“Come on now, lard arse, move it,” my inner voice bellowed on a clammy Thursday evening. I was back in my running gear having lapped up my rest day 24 hours previously, and boy oh boy did I enjoy it this particular week.
Track back a further day to when it took me three hours, 13 minutes and 34 seconds to cover 28 kilometres, returning to my front door in a sweat-soaked mess.
I’d put my run off until the heat of the day had somewhat abated before and, sensibly, I took it easy from the off, cognisant that a long, long outing lay ahead of me.
For a few fuzzy moments upon my return, in a moment of muted self-aggrandisement, I questioned why there’s so much talk about the half marathon and not a dickie bird about the two-thirds marathon.
A few slightly less fuzzy moments later, I told myself to stop talking shite. Breathing a little deeper as I turned off my audiobook, wiping the sweat off my glowing forehead, I gave thanks for being still able to run like this, less than a fortnight shy of my 42nd birthday.
The satisfaction I draw from putting one foot after the other, be it while out walking the dogs or out on the asphalt in my Asics trainers, is something I’ve elicited unexpected levels of joy from over the past 15 months.
While I’ve never considered myself a loner, I’ve always been comfortable in my own company. And let’s face it, most of us have had a lot more of that since March 2020 than perhaps at any other stage of our lives.
Writing is a solitary activity and the nuts and bolts of my work had been largely unimpacted by the pandemic. Yes, I miss the newspaper office and the face-to-face interaction with my colleagues but I’ve got by fine without them and the desk on The Quay I was still only settling into.
Singing can also be a solitary activity. I’ve belted out tune after tune away from the earshot of the wider world for 15 months, be it in my car or at home in the kitchen.
My few public ‘performances’ as such have been reserved for funerals, and I’ve been relieved to have it as a distraction on all three occasions when I’ve been asked to sing. I was particularly thankful of the distraction at one of those funerals, for a woman whom I regularly bought my newspaper from as a teenager on the Main Street in Carrick-on-Suir. She shouldn’t be in the past tense. If it’s possible to sing harder, I did that sad day in Carrick. It’s the least she deserved.
Running is a solitary activity. The simplest sport of all. A pair of runners, a hi-vis jacket and requisite motivation is all you need. Then it’s just a case of putting one foot after the other. When I got back to my front door last night, on what was the 155th day of the year, I had completed my 98th run. On January 1st, I decided I’d attempt to run at least 200 times this year and right now, I look set to fulfil that objective – and that pleases me.
To my own surprise, I am over six weeks into a marathon training programme, having been asked to take on the distance by Focus Ireland (a non-profit organisation working to end homelessness) and hopefully raise a few Euro for Focus along the way.
To my even greater surprise, I’ve really enjoyed having a schedule to work off. Having agreed to Focus Ireland’s suggestion, I worked out and wrote down a training programme.
After every run, I have marked off that day’s training on the programme sheet which sits on top of a chest of drawers in my bedroom. And every training run I’ve ticked off on that sheet has filled me with a great sense of satisfaction.
I’ve gone out every day I’ve scheduled for myself, sometimes quite late and sometimes when the combination of the couch and gravity has felt like a more desirable option.
Running is a five-days a week gig for me again at a time in my life when the prospect of a new Personal Best is not really on my agenda. By the way, from the 100 metres right up to the 10K, I can remember all of my PBs. I might have had a four-minute mile in me once upon a time but that ship has long since sailed. But having a schedule to work off again has reminded me of the pleasure of the sport – my sport – in its purest form.
And now, I return to my Thursday evening (8k) run, as I consciously decided to move through the gears on the run towards home over welcomingly benign terrain. Move it, lard arse. And I did bloody well move it, as my running app revealed once I ground to a halt.
Having run the previous two kilometres in 11’22”, I negotiated the closing 2k in 10’14” and it actually thrilled me. Running has become my reflex again - and I still can’t quite believe that.
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