Running Away From the Truth

I’ve run with you on my back a few times now.   No additional weight, just your name safety-pinned on as insurance that I won’t wilt in the tough stages, won’t let you down.  You mean too much to me.

And, if I keep on running, I won’t have to sit still and think about you too much.

I’ve heard it said that in Africa there is a saying that you die twice.  Once when your body dies and twice when people forget you. If that is true, you will live a long, long life. You will out run me.

For a non-runner you are a great pace maker.  You never flag, you never sprint off, you never leave me alone. You manage to talk while we run.  To an on-looker I might cut a solitary figure, but I don’t feel alone.  I moan about being burnt out and you chuckle and remind me that I can’t be that burnt out if I can still jog 10 miles.  You send the rain to soak off my tears and the odd rainbow to remind me to blend some sunshine with my salty waterfalls.

I miss you and you are a constant stitch in my side.  When you were physically here, you braved all weathers to stand on the sidelines and yell support, even when your body was giving up the race. I’m not convinced that I supported you from the sidelines enough.  I sat by your side when you let me, stroked your tired calves, but I wish now that I’d foisted myself on you more often and ignored your orders to get on with living. I pity party all those lost opportunities to share your  best time.

You even paced yourself around my running, waited for an anaesthetising post-run glow before you hinted that life was dealing you a negative split and that I needed to find a new training partner.  I ignored your training advice, kept on running too fast, rather than tempering down to a jog to enjoy our last laps together. You made your transition to wheel chair with all the dignity you could muster and thanked me for my support.  We joked that now you had wheels you could overtake me, but we refused to articulate what my getting left behind might mean.  Refused to discuss that you had lost your legs for this race.

You were walking out of my life, but I was running away from the truth, desperate to see your footprints still.

And now you walk, gently jog besides me. You’re still very much on your second life, for, the longer you have been gone from us, the stronger your voice has become.  It’s good to hear you getting your breath back.  Good to know that your footprint on my life is that voice of integrity, challenging me not to quit, forcing me to find a personal best even when I howl that my personal best was our friendship.

 I will run in your wake always.

Don't Stop Me Now!

Don’t stop me now!

Her dream was to run marathons.  Not lycra-clad and personally trained, just slow, long distance marathons.  Really slow.  Slow enough to merit walking long stretches and taking in the crowds; floating in the camaraderie – grinning from gorgeous ear to gorgeous ear.

Even the training now seemed worth it, that gruelling schedule of kicking the wall down on a daily basis and sticking two fingers up at Fate and miserable bystanders en route. 

She was not grinding to the halt that some had expected, in fact, she was running away from the grind and she belly-laughed at the irony of it all.

Spectating wasn’t her sport of choice, though, she had been forced to become good at it as she gathered her anger and willed her hair to grow back.  She used this time in her training diary to propel others on their own marathon journeys, coaching from the sidelines until she could pound the streets again.  She sat on restless hands and bided her time; now that time had come.

Her own race had been delayed many times, of course – a stop, start irritation that she used for muscle growth; mind over matter.  She discarded her runner’s stop watch and devised her own system for marking time.  Each milestone was registered as a ballsy punch of the air rather than the dirge of minutes and hours spent training – a system seemingly valued by other runners.  Some joker still insisted on playing with the speed dial on her treadmill, but she just tuned to the new rhythm and paced forward.  No hamster’s wheel for her, the treadmill circuit was just training for the true test. She would not tread water for long.

And now she was off!  Her feet pounded out the strength of her heart beat – strong and resolute – raising the game of those along her path.  Propulsion at last.

In the grim later miles came the satisfying realisation that she had a created a binary opposite to those marathoners around her, for, as they bowed their shoulders and gagged floppily into the gutters, her spine extended and the drilling pain drummed down her now longer legs to be left, absorbed, into  the tarmac.  Running through the pain, she grew taller and focused on the tension around her shoulders.  She stopped juggling the weights and concerns of those that she loved - not because she didn’t love her loved ones anymore - but because it was time in the programme to hand these challenges back to their real owners, out of love.  The pain refused to sit squarely on her shoulders anymore and instead sloped downwards, whimpering in her wake.  Returned to sender.

Now that she was lighter she could let the gradient carry her, she relaxed and rotated the freedom in her released shoulders.  She needed a new running chant to replace her selfless training mantra.  She would accept the energy back from the crowd rather than projecting her own, and that fuel, once accepted, thankfully pulsed through her veins and raised her game once more.  She bounced from kerb to kerb, high fiving the crowds, refusing to bring the race to a close.  Buoyed, she flew.

They had not lied about the finish.  Her own field of dreams had been planted as daffodils both to the right and to the left of the home run.  A field of personal milestones radiating yellow. She swooped to gather a handful of the blooms, inhaled and realised that there was no need to stop and collect her medal.  There was no need to stop at the finish line below their clock.  She was flying, and she was smiling, and she was just going to keep right on running - leaving bemused officials in her wake as her gorgeous smile stretched onwards. She had trained for this.

Window Shopping

I cringe at my latest indignity - being filmed (from the back, waist down) on a high-tech running machine in the shop window of a fitness emporium.  Lesser mortals may choose new trainers in a more pedestrian fashion, however, in my search to overcome tortoise pace and a pain in my shin, I had taken myself considerably out of my comfort zone by visiting a specialist running retailer.

 Note to myself; when shopping for trainers, don’t borrow husband’s old socks and wear a pair of jeans that at least try not to default on the backside - in fact, wear running gear and at least look like a runner.

I enter the shop –reluctantly - with expectations of customer service based on existing experience of buying trainers and on my accepted boundaries of the customer/retailer relationship; I would not have entered the shop if I had anticipated the remotest possibility of working up a public sweat on a running machine, in a High Street shop window, and having my personal data and metatarsals crunched by a computer.  I had not even intended to go shopping today.

I favour the anonymity of internet shopping.  No flicker there from a specialist shop assistant to indicate a restrained belief that this was a running imposter; a time waster, a couch would-be marathoner with ideas of grandeur.  But, I have learned the hard way that discounted trainers from the internet are for runners with low self esteem.  They are discounted for a reason.  How can a bespoke running shoe be fitted from such a distance, anyway?  I would need moral support to get new trainers sorted.

But I don't  like to ask for help.

On the one occasion when I did persuade a non-running friend to brave a bespoke running shop with me, it was in fact the friend who emerged brandishing a pair of state of the art running shoes and the prospect of a date with the sales assistant.  Somehow, they had run out of time when it came to my turn to be fitted, and I sensed that I had been made to run up the steep hill outside the shop, to facilitate the exchange of telephone numbers rather than for my running gait to be assessed.  I bought those trainers anyway.  I don't like to make a fuss.  Besides, my friend was more than happy with the service received.

Strange that I don't see myself through the same lens as those who love me. Somehow, my line of  running medals, strung so proudly across the window in the downstairs lav by my husband (and sufficing as a net curtain for the bashful) seems only to alert visitors to the fact that there is a closet runner somewhere in the house.  This makes me tense, anticipating that a new guest will ask who this runner might be, and that I may have to laugh to try and ease their discomfort when the revelation is made, that the runner is indeed I.  I can't hurt  my husband’s feelings by asking for the removal of my trophies – it would dent his pride in me.  The irony.

Note to myself; stop prevaricating and get these trainers sorted!  Nothing is more of a giveaway on race day than a perfectly white set of trainers.   I, more than anyone, need to blend with the crowd.

So, here I am apologising  for my entrance into a new running shop.  I hadn’t known this morning that this was my destination; it was a surprise from my husband who wanted to put a stop to my whinging and the whiff of trainers well past their sell-by date.  I hate surprises, and I resent him for picking up on my depleting motivation and impressive list of running ailments. I don't remember bothering him.

And so, here I am, being filmed on a high tech new running machine, cursing my husband. 

Despite myself, I find myself fascinated by the replay of my performance on the screen afterwards.  The assistant draws cursors from the sole of my foot to my ankle to demonstrate my ‘perfect’ running position.  This equates to evidence not sales pitch in my mind.  I am drawn to the image of my feet rather than the cinematic image of my backside on the monitor, but, actually the latter isn't too bad for an ‘old girl’ either. I am beginning to trust this lens.

 I realise that the assistant, seems to be taking me seriously.  We are discussing races I have run, and he is asking me for my recommendations of cross-country routes.  I feel relaxed.  Genuinely relaxed. 

For the first time ever , my high arched, ultra wide feet are offered a choice of running shoes.  The pros and cons of each are explained, demonstrated and I am given time to ‘road test’ each.  I find myself giggling with the young customer sitting beside me; an exciting girl, fresh off the plane from South America apparently.  I hear myself offering the girl advice about running marathons, and the girl appears to be listening.  Genuinely.

I leave the shop with the best pair of trainers I have ever owned.  I chose the pair with memory gel around the ankle, incidentally – perhaps a sales gimmick, but I wanted the support, and I wanted to remember this day.  Better still, said trainers are soon officially muddy and in danger of giving that hare a run for its money.  It turns out that the niggling pain in my shin – and perhaps my snail paced running - have been caused by one of my feet pronating outwards.  Diagnosis, along with a new word to play with, means that I have chosen a pair of trainers that work with me, rather than against.

Later, running in my muddy, gorgeous new trainers, achieving a PB for Sunday dog exercising duty, I feel genuinely smug.  Loved even.

Short legs;kind eyes

Everyone should have a running partner.  Difficult to get one as forgiving as mine.

Nine years old, black, glossy, one wet nose.  Heck, you say, dog fanatic.  I bet she speaks to her hound as if it’s a real person – calls it ‘mummy’s little angel’ and feeds it organic chicken.

Actually I don’t like animals.  I like the thought of them, but they smell, and drool and demand. 

However, I do like dogs more than cats.  Through a canny move by my parents, I took possession of a life-sized Scottie dog pyjama case on my ninth birthday and that satiated a pet need for over 20 years.  Later, working from home, badgered by persistent kids, mid-life crisis eroding a ‘dog’s not for Christmas’ logic, I took possession of a black lab, and, by default, she introduced me to the concept of exercise.

We started out as urban running partners, pounding the pavements tentatively.  Puppy powered, I was pulled up concrete hills and wrapped around lampposts at her whim. She called the shots.  If she fancied adding an extra circuit to the session (hot on the trail of some canine stud), she would.  And if she needed to powder her nose, that would be another lap. It’s hard enough finding public toilet facilities for human runners, let alone remembering to pack poop bags – hardly to-die-for, accessorised running.

That first winter nearly killed the training schedule.  I tried to trade dog walking/running for domestic duties – the family were not accommodating.  Instead, they bought ‘us’ a flashing, luminescent dog collar and a torch I could wear on my head so that we’d be visible on dark nights.  It certainly worked, and on our first sporting of said fineries, a gang of teenagers took great delight emphasising just how much we did stand out – something along the lines of, “Oi Cyclops, your dog’s flashing, I’ll have to call a policeman”.

Then there were those pedestrians who tutted and muttered about the cruelty of ‘making’ a dog run.  Surely cruelty would be letting Larder Legs blob out at home? I reminded myself that my friend’s dog simply refused to run with her and voted by going on strike.  Just sat.   Gave her the same look that teenagers master.   My dog then must have innate athletic qualities.  I consoled myself that instead of a labrodoodle, I was fashioning a whippetlab. I gave up the gym membership and rose to the challenge.

I decided that rural running was needed – not least because it was becoming too embarrassing in town bumping into people that I would meet later in the day on professional terms.  I decided to drive out to woodland areas to stretch our legs.  Dog was keen, but hated driving.  Showed her disdain by regurgitating dog biscuits en route.  She also refused to jump up into the boot.  It’s one thing running cross country and leaving mud in your wake – another unceremoniously hoisting a muddy mutt – reeking eau de sheep manure and pond slime - into the back of the car.  Husband helpfully suggested building a car pet ramp.  I parried with a suggestion of marriage guidance. 

One house move later, safe in the confines of green welly countryside and rural pongs, we raise the running bar further.  Not for us some trendy after work running club, fartleking our way through leafy suburbs –instead, a daily work out in a playground of moor, bridle path, sheep field, hill fort and forestry commission arena.  No IPod needed; nature’s rhythm does its trick.  Occasional dead deer carcass may cause a detour, likewise rabbits, but it’s kinder than circuit training.

As a running partnership we have our foibles.  She likes to lead the way, but doesn’t know where she’s going.  She likes sheep, they don’t like her.  She likes to body slam large muddy puddles, but hates the post-run hose down.  She likes to go out fast, come back slow.  I like to run split intervals.  She likes to lie in wait and dethrone random mountain bikers, and her inner pantry causes stalking of lunching ramblers.  I’m just grateful to have a companion.

We’re seasoned runners, and we have indeed run from one season to another without noticing the onset of winter.  I find myself sounding increasingly defensive; “I’ll run a little slower for the dog”, “no, she’s not fat, she’s just got short legs - like me”, or, “I’m sure they’ve lowered that fence since last time, she’ll never get under... “

My training partner is slowing and I find myself fading with her. If I’m honest, she can’t keep up with me. Her head says she can; body just won’t co-operate.  Hollow victory after all these years of chasing her tail.   But we’re a team -my dodgy knee sympathises with her arthritic hip and, although my shared water bottle doesn’t seem to propel us as far as it used to, she’s welcome to its contents.  We’ve jogged down to a walk; she’s earned a forgiving walking partner, and I’m happy to oblige.  She’s licked me into shape quite nicely.