armed with clipboards. A hologram of myself would be projected next to me, with patches of green, amber and red light sporadically flashing on different parts of my body as it bowed, flexed and pumped throughout the exertion. A robot arm would be slowly lowered from the ceiling and would place sets of hyper-charged trainers next to me, still hot from the forge, ready for me to Guinea pig.
As it was, I was greeted by a spotty kid who could’ve been on bob-a-job, wearing tracky-bottoms and a t-shirt. Not very scientific at all. I gave him the benefit of the doubt and assumed it was Mufty Day.
He laced me up in some standard-support, off the rack running shoes. I lifted each foot in turn and studied them carefully, before asking what their super-powers were. He just raised his eyebrows and politely asked me to hop-up on The Treadmill.
As in previous posts, this piece of equipment scares me more than medieval tortureware, but I was surprised that it (other than being duller than a priest’s pant-drawer) was pretty harmless. Once I got myself sync’d with the speed and focussed on a street sign outside, it was all pretty ordinary. As were the results.
It turns out that I’m not wonky. I thought my legs flapped around like half-boiled spaghetti when I ran, and that I bobbed and stumbled like a drunkard, but all the data said that I was actually…normal.
I’m sure there are a few people in my life that would disagree.
I tried a few pairs of different running shoes on for 2 minutes each on the treadmill and found the only ones I didn’t get along with were a pair with added support on the instep as my feet felt like baying protestors, clashing with riot police, but every pair I tried on, the analysis showed that everything was hunky-dory. I run straight and pretty even with a fairly good technique. A bit more force travels through my left leg than my right, but nothing that needs to be immediately corrected.
Good news, right? Wrong. Well, from my perspective anyway, but I will concede that I tend to see the world through the arse-end of a spoon.
I’d convinced myself, more through hope than anything else, that my knee issues (knee-gate) was caused by running style and could be corrected and eradicated by bespoke footwear. Turns out the running shoes aren’t the advanced, highly sophisticated bits of kit that I thought they were. I thought I’d be strapping into something that could’ve had Stephen Hawkins up and about. Alas, no, just a pair of run-of-the-mill (albeit in a snazzy blue) running shoes, which still left me with a bit of a dodgy knee that (who knew?) needed a rest.
Tricky customers, ligaments.
I still went for my run in the afternoon though. That comes with the territory of being stubborn. It was Friday afternoon (I had the day off work) so I dropped littl’un off at nursery and had a couple of hours to myself so I formulated a new route down the beach and set off in my glad-rags.
I’ve been around this route umpteen times throughout my life. Where did all those hills come from? I’m sure they weren’t there before? It’s funny what you only notice when you’re beetrooting up and gasping as if you’ve just been water-boarded.
I was struggling even before the knee twanged. Actually, a deep, cowardice part of me was possibly even thankful when it did. I was just over halfway through my run when the pavement turned into an assault course; it dipped, swooped and listed, thrashing me about like a stricken ship in a storm.
Twang is a bit of an overstatement for what my knee did, but it certainly gave a sharp pinch a few steps in a row, and then it got harder and harder to lift my heel. It got to a point where I felt like I was in a three-legged race with an invisible corpse. I had to stop suddenly for a car that barged out unexpectedly over the pavement and just couldn’t get the thing started again. I couldn’t lift my left foot off the ground and the worst thing about it was that I was a mile away from where I had parked, so had to shuffle and scrape along the walk of shame, past a constant throng of runners that were so brightly clad they would’ve made a Gay Pride march look drab.
Golf has a reputation for people dressing like eccentric farmers, runners seems to be the personification of a 60’s acid trip.
The next day, I couldn’t swing my left leg into the car unaided and the wife caught me. I can stubbornly ignore the sage advice from you lot, from running shop bob-a-jobbers and physios, but once the beloved caught wind of it, I went and got myself grounded. And remained so for the last 2 weeks.
I bought some of that over-the-counter-only anti-inflammatory cream which seems to have worked wonders. That’s the one where, on the advert, she’s all arthritic one minute, then she’s off tandem biking and tango dancing with an unshaven Spaniard the next. There are worse side-effects out there, I suppose. I’m not overly grateful for the stubble-rash, but other than that, Miguel was gentlemanly enough.
Two weeks dragged by like a plough-horse with no hind legs. Without this magic running fairy-dust being sprinkled over me three times-a-week, I seemed to regress into some old behaviours that I was so keen to shake. I seriously need to get back on the wagon. No running turns Paul into the love-child of Jim Royle and Waynetta Slob.
I bided my time, but then went and got myself infected by some warped, mutated super-cold. Blimey, I’m surprised my sinuses haven’t had a haematoma from the snot build-up. I’m a kilo lighter whenever I blow my nose. I’ve given up on Kleenex and switched to Pampers. It’s one of those chesty ones too where coughing in public can be a dangerous act. Especially if you need the loo.
But, anyway, house-arrest is over and I’m over the worst of this lurgey. I’ve got some snazzy blue running shoes that are currently more neglected than a council house lawn.
It won’t be tonight. It may not be tomorrow. But, one evening this week…
…she sits on her favourite park bench, whiling away the afternoon, lost in a book. Winter and spring battle for control of the elements. The birds flutter to-and-from various perches as they chirp carefree. A squirrel ventures into the foreground and sits upwards momentarily as it sniffs the air.
Bliss, she thinks.
The sun portentously becomes veiled by a cloud. A chill creeps in as the ambient glow is replaced by a stony hue. The animals quickly vanish up trees. A scurry of footsteps approach and quickly pass. One person. Then two more. Then a crowd.
“What’s going on?” Asks the woman, closing her book. No one answers.
One person darts into a house and slams the door, another hides in a bin. The rest are already out of view. She is alone once more.
She hears a distant wheeze, like a rake being dragged across concrete. She swallows hard, “Oh no…”
New Shoes, Week 2 done and dusty but feel bit flat
seeing the light at the end of the tunnel
#NEWSHOES - graduation present!
W1R1 - let's see if I can keep this going?
