Now, I've always loved America. On the few occasions that I've visited this great, oil stealing, nation I have loved every second of it. Everything is bigger here, the buildings, the food, the welcome, the people! Everything is bigger and I love it, it suits me. I feel that being overly nice, friendly, and stupidly upbeat about everything really fits in to the way that I am as a person.
Chicago is no different. The last time I was in Chicago' Grant Park it was the 'Taste of Chicago' food festival. Which was basically a lot of large, sweaty people eating large, sweaty food. It was more a festival of obesity than food, but it was still amazing and I reveled in it.
This time around I am sitting in Grant Park surrounded by the opposite, lots of thin, athletic people eating athletic, thin fruit. I am also putting on sun tan lotion in the dark, knowing that when the sun does come up at 7:40am it will already be 60 degrees.
The last time I was here was in 2001, and I was clinging onto the desperate notion of true love, believing that true love could conquer time, distance, and circumstance. In 1998 I met an American girl called Amy, she was doing a term studying at my University. We met fairly simply because she was living in halls next door but one to a soon to be close friend. Our first meeting was hugely uneventful, I asked her if she knew where my friend was, she said she didn't know. I then questioned if she was the 'American girl' that had moved in, she replied,
"Yes, that's me, I'm Amy"
I would be lying if I said there were fireworks, or that it was love at first sight. In fact I just ran out of things to say and wandered back to my room. A week later we, when I say 'we' I mean our little group of friends, ended up at a pub where a lock in was afoot. The bar manager had taken a shining to Amy, and in the noble tradition of bar managers was trying to get her so drunk that she would sleep with him. The plan backfired splendidly when Amy' ability for drinking ended up with her needing to puke violently somewhere. I just remember holding her hair. The next day she called to thank me and we arranged to meet for lunch so she could thank me for my Welsh gallantry in person. We had lunch, and after that we fell horribly, inexplicably, frighteningly, in love with each other...
Fuck me, I can see straight to the start line, and I can see the elite runners. I'm looking for the pacemaker for a 3:00 hour time, the plan is I'll drop behind them, sit in until the last 2 miles, and push forward. I feel like 5 months of training is going to fall right into place and I'm going to smash this marathon to pieces. I have sacrificed time, energy, friendships, and basic happiness to get to this point, and I'm comfortable. I feel as ready as I can be. My music goes on, my adrenaline rises, and I'm ready. Except I'm not...
Being in love, or feeling love towards another person is a ridiculous, ultimately pointless exercise, but when you are in the middle of it, the feeling that you have is unlike anything else. It's unbelievable, and the eight weeks after Amy and I fell in love were the most outrageously amazing time of my life.
As I wander around her hometown with my Dad I remember when I had to go home to pack the family house up because we were moving. My Dad came to pick me up from halls and Amy came back to Wales with me. My Dad, being the incredible man that he is, decided to pretend that the traffic was too bad for us to make the journey home in one night, and put us up in a hotel, so that Amy and I could spend some time on our own. This would have been foolproof, except that the receptionist decided to put our rooms next to each other so I was too scared to have sex in case he heard. The time passed very quickly and Amy went home, and with her went promises of visits, long term plans, and a future together...
The siren goes and I'm away, the pacer is in the corral in front of me and I need to catch up with him to fall into place. The crowds ache along the street, and even above the music in my ears I can hear the noise. I have a pace sticker on my arm that outlines the minutes per mile I need to finish where I want to be, I hit the first mile running fairly easy and I'm bang on time. 'This is the pace you know and like, you can do this' I speed up a little to catch the pacer and my legs feel good, my breathing is steady, and the view is amazing. The only problem comes with the water stops. It's all in cups, trying to drink out of a bottle cap is tough enough, but out of a paper cup it's a farce. A drop back a little while I snort water out of my nose but eventually I catch the pacer, drop in behind, and settle in, and I'm ready. Except I'm not...
Amy returns to Chicago and I am gutted. Heartbroken. Ruined. A broken man. We exchange phone calls weekly but things inevitably fall apart. I break my promise to visit her and she realizes that she needs to walk away from me to stop herself from failing University and the breakup is complete. It would be eight years until I felt that level of emotion and love again, and even then it would be different...
Before I know it I've hit the fifth mile, the pacer is opening a gap between us but I don't think I can keep to it, and I don't know why. We run through a park and someone is smoking a cigar. The fumes invade my lungs and my breathing shortens, the pacer stretches out again and now I feel doubt. 'This is mile six, I'm not sure if I want to do this for another twenty miles' I have a habit of looking at the ground straight in front of me when I run, it comes from having damaged ankles and needing to always know where my feet are landing, so I just focus on the ground and follow the yellow lines around the route. At around eight miles a guy taps my shoulder,
"Yo! you running a three hour time?" He's obviously seen the 'three hour pace' bib on my back,
"I don't think so, he's ahead and I don't think I can catch him"
"Fuck him, his time' are all off, you're running exactly right. check at the next mile marker"
The next mile comes up and he's right, I'm still bang on time, and at a pace I know I've run hundreds of miles at, and I'm ready. Except I'm not...
On the morning of the race I get a text from a friend telling me that he has done ecstasy for the first time, and he tells me that he loves me, and then he wishes me good luck, and then he thanks me for all the things I've done for him. It's a beautiful, heart warming text. I wonder about how amazing it would be to experience your first pill again, the rush, the unmitigated joy, the innocence, and I think it's a lot like love. You chase the same feeling and wish it could be as strong and purposeful as the first time. And then sometimes it happens again. But different. The next time I fell in love it wasn't like the first, it was more substantial, more rounded, as if it wasn't just about the immediate power of it. More that I knew that this was the person I wanted to spend the rest of my entire life with...
I keep snorting Gatorade by mistake and it's fucking me up. I can't drink and run this fast at the same time. I'm rounding into 'boystown' and the sun is getting up but if I stay in the shade the breeze is just enough to get me by. Mile ten swings by and I feel an indifference, a disinterest , in fact, a general malaise. I don't think I want to run anymore. And this emotion dumbfounds me, but it's there. I check myself, and I'm ready. Except I'm not...
I round the corner at mile 11 and head over a bridge, there's people everywhere and the runners are thin enough for you to believe that you're the person they a shouting for. As I cross the bridge I look to my left, then to my right, and when I can tell there's nobody behind me I stop. I stop, look around, and walk to the emergency tent, walk passed the first aid team and sit down,
"Sir, Sir, are you OK?"
"Yes, I'm fine thank you"
"Do you have any heart or breathing difficulties?"
"No, No, I just don't want to run anymore. I've had enough"
"OK, that's fine, do you have any muscle or stomach pain?"
"No, not at all. I just don't want to run anymore"
"Oh"
And that's where this story ends. I try very hard to be as honest as I can in this journal that I keep, and I'll carry on with that honesty until the end. The truth is that I don't love running anymore. I really wanted to but I don't. And one thing that I've learnt recently is that if you don't love something you'll never be able to do it properly. And that could be in the work that you do, the friends that you keep, or relationships that you have. If you don't love them, you'll never do them right.
I thought that determination, anger, frustration, hatred, and spite could get me through this race but I was wrong. It CAN get you through the training, the late nights, the early mornings, the sacrifices, and about half way round, but to do anything, you have to love it. And I don't love running anymore. I don't love the training routes I run, I don't love the pains in my legs, and most of all, I don't love the memories that taint my running.
I was always a big believer in the solitary runner, out on the road with his thoughts and beliefs, I'm not anymore. The truth is that running just makes me sad and lonely, and there isn't a man, woman, or sheep that's going to change that except me, but I know that the answer is not in me running.
I get a big, yellow, school bus back to the finish line with a distraught elite runner, she's in tears because her chances of getting an Olympic place have gone.
I get to the finish, get my bag, text my Dad and tell him to meet me at his hotel bar. When I get there the bar's closed, I ask if I can sit and wait by the window. As I sit down I quietly begin to sob. The Mexican busboys don't really know what to do about the crying, ginger, gringo until a waitress comes and brings me a coke. I sit there for an hour drying my eyes, knowing that I've done the right thing, with not a single regret, but with a hollowness in my heart. I need to go away and be myself for a while, find out what's really important to me and fix up.
It goes without saying that this is the last blog I will ever write. I've never written a single word of this for anyone except me, but I am forever touched, confused, baffled, and shocked that anyone ever reads it.
Thank you.
Gareth x
Sunday 9 October 2011
Tuesday 4 October 2011
The last long run takes a strange, fateful twist.
I don't believe that I am the only runner in the world that starts to get paranoid in the last couple of weeks before a race, but I do think that I take it to a whole new level. As race day quietly tip toes towards you a runner treads the fine line between making sure that he/she is at the peak of their fitness, against the constant worry of picking up an injury if you train too hard, or if simple bad luck comes calling.
These last few weeks I have been running in the style of a man holding a bomb in his hands, with no safe place to set it down. Every step I take is a possible ankle sprainer, and every loose paving slab is a definite knee crusher. Everything in my path is an enemy now, divots, puddles, tree roots, gravel, mud, steps, curbs, leaves, other people. All of these things have the potential to do damage and ruin 6 months of training, sacrifice, and effort.
My assassin of fate did not come in these forms though, I was not felled by a a loose slab of concrete on the Regents canal, I did slip on the new gravel by Victoria Park, but it did not cause me harm. No, I was cruelly struck down by an agent of doom, a bringer of misfortune, lady lucks cruel joke did not throw me something so predictable.
I got done by a suicidal squirrel.
I was running my last long run and to bump the miles up I went twice round the park, which is about 6 miles give or take. It's a circle I have run many times and I know it well. As I came around the first lap, through the gates by the village I moved across onto the grass path, in between the bushes and the benches. I don't look at people anymore, I don't enjoy the early morning hue, I just stare at the space one meter in front of me, making sure that every step is a safe one, picking each landing foot to make sure I don't twist or pull anything. From the corner of my eye I don't see him, I just see a rustle, like a flash something is a foot and a half in front of me, maybe one step in front of my eyes the pace I'm going, it's a squirrel, with a conker stuffed in its little mouth.
Time slows while I try to work out why this normally nervous little animal has decided to get so close to me, did he see me? or was he too busy making sure the conker doesn't escape its jaw? Then I consider my options,
1. I could run straight over the little thing, who's eyes are now firmly locked into mine. He looks sad, as if he knows that the conker will be never be enjoyed, because death is upon him in the shape of a ginger, running blur.
2. I can swerve to my left and smash into a newly painted bench.
3. I can swerve right and into the bushes.
I go right, the squirrel doesn't even move, and I become acquainted with the bushes like two old fat friends embracing at the airport, arms out stretched, struggling to wrap their arms round each other. I go in one side of the bush and come out the other, I look back and the squirrel runs back in to where he come from, eyes front I straighten up and check for damage. nothing. I am in the clear so I round the corner and head back around.
By the time I get to Alexander McQueen's old house the squirrel is a forgotten memory, a brief moment of awkwardness, followed by confusion, then forgotten. Like a one night stand. I have completely forgotten about it by the time I head back through the gates at the village, and onto the grass verge.
This time I see the little bastard, his head is moving from side to side, poking out of the bush, like he's waiting to cross the road. and then he does it again, still with a conker in its mouth, he bounces in front of me and stops dead. Now I'm just confused, once is a strange little accident, a funny, early morning quirk, but twice? from the same bush? This is just weird.
so the ballet starts and a decide to leap over the squirrel and deny him what he so clearly wants, a way out. Death by runner, it's a bit like death by police but the park based, animal version. I jump over him and my right foot lands on a big stick, and the uneven surface does something to the underneath of my foot, I regain my balance, look back and the squirrel is waving a fist at me and shouting,
"come back and finish me off! I don't want to live anymore, come back and end this cruel nightmare for me!"
He doesn't, the little shit just sits there, then scampers across road and into another bush.
I exit the park and a shooting pain has started, I get home and stretch out and my foot feels OK. I go to work and walking to the bus stop, the pain starts again. I sit on the bus and ponder the possibility that a squirrel may have ruined me in 2011. I phone my physio and explain what's happened,
"A squirrel?"
"Yes, a squirrel Bob"
"Came at you twice?"
"Yes, out of the same bush"
"And now your foot hurts?"
"Yes, like a stabbing pain underneath my foot, going all the way to the ankle, you think I should go for another run?"
"No. you've done enough now, stay healthy, rest it, I'll see you Tuesday. Just try to stay off it"
"OK, will do."
"Oh, and Gareth?"
"Yes?"
"Don't go to the park again"
"OK"
Today is Tuesday, I fly tomorrow, and I have no idea what Bob is going to say. I run the 2011 Chicago marathon in 5 days from now and it's possible that I might be injured and unable to run the race that I want to run because of a squirrel.
Life is very strange.
These last few weeks I have been running in the style of a man holding a bomb in his hands, with no safe place to set it down. Every step I take is a possible ankle sprainer, and every loose paving slab is a definite knee crusher. Everything in my path is an enemy now, divots, puddles, tree roots, gravel, mud, steps, curbs, leaves, other people. All of these things have the potential to do damage and ruin 6 months of training, sacrifice, and effort.
My assassin of fate did not come in these forms though, I was not felled by a a loose slab of concrete on the Regents canal, I did slip on the new gravel by Victoria Park, but it did not cause me harm. No, I was cruelly struck down by an agent of doom, a bringer of misfortune, lady lucks cruel joke did not throw me something so predictable.
I got done by a suicidal squirrel.
I was running my last long run and to bump the miles up I went twice round the park, which is about 6 miles give or take. It's a circle I have run many times and I know it well. As I came around the first lap, through the gates by the village I moved across onto the grass path, in between the bushes and the benches. I don't look at people anymore, I don't enjoy the early morning hue, I just stare at the space one meter in front of me, making sure that every step is a safe one, picking each landing foot to make sure I don't twist or pull anything. From the corner of my eye I don't see him, I just see a rustle, like a flash something is a foot and a half in front of me, maybe one step in front of my eyes the pace I'm going, it's a squirrel, with a conker stuffed in its little mouth.
Time slows while I try to work out why this normally nervous little animal has decided to get so close to me, did he see me? or was he too busy making sure the conker doesn't escape its jaw? Then I consider my options,
1. I could run straight over the little thing, who's eyes are now firmly locked into mine. He looks sad, as if he knows that the conker will be never be enjoyed, because death is upon him in the shape of a ginger, running blur.
2. I can swerve to my left and smash into a newly painted bench.
3. I can swerve right and into the bushes.
I go right, the squirrel doesn't even move, and I become acquainted with the bushes like two old fat friends embracing at the airport, arms out stretched, struggling to wrap their arms round each other. I go in one side of the bush and come out the other, I look back and the squirrel runs back in to where he come from, eyes front I straighten up and check for damage. nothing. I am in the clear so I round the corner and head back around.
By the time I get to Alexander McQueen's old house the squirrel is a forgotten memory, a brief moment of awkwardness, followed by confusion, then forgotten. Like a one night stand. I have completely forgotten about it by the time I head back through the gates at the village, and onto the grass verge.
This time I see the little bastard, his head is moving from side to side, poking out of the bush, like he's waiting to cross the road. and then he does it again, still with a conker in its mouth, he bounces in front of me and stops dead. Now I'm just confused, once is a strange little accident, a funny, early morning quirk, but twice? from the same bush? This is just weird.
so the ballet starts and a decide to leap over the squirrel and deny him what he so clearly wants, a way out. Death by runner, it's a bit like death by police but the park based, animal version. I jump over him and my right foot lands on a big stick, and the uneven surface does something to the underneath of my foot, I regain my balance, look back and the squirrel is waving a fist at me and shouting,
"come back and finish me off! I don't want to live anymore, come back and end this cruel nightmare for me!"
He doesn't, the little shit just sits there, then scampers across road and into another bush.
I exit the park and a shooting pain has started, I get home and stretch out and my foot feels OK. I go to work and walking to the bus stop, the pain starts again. I sit on the bus and ponder the possibility that a squirrel may have ruined me in 2011. I phone my physio and explain what's happened,
"A squirrel?"
"Yes, a squirrel Bob"
"Came at you twice?"
"Yes, out of the same bush"
"And now your foot hurts?"
"Yes, like a stabbing pain underneath my foot, going all the way to the ankle, you think I should go for another run?"
"No. you've done enough now, stay healthy, rest it, I'll see you Tuesday. Just try to stay off it"
"OK, will do."
"Oh, and Gareth?"
"Yes?"
"Don't go to the park again"
"OK"
Today is Tuesday, I fly tomorrow, and I have no idea what Bob is going to say. I run the 2011 Chicago marathon in 5 days from now and it's possible that I might be injured and unable to run the race that I want to run because of a squirrel.
Life is very strange.
Thursday 15 September 2011
I run a race, I handicap myself, and death cowers over me
The Bristol half marathon is upon me, a competitive chance to continue my training, and to practice the careful art of drinking whilst running and not wetting yourself in concentration.
I arrive late on Saturday night and don't get much sleep when I get there. I blame the foam pillows that heat up my face and make it impossible for me to sleep. Lying next to an attractive girl doesn't help either, and with high levels of testosterone barging its way through me, it all adds up to me getting about 3 hours sleep. Not even a expertly executed blow job from the girl helps me sleep.
Sunday morning and the adrenaline kick starts my day and before I know it we're making our way to the start. There's an awful lot of club runners here, with their amusing names and club vests. Everyone's super friendly though, and it's a nice mix of old school runners (8 year old trainers and a casio) and tech head wannabes (multi coloured spanking new trainers with computers on their wrists, an IPhone on the arm, and headphones that look like they're singing backing vocals at a Madonna concert) and I sort of sit in between the two, I've got a Casio and a nano.
The race starts and disaster strikes, my headphones don't work, I can only get sound out of one ear very quietly. This shouldn't really matter but it does, because I set my breathing and pace to the beat and use the breaks in the mixing to judge how fast I'm going. Now I wish I had one of those computer things on my wrist now, but no matter. I turn up the volume as loud as I can and decide to use the mile markers to work out how I'm doing.
There's no mile markers. I don't know how fast I'm going and as we climb over a fly over and out of the city I can see that the first part of the race is just a straight line on a dual carriage way. Now I don't know how fast I'm going, or for how long I've gone that fast for. The pack eventually spreads and my pace plateaus and I start to enjoy the run.
We run directly under the suspension bridge and I can't help remembering that this is a notorious suicide spot, where lots of people throw themselves off. I instinctively run faster as I go under, just in case somebody lands on me. I think about how brave people can be to be able to end their lives like that, or any other way in fact. My mind wanders to the people who jumped out of the world trade centre, seeing as though I am running on the day of the tenth anniversary.
Death. whether it be self inflicted or otherwise is life's great leveller. Everything that you do will not stop it. A fact that can either free you or haunt you. This would play on my mind even more later in the day when my friend Carl tells me that he saw a runner being chest compressed on the route (he died at that very spot).
Then a girl throws a jelly baby at me.
Not one, about 4. And they bounce off my chest and one hits me on the cheek. It feels like I'm being given a pearl necklace by a gummy bear.
I try to remember from the route guide what mile the first isotonic drinks station is, I think it's mile 7, so when I pass it I calculate that by the time I pass the bridge again and head back into the town I'll be at around mile 10 and on the home stretch. This inescapably bad maths and guesswork would come back and bite me on the arse.
I pass the bridge, go round the underpass and see a mile marker that says '8' on it. Not 10. And I realize that I've fucked myself, I'd gone too hard pushing in for the last 3 miles, when in fact there was double that to go. Then instead of the route retracing its steps back into town, it takes us out and round the houses, where the crowds are actually little families not really cheering you on, more staring at you in the West Country way. Like Deliverance.
I am now wishing the miles away and running on empty, and every mile is harder and harder to run but I drop down to a pace and stare at the floor and just get through it.
Around mile 11 you head back into town, the crowds are bigger and the cheering and name calling begins to raise your spirits. I keep seeing the finish line balloon and think we're nearly done but the route turns right and I'm off again round a lap of a park, through some narrow streets, skipping past women and prams as the try to get to the shops. Finally a left turn and it's the home stretch, I try a sprint finish but my legs are made of wood, and I know that if I push any harder I could do some serious damage, I get there and look up, 1.31, I look at my Casio 1.28, and I'm happy with that.
Afterwards there's collecting bags, handing in pins, hearing rugby results, and chatting to seasoned runners. It's nice. I go to the preplanned meeting point and wait for Carl, which just happens to be a pub, I sit down and enjoy the first pint of lager I've had in 12 weeks.
From the official results I came in 322 out of 10,000, in a time of 1.29. And I managed to achieve a personal goal that I'd set myself for 2011,
I beat a wheelchair competitor.
It's not all about times you know? Sometimes you have to beat a disabled.
I arrive late on Saturday night and don't get much sleep when I get there. I blame the foam pillows that heat up my face and make it impossible for me to sleep. Lying next to an attractive girl doesn't help either, and with high levels of testosterone barging its way through me, it all adds up to me getting about 3 hours sleep. Not even a expertly executed blow job from the girl helps me sleep.
Sunday morning and the adrenaline kick starts my day and before I know it we're making our way to the start. There's an awful lot of club runners here, with their amusing names and club vests. Everyone's super friendly though, and it's a nice mix of old school runners (8 year old trainers and a casio) and tech head wannabes (multi coloured spanking new trainers with computers on their wrists, an IPhone on the arm, and headphones that look like they're singing backing vocals at a Madonna concert) and I sort of sit in between the two, I've got a Casio and a nano.
The race starts and disaster strikes, my headphones don't work, I can only get sound out of one ear very quietly. This shouldn't really matter but it does, because I set my breathing and pace to the beat and use the breaks in the mixing to judge how fast I'm going. Now I wish I had one of those computer things on my wrist now, but no matter. I turn up the volume as loud as I can and decide to use the mile markers to work out how I'm doing.
There's no mile markers. I don't know how fast I'm going and as we climb over a fly over and out of the city I can see that the first part of the race is just a straight line on a dual carriage way. Now I don't know how fast I'm going, or for how long I've gone that fast for. The pack eventually spreads and my pace plateaus and I start to enjoy the run.
We run directly under the suspension bridge and I can't help remembering that this is a notorious suicide spot, where lots of people throw themselves off. I instinctively run faster as I go under, just in case somebody lands on me. I think about how brave people can be to be able to end their lives like that, or any other way in fact. My mind wanders to the people who jumped out of the world trade centre, seeing as though I am running on the day of the tenth anniversary.
Death. whether it be self inflicted or otherwise is life's great leveller. Everything that you do will not stop it. A fact that can either free you or haunt you. This would play on my mind even more later in the day when my friend Carl tells me that he saw a runner being chest compressed on the route (he died at that very spot).
Then a girl throws a jelly baby at me.
Not one, about 4. And they bounce off my chest and one hits me on the cheek. It feels like I'm being given a pearl necklace by a gummy bear.
I try to remember from the route guide what mile the first isotonic drinks station is, I think it's mile 7, so when I pass it I calculate that by the time I pass the bridge again and head back into the town I'll be at around mile 10 and on the home stretch. This inescapably bad maths and guesswork would come back and bite me on the arse.
I pass the bridge, go round the underpass and see a mile marker that says '8' on it. Not 10. And I realize that I've fucked myself, I'd gone too hard pushing in for the last 3 miles, when in fact there was double that to go. Then instead of the route retracing its steps back into town, it takes us out and round the houses, where the crowds are actually little families not really cheering you on, more staring at you in the West Country way. Like Deliverance.
I am now wishing the miles away and running on empty, and every mile is harder and harder to run but I drop down to a pace and stare at the floor and just get through it.
Around mile 11 you head back into town, the crowds are bigger and the cheering and name calling begins to raise your spirits. I keep seeing the finish line balloon and think we're nearly done but the route turns right and I'm off again round a lap of a park, through some narrow streets, skipping past women and prams as the try to get to the shops. Finally a left turn and it's the home stretch, I try a sprint finish but my legs are made of wood, and I know that if I push any harder I could do some serious damage, I get there and look up, 1.31, I look at my Casio 1.28, and I'm happy with that.
Afterwards there's collecting bags, handing in pins, hearing rugby results, and chatting to seasoned runners. It's nice. I go to the preplanned meeting point and wait for Carl, which just happens to be a pub, I sit down and enjoy the first pint of lager I've had in 12 weeks.
From the official results I came in 322 out of 10,000, in a time of 1.29. And I managed to achieve a personal goal that I'd set myself for 2011,
I beat a wheelchair competitor.
It's not all about times you know? Sometimes you have to beat a disabled.
Friday 9 September 2011
Charity begins at home, how to live in old age, and some questions that don't need answering
My housemate has bought me 3 months on a dating website as a birthday present,
"You've got to do something else apart from run, eat salmon, and stay home"
This unwanted and unnecessary pity and concern has been put on me not because Elliot actually cares about my rapidly dying social life, more that Elliot is just sick of me being at home. All the time. And I think that it's fair enough to expect that your housemate might actually go out once in a while, so that you can have some fucking peace, and not have to listen to him go on and on and on about running and not eating carbs after 8pm. So I understand where he's coming from, and it's a wonderful gesture by him to do this for me, and so I allow the madness to start.
So it's been arranged, the monthly costs have been covered, some almost normal looking photos of me have been uploaded, and a short, punchy, funny profile has been written, and re-written, and updated onto my page.
And then the slow death of my own self respect begins.
Now I don't really mind the fact that I have to sell myself to strangers like some common prostitute in a neon lit doorway in Holland. This is just a different way for people to have an understanding of you, your interests, and what you look like. I get it, but I hate it. I've never had to sell myself to a girl before. My success rate with women has usually come about through following these quick stages: I befriend them, make them laugh, try to say something nice about poor people, or try to sound like I care about something they care about, make them laugh again, and before they've really noticed what's happening I put my hand up their skirt and they sort of don't mind and let me. Then for the first two weeks they're a bit confused as to why the sort of funny, sort of caring, sort of nice, bloke is now having just above average sex with them. Then eventually they find something* about me that they like and they let me stick around for a while. But now this? telling abject strangers about what I believe in, how I like to live my life, what food I like to cook, and all sorts of other crap, it's just not me. And I come across like a friendly special needs kid who just 'wants someone to go running in the park with' I am better in person, writing it down is just creepy.
And then comes the ignoring. Now, there's some really good looking girls on this site who are single, I can't understand why they are but they are. And as you sit trawling through the photos you eventually find one that's good looking, doesn't sound like she's got her head up her own arse, and might have hobbies and interests that you can just about bare to pretend to like, so you Email them. And they don't reply. Not even a 'thanks, but have you seen yourself? Have you seen me? Have you done the maths?' reply. nothing. A wall of silence. And I get it, i am not every one's cup of tea looks wise. I have been around long enough to know that my looks are very good in a certain light............darkness, and that in photos I do not look my best. But I'm not hideous, and their are small pockets of women around the GLOBE! who will attest that I am quite good looking but not every one's going to think I'm smoking hot, but to not even reply? You sort of understand why they're single if they're going to act this way.
The only part of this festival of self hatred that really grates me is the Emails I get from girls asking me out. A collection of uglier looking women you could not find in a Russian labour camp. Don't get me wrong, I'm not all about a girls looks, I can't be, people in glass houses and all that, but my god, we are talking some of the most offensive looking women since the dark ages. And they are Emailing me! Me! and I find that horribly painful because they must be looking at me and thinking 'he'll do' Like I'm in their league, as if I am really a possible, attainable man that would agree to go out with them! It's an absolute car crash. But I reply to each one, politely explaining that I have moved to Mongolia, and that I'm just waiting out the rest of my contract on the dating site.
After my slow 20 miler a couple of weeks ago I scaled back and decided to run a 12 miler as fast as I could. So I set off on my normal run, just incorporating another lap around Victoria park. On the west side of the park there's a stretch of park benches all the way down the right hand side as you run anti clockwise around. On these benches you start to see familiar faces, the lesbian sun worshiper who's skin looks like a battered, old, brown leather couch. She sits there reading a tabloid but sometimes dog walkers will sit with her and shoot the breeze. She'll always be wearing a wife beater, which I always find amusing, because she looks like she does beat her own wife, or life partner. This particular morning the weather was dreary so she wasn't on her usual bench, taking her place was an old man, coal face features, dressed in a suit and rain coat, at 8am. He was ogling the lady runners with the steely determination of a man who was just waiting for the pub to open. As I passed him he looked up, hopeful that I might be another pair a breasts, and when he saw that I wasn't he did not disguise his disgust that a man should be out running, when he knows full well that he should be dressed smartly, waiting for the pub to open, and staring at some tits if the chance presents itself. I passed his growling face and started around the park for a 2nd time. This time he saw me coming and coolly watched me glide passed, this time he sat back in his chair and said,
"Go on boy, you'll catch her" and he smiled a gap toothed smile that I returned with a grin.
His comment made no sense to me, in fact, it freaked me out a little, but then I crossed the little road that runs through the park and saw a tall, long haired girl jogging in front of me, and as I passed her I knew exactly what he meant. If she hadn't turned right out of the park, I might have followed her all the way home. I get home in 1 hour and 19 minutes. I think about the Bristol half and start to hope that I can make a personal best over there, and push through to Chicago injury free.
The last few weeks I've had some really unexpected praise from people about my writing, so much in fact that I now think that I'm the Welsh Irvine..erm..Welsh. Luckily I am blessed with the famous Potter 'you're not as good as you think you are' chip in my brain, it immediately counter acts anything positive that you think about yourself, and turns it round so that you actually end up thinking that you're worse than you already thought you were. A fantastic invention that has kept my feet on the ground for years, and possibly cost me a few jobs, some girlfriends, and a stable mental health.
Questions have been pinging around my head this week, things like, How fast will I run Bristol? How fast am I running now? How big is Liam Neeson's cock?** Why can't I act with a little more grace sometimes? When will I stop dreaming dreams that are so vivid that I wake up thinking they've happened, when they actually will never happen? What is the probability of me actually having sex again this year? How fast will I run Chicago? Why does my back hurt when I stretch my legs? When will I stop feeling like this? Do people really like reading my blog? Why do I still write a blog? Which way shall I run home? Where's that tall girl gone? What is the probability of me having sex next year?
* - I have no idea what women see in me, and I am consistently shocked when it happens. And suspicious.
** - http://liamneesonscock.tumblr.com
"You've got to do something else apart from run, eat salmon, and stay home"
This unwanted and unnecessary pity and concern has been put on me not because Elliot actually cares about my rapidly dying social life, more that Elliot is just sick of me being at home. All the time. And I think that it's fair enough to expect that your housemate might actually go out once in a while, so that you can have some fucking peace, and not have to listen to him go on and on and on about running and not eating carbs after 8pm. So I understand where he's coming from, and it's a wonderful gesture by him to do this for me, and so I allow the madness to start.
So it's been arranged, the monthly costs have been covered, some almost normal looking photos of me have been uploaded, and a short, punchy, funny profile has been written, and re-written, and updated onto my page.
And then the slow death of my own self respect begins.
Now I don't really mind the fact that I have to sell myself to strangers like some common prostitute in a neon lit doorway in Holland. This is just a different way for people to have an understanding of you, your interests, and what you look like. I get it, but I hate it. I've never had to sell myself to a girl before. My success rate with women has usually come about through following these quick stages: I befriend them, make them laugh, try to say something nice about poor people, or try to sound like I care about something they care about, make them laugh again, and before they've really noticed what's happening I put my hand up their skirt and they sort of don't mind and let me. Then for the first two weeks they're a bit confused as to why the sort of funny, sort of caring, sort of nice, bloke is now having just above average sex with them. Then eventually they find something* about me that they like and they let me stick around for a while. But now this? telling abject strangers about what I believe in, how I like to live my life, what food I like to cook, and all sorts of other crap, it's just not me. And I come across like a friendly special needs kid who just 'wants someone to go running in the park with' I am better in person, writing it down is just creepy.
And then comes the ignoring. Now, there's some really good looking girls on this site who are single, I can't understand why they are but they are. And as you sit trawling through the photos you eventually find one that's good looking, doesn't sound like she's got her head up her own arse, and might have hobbies and interests that you can just about bare to pretend to like, so you Email them. And they don't reply. Not even a 'thanks, but have you seen yourself? Have you seen me? Have you done the maths?' reply. nothing. A wall of silence. And I get it, i am not every one's cup of tea looks wise. I have been around long enough to know that my looks are very good in a certain light............darkness, and that in photos I do not look my best. But I'm not hideous, and their are small pockets of women around the GLOBE! who will attest that I am quite good looking but not every one's going to think I'm smoking hot, but to not even reply? You sort of understand why they're single if they're going to act this way.
The only part of this festival of self hatred that really grates me is the Emails I get from girls asking me out. A collection of uglier looking women you could not find in a Russian labour camp. Don't get me wrong, I'm not all about a girls looks, I can't be, people in glass houses and all that, but my god, we are talking some of the most offensive looking women since the dark ages. And they are Emailing me! Me! and I find that horribly painful because they must be looking at me and thinking 'he'll do' Like I'm in their league, as if I am really a possible, attainable man that would agree to go out with them! It's an absolute car crash. But I reply to each one, politely explaining that I have moved to Mongolia, and that I'm just waiting out the rest of my contract on the dating site.
After my slow 20 miler a couple of weeks ago I scaled back and decided to run a 12 miler as fast as I could. So I set off on my normal run, just incorporating another lap around Victoria park. On the west side of the park there's a stretch of park benches all the way down the right hand side as you run anti clockwise around. On these benches you start to see familiar faces, the lesbian sun worshiper who's skin looks like a battered, old, brown leather couch. She sits there reading a tabloid but sometimes dog walkers will sit with her and shoot the breeze. She'll always be wearing a wife beater, which I always find amusing, because she looks like she does beat her own wife, or life partner. This particular morning the weather was dreary so she wasn't on her usual bench, taking her place was an old man, coal face features, dressed in a suit and rain coat, at 8am. He was ogling the lady runners with the steely determination of a man who was just waiting for the pub to open. As I passed him he looked up, hopeful that I might be another pair a breasts, and when he saw that I wasn't he did not disguise his disgust that a man should be out running, when he knows full well that he should be dressed smartly, waiting for the pub to open, and staring at some tits if the chance presents itself. I passed his growling face and started around the park for a 2nd time. This time he saw me coming and coolly watched me glide passed, this time he sat back in his chair and said,
"Go on boy, you'll catch her" and he smiled a gap toothed smile that I returned with a grin.
His comment made no sense to me, in fact, it freaked me out a little, but then I crossed the little road that runs through the park and saw a tall, long haired girl jogging in front of me, and as I passed her I knew exactly what he meant. If she hadn't turned right out of the park, I might have followed her all the way home. I get home in 1 hour and 19 minutes. I think about the Bristol half and start to hope that I can make a personal best over there, and push through to Chicago injury free.
The last few weeks I've had some really unexpected praise from people about my writing, so much in fact that I now think that I'm the Welsh Irvine..erm..Welsh. Luckily I am blessed with the famous Potter 'you're not as good as you think you are' chip in my brain, it immediately counter acts anything positive that you think about yourself, and turns it round so that you actually end up thinking that you're worse than you already thought you were. A fantastic invention that has kept my feet on the ground for years, and possibly cost me a few jobs, some girlfriends, and a stable mental health.
Questions have been pinging around my head this week, things like, How fast will I run Bristol? How fast am I running now? How big is Liam Neeson's cock?** Why can't I act with a little more grace sometimes? When will I stop dreaming dreams that are so vivid that I wake up thinking they've happened, when they actually will never happen? What is the probability of me actually having sex again this year? How fast will I run Chicago? Why does my back hurt when I stretch my legs? When will I stop feeling like this? Do people really like reading my blog? Why do I still write a blog? Which way shall I run home? Where's that tall girl gone? What is the probability of me having sex next year?
* - I have no idea what women see in me, and I am consistently shocked when it happens. And suspicious.
** - http://liamneesonscock.tumblr.com
Monday 29 August 2011
What's love got to with it? Not much Tina, not much at all.
"You've got to stop reading into everything that she says"
This statement has been playing around in my head for most of this week, mostly while I've been running. It is fair to say that I am a master of the art of 'reading into things' or 'actually working out the truth' as I like to call it. A gift handed down to me by my father, with the express wish that I use this power only for doing my own head in, with Dad being the Overlord, Emperor, and King of being mortally offended by near enough anything that you happen to say to him, the uncanny ability to take real offence to a light hearted joke, and to not forget that joke for a number of years. Exactly like this paragraph basically*
I am my fathers son, so I have been blessed/cursed by this power too. Nothing gives me greater joy/pain than to listen to something someone says to me, convince myself that the statement hides what they REALLY mean, then letting what I think it means take over my rational head. It's not all my own doing though, we all do it. And it will only ever really take control when it involves affairs of the heart, when you want something so badly that you completely convince yourself of what you want to hear, rather than the glaringly obvious.
I fell in love with Lisa Davis on a school trip to Big Pit when I was 8 years old. I knew it was love because she'd sat next to me on the way there. I should have known it was over when she sat with Gareth McCarthy on the way back. I didn't want to believe what was happening in front of my very eyes, and I convinced myself that it was still me that she wanted. So I did the only thing any proud man could do in that situation, I sent her a note saying,
"Is it over between us?"
2 agonizing minutes I waited as the note was hurried up the bus,
"Yes" came the resounding reply.
You'd think that this would be the end of the matter, that a 'yes' in capital letters would make me understand that it was not destined to be. No, I'm afraid that I don't simply stop at the first sign of rejection, I like to have it hammered into to me time and time again, like being viciously beaten by a group of gypsy bare knuckle boxers. A few weeks went by and my family and I went on holiday to Holland, where I found a little craft fair selling traditional Dutch pottery. Looking back now it was clearly Chinese made tat being sold at a tourist trap market in Holland, but at the time the little china windmill was a beautiful ornament. I bought one for Lisa, convinced that she would finally understand the deep, never ending torch I held for her, and that she would realize that I was in fact the man she should spend the rest of her life with, or at least until we got to high school. On the first day back from holidays I walked up to her friend and asked her to give it to Lisa (bravery with the ladies has always been my strong point). During the next break Lisa's friend came back and gave me the windmill back,
"Lisa says thanks but she doesn't want it, she really likes it but she can't accept it"
The only part of this I even hear is 'she really likes it' and I was ecstatic, completely assured that my taste in shit pottery was the same as hers, and that in that case we'd eventually be together forever!
It was this bad when I was eight, 25 years later and I'm still having to deal with this madness!
I've become so adept at it now that I read into what people don't say, and how they don't say it. I can read into peoples actions or lack of actions, and make sure that it comes out on my side. I read into what my friends say about things, then I ignore it and believe what I think they said. I read Emails and change the words around so instead of it saying,
'we've decided that we'd rather you didn't come to Ibiza with us, what with you being bat shit crazy!'
I read it as
'it would be bat shit crazy if you didn't let us come to Ibiza with you!'
It's out of control, and a borderline mental health issue, but I've got the cure. You stop. you just stop trying to read into what people say and just hear what they said instead. Easy. You also completely stop speaking to anyone about anything important at all. Ever.
I go out to run 20 miles with my friend Tom. Tom's planned the route and we head off. The best thing about running somewhere you've never been before is that you don't know how far you've run, or how far you've got left. Unless you've got a fancy watch like Tom has, which bleeps every time you reach a mile, and then tells you how slow you did that mile. Otherwise you're just free to jog along and take in the sites. Brixton, Clapham Common, Putney, Richmond, Morden, and South Wimbledon all glide past. We start off pretty quick but the pace drops off after a while and I take the chance to just enjoy it a have the banter with Tom. It's a good 3 and a half hours or more before we hit the 20 mile mark and the slow pace has gifted me a burnt, red, face.
Even at a slow pace the body needs a few days to recover. The next day my legs feel good with no aches or pains but I can feel a slight heaviness. I take a 2 day break from running. During this two day break I fly to Germany and back in a day for a job interview and to give a presentation. After the interview I am sitting in the canteen waiting for my taxi when the woman who'd interviewed me walks in, sees me on the other side of the room and waves. I wave back and carry on reading my book**. I look up and she is walking towards my table,
"Are you waiting for your cab?"
"Yes" I squeak in reply, I am incredibly nervous, this job is a huge thing for me,
"That was really good. really, really, good. Thank you. It will be completely my decision, and you'll be hearing from me next week, have a safe journey home" then she kisses me on both cheeks and walks off.
Obviously I can't read into what she says so I've assumed that the interview went badly, she didn't think it was very good, and she is going to give the job to someone else. Because that's what she meant right?
* - caru ti yn fawr iawn Dad xx
** - Mr Briggs' Hat - the story of Britain's first railway murder. Amazing book
This statement has been playing around in my head for most of this week, mostly while I've been running. It is fair to say that I am a master of the art of 'reading into things' or 'actually working out the truth' as I like to call it. A gift handed down to me by my father, with the express wish that I use this power only for doing my own head in, with Dad being the Overlord, Emperor, and King of being mortally offended by near enough anything that you happen to say to him, the uncanny ability to take real offence to a light hearted joke, and to not forget that joke for a number of years. Exactly like this paragraph basically*
I am my fathers son, so I have been blessed/cursed by this power too. Nothing gives me greater joy/pain than to listen to something someone says to me, convince myself that the statement hides what they REALLY mean, then letting what I think it means take over my rational head. It's not all my own doing though, we all do it. And it will only ever really take control when it involves affairs of the heart, when you want something so badly that you completely convince yourself of what you want to hear, rather than the glaringly obvious.
I fell in love with Lisa Davis on a school trip to Big Pit when I was 8 years old. I knew it was love because she'd sat next to me on the way there. I should have known it was over when she sat with Gareth McCarthy on the way back. I didn't want to believe what was happening in front of my very eyes, and I convinced myself that it was still me that she wanted. So I did the only thing any proud man could do in that situation, I sent her a note saying,
"Is it over between us?"
2 agonizing minutes I waited as the note was hurried up the bus,
"Yes" came the resounding reply.
You'd think that this would be the end of the matter, that a 'yes' in capital letters would make me understand that it was not destined to be. No, I'm afraid that I don't simply stop at the first sign of rejection, I like to have it hammered into to me time and time again, like being viciously beaten by a group of gypsy bare knuckle boxers. A few weeks went by and my family and I went on holiday to Holland, where I found a little craft fair selling traditional Dutch pottery. Looking back now it was clearly Chinese made tat being sold at a tourist trap market in Holland, but at the time the little china windmill was a beautiful ornament. I bought one for Lisa, convinced that she would finally understand the deep, never ending torch I held for her, and that she would realize that I was in fact the man she should spend the rest of her life with, or at least until we got to high school. On the first day back from holidays I walked up to her friend and asked her to give it to Lisa (bravery with the ladies has always been my strong point). During the next break Lisa's friend came back and gave me the windmill back,
"Lisa says thanks but she doesn't want it, she really likes it but she can't accept it"
The only part of this I even hear is 'she really likes it' and I was ecstatic, completely assured that my taste in shit pottery was the same as hers, and that in that case we'd eventually be together forever!
It was this bad when I was eight, 25 years later and I'm still having to deal with this madness!
I've become so adept at it now that I read into what people don't say, and how they don't say it. I can read into peoples actions or lack of actions, and make sure that it comes out on my side. I read into what my friends say about things, then I ignore it and believe what I think they said. I read Emails and change the words around so instead of it saying,
'we've decided that we'd rather you didn't come to Ibiza with us, what with you being bat shit crazy!'
I read it as
'it would be bat shit crazy if you didn't let us come to Ibiza with you!'
It's out of control, and a borderline mental health issue, but I've got the cure. You stop. you just stop trying to read into what people say and just hear what they said instead. Easy. You also completely stop speaking to anyone about anything important at all. Ever.
I go out to run 20 miles with my friend Tom. Tom's planned the route and we head off. The best thing about running somewhere you've never been before is that you don't know how far you've run, or how far you've got left. Unless you've got a fancy watch like Tom has, which bleeps every time you reach a mile, and then tells you how slow you did that mile. Otherwise you're just free to jog along and take in the sites. Brixton, Clapham Common, Putney, Richmond, Morden, and South Wimbledon all glide past. We start off pretty quick but the pace drops off after a while and I take the chance to just enjoy it a have the banter with Tom. It's a good 3 and a half hours or more before we hit the 20 mile mark and the slow pace has gifted me a burnt, red, face.
Even at a slow pace the body needs a few days to recover. The next day my legs feel good with no aches or pains but I can feel a slight heaviness. I take a 2 day break from running. During this two day break I fly to Germany and back in a day for a job interview and to give a presentation. After the interview I am sitting in the canteen waiting for my taxi when the woman who'd interviewed me walks in, sees me on the other side of the room and waves. I wave back and carry on reading my book**. I look up and she is walking towards my table,
"Are you waiting for your cab?"
"Yes" I squeak in reply, I am incredibly nervous, this job is a huge thing for me,
"That was really good. really, really, good. Thank you. It will be completely my decision, and you'll be hearing from me next week, have a safe journey home" then she kisses me on both cheeks and walks off.
Obviously I can't read into what she says so I've assumed that the interview went badly, she didn't think it was very good, and she is going to give the job to someone else. Because that's what she meant right?
* - caru ti yn fawr iawn Dad xx
** - Mr Briggs' Hat - the story of Britain's first railway murder. Amazing book
Tuesday 16 August 2011
The circle of life, my blisters, and the fact that we are just animals
Like most sports running is intertwined with your state of mind. If you are in a good mood your run will be one of enjoyment and ease. If you are unhappy, your run will become longer and fraught with errors or injury.
I have had my mum to stay with me for 5 nights, I would describe my runs during this period as frustrating, annoying, and fury inducing. This is not to say that I don't like my dear Mam, I love her with every fibre of my being, she gave me life, looked after me until I was able, and never judged me. She has just loved me unconditionally for 30 years. The other 3 years she wanted to kill me because I wouldn't sleep as a baby. My mother nearly threw me out of a bedroom window after 3 sleepless days and nights. Ask her, she'll admit it.
It is not my Mum that drives me mad, it is the fact that our roles have been reversed, time is playing its last cruel joke on us, turning the carer into the cared. We have swapped roles now mother and I, before she would tell me what to do, and how to do it, guiding me around and making sure I didn't fall flat on my face. Now I'm the one making sure she doesn't headbutt the floor. I find myself saying things to my mother that she used to say to me -
"No, No, come on, it's this way"
"Watch where you're going! You'll get run over!"
"Put it down! That's not yours"
"Right! time for bed for you then"
And I am furious that I have to look after her now, because it means that I must face up to the reality that one day, hopefully in 50 years from now, my Mam won't be here to look after me anymore. And the fury I feel when I have say these things to her just hides the indescribable sadness that engulfs me when I consider that fact. I cry about it sometimes, not in front of her, or anyone for that matter but I don't believe in holding emotion in anymore, why deny the inevitable? the inescapable? My parents won't be here one day and it sucks the life out of me.
I wasn't always this sad about my parents being dead though, at times in the 80's I recall shouting that I wished they WERE dead but I didn't mean it, I was a teenager, we all said things we never ever meant.
The relationship with the parents has three main periods -
Period 1
0 - 12
Your parents are super heroes who know everything, give you everything, protect you, make you laugh, teach you, shout at you. You fear them because they are the all knowing, the keepers of secrets, on first name terms with Santa AND the tooth fairy! They know the answer to every question you can think of, and still manage to make you feel like you are the most important person on the planet. They're indestructible and so very strong.
Period 2
13 - 24
This is the hardest period for all concerned, the period when you realize that your parents actually know very little about a lot of things, and that they actually hid, lied, and glossed over loads of things in life that you weren't expecting, like death, working for money, emotional heart ache, and life generally fucking you over once in a while. These caring idiots lied to you for years, telling you it was going to be OK, kissing it better, when in actual fact all that was going to happen was that life was going to get harder, and kissing it better would become really inappropriate and could get you arrested.
Period 3
25 - The rest of your life.
This is the period that is actually the most wonderful, when all the cats are out of the bags, when you can sit with your parents and talk about life without them having to lie to you anymore. Life shit? turns out that your Dad had a pretty tough time growing up too. Tough job? turns out your mum did that hardest job in the world in raising you, then went out and did a normal job on top. And then it slowly dawns on your stupid, selfish, arrogant, brain that your parents have lived a life very much like yours, they've felt what you've felt, seen what you've seen, and that they had to then protect you from all of it until you were old enough to cope! And it's this period when you love them so much more because they are you, and you are they.
And then they go and ruin it by getting old and forcing you start looking after them. The bastards!
I suspect Mum plays it up a bit, the selective hearing, the tiredness, the confusion at fancy kettles, and let's not even get started on the Internet.
My mum is the only person I know who owns Sky+ in her house, but doesn't know how to use it in mine! As if the location makes it impossible for her to understand.
I'd cry if I wasn't laughing.
I have left London to go for a run around Cardiff for a few days. This is a new run for me, new music, and new orthotics in my trainers. I am pronating heavily into my right foot, meaning that as I land I lean and push onto the inside left of my right foot. This causes annoyance for the first 5 miles, pain for the next 5 miles, then blood for any miles after, The orthotics should balance me out.
They don't. Half way round the outskirts of Cardiff Bay the pain is for more acute than running without them and I have to stop and take them out in Grangetown. I run the rest of the way back, and hit a good time, but the damage is done. I've got a hole in my foot.
I spend the rest of my time in Cardiff seeing a new born baby. This baby is 4 weeks old, and already has the makings of a beautiful human being, if you can get beyond the constant crying, shitting, crying, and sleeping that it does. Babies are to me the last great example of why we are simply animals. A baby comes along and everyone close to that baby wants to protect it, to care for it and keep it safe from harm. And this one is no exception. I held her in my arms and I was quietly confident that I would happily kill anyone or anything that came near it to cause her harm. The cat got a couple of nasty stares from me those few days let me tell you!
It is a primal feeling, it's not my baby, it's not even my blood but I felt a instinctive need to protect her and you see that a thousand times stronger in the parents. They've changed. They're still your friends but they don't care about you that much anymore, the only thing they care about is that little baby. It's amazing and beautiful. A simple joy to watch.
And it changes everything, the biggest game changer in life. Going to Cardiff would normally involve drinking beers all day, watching some sport, then drinking wine until the early hours whilst having loud, drunken, misunderstandings with all concerned. This time I was up at 8am, sitting around watching the baby, listening to the baby, holding the baby, playing with the baby, then a walk into town and back again, then putting the baby down, then going to bed. It was the best 3 days in Cardiff I've had in 4 years.
It takes 4 days for the foot to stop being a hole but it's sorted now. I'm now alternating between two sets of trainers. One pair a half size too small but don't hurt my problem foot, and the other pair that fit but make me pronate. Some thing's got to give, and it ain't going to be me.
I have had my mum to stay with me for 5 nights, I would describe my runs during this period as frustrating, annoying, and fury inducing. This is not to say that I don't like my dear Mam, I love her with every fibre of my being, she gave me life, looked after me until I was able, and never judged me. She has just loved me unconditionally for 30 years. The other 3 years she wanted to kill me because I wouldn't sleep as a baby. My mother nearly threw me out of a bedroom window after 3 sleepless days and nights. Ask her, she'll admit it.
It is not my Mum that drives me mad, it is the fact that our roles have been reversed, time is playing its last cruel joke on us, turning the carer into the cared. We have swapped roles now mother and I, before she would tell me what to do, and how to do it, guiding me around and making sure I didn't fall flat on my face. Now I'm the one making sure she doesn't headbutt the floor. I find myself saying things to my mother that she used to say to me -
"No, No, come on, it's this way"
"Watch where you're going! You'll get run over!"
"Put it down! That's not yours"
"Right! time for bed for you then"
And I am furious that I have to look after her now, because it means that I must face up to the reality that one day, hopefully in 50 years from now, my Mam won't be here to look after me anymore. And the fury I feel when I have say these things to her just hides the indescribable sadness that engulfs me when I consider that fact. I cry about it sometimes, not in front of her, or anyone for that matter but I don't believe in holding emotion in anymore, why deny the inevitable? the inescapable? My parents won't be here one day and it sucks the life out of me.
I wasn't always this sad about my parents being dead though, at times in the 80's I recall shouting that I wished they WERE dead but I didn't mean it, I was a teenager, we all said things we never ever meant.
The relationship with the parents has three main periods -
Period 1
0 - 12
Your parents are super heroes who know everything, give you everything, protect you, make you laugh, teach you, shout at you. You fear them because they are the all knowing, the keepers of secrets, on first name terms with Santa AND the tooth fairy! They know the answer to every question you can think of, and still manage to make you feel like you are the most important person on the planet. They're indestructible and so very strong.
Period 2
13 - 24
This is the hardest period for all concerned, the period when you realize that your parents actually know very little about a lot of things, and that they actually hid, lied, and glossed over loads of things in life that you weren't expecting, like death, working for money, emotional heart ache, and life generally fucking you over once in a while. These caring idiots lied to you for years, telling you it was going to be OK, kissing it better, when in actual fact all that was going to happen was that life was going to get harder, and kissing it better would become really inappropriate and could get you arrested.
Period 3
25 - The rest of your life.
This is the period that is actually the most wonderful, when all the cats are out of the bags, when you can sit with your parents and talk about life without them having to lie to you anymore. Life shit? turns out that your Dad had a pretty tough time growing up too. Tough job? turns out your mum did that hardest job in the world in raising you, then went out and did a normal job on top. And then it slowly dawns on your stupid, selfish, arrogant, brain that your parents have lived a life very much like yours, they've felt what you've felt, seen what you've seen, and that they had to then protect you from all of it until you were old enough to cope! And it's this period when you love them so much more because they are you, and you are they.
And then they go and ruin it by getting old and forcing you start looking after them. The bastards!
I suspect Mum plays it up a bit, the selective hearing, the tiredness, the confusion at fancy kettles, and let's not even get started on the Internet.
My mum is the only person I know who owns Sky+ in her house, but doesn't know how to use it in mine! As if the location makes it impossible for her to understand.
I'd cry if I wasn't laughing.
I have left London to go for a run around Cardiff for a few days. This is a new run for me, new music, and new orthotics in my trainers. I am pronating heavily into my right foot, meaning that as I land I lean and push onto the inside left of my right foot. This causes annoyance for the first 5 miles, pain for the next 5 miles, then blood for any miles after, The orthotics should balance me out.
They don't. Half way round the outskirts of Cardiff Bay the pain is for more acute than running without them and I have to stop and take them out in Grangetown. I run the rest of the way back, and hit a good time, but the damage is done. I've got a hole in my foot.
I spend the rest of my time in Cardiff seeing a new born baby. This baby is 4 weeks old, and already has the makings of a beautiful human being, if you can get beyond the constant crying, shitting, crying, and sleeping that it does. Babies are to me the last great example of why we are simply animals. A baby comes along and everyone close to that baby wants to protect it, to care for it and keep it safe from harm. And this one is no exception. I held her in my arms and I was quietly confident that I would happily kill anyone or anything that came near it to cause her harm. The cat got a couple of nasty stares from me those few days let me tell you!
It is a primal feeling, it's not my baby, it's not even my blood but I felt a instinctive need to protect her and you see that a thousand times stronger in the parents. They've changed. They're still your friends but they don't care about you that much anymore, the only thing they care about is that little baby. It's amazing and beautiful. A simple joy to watch.
And it changes everything, the biggest game changer in life. Going to Cardiff would normally involve drinking beers all day, watching some sport, then drinking wine until the early hours whilst having loud, drunken, misunderstandings with all concerned. This time I was up at 8am, sitting around watching the baby, listening to the baby, holding the baby, playing with the baby, then a walk into town and back again, then putting the baby down, then going to bed. It was the best 3 days in Cardiff I've had in 4 years.
It takes 4 days for the foot to stop being a hole but it's sorted now. I'm now alternating between two sets of trainers. One pair a half size too small but don't hurt my problem foot, and the other pair that fit but make me pronate. Some thing's got to give, and it ain't going to be me.
Monday 1 August 2011
My head's empty, but my legs are full.
I am now running every day. 3-5 miles one day, 7-10 miles the next until Sunday when I run a bit further. I don't plan the runs anymore now, I just leave the house with enough time to be able to get back and prepare breakfast and lunch. And I LOVE it!
Then I just feel my body, how I'm landing, if my breathing is matching my steps, and I just go. The speeds vary now too, if I know it's going to be short one then I'll quicken as much as I can, longer runs I just pace it out. I don't wear a watch either, I'll match up the time I left with the time I get back, then g pedometer it as I greedily chow down my cereal. And I LOVE it!
But the strangest thing has started happening, I don't think about much anymore, the big things at least. I may have a happy memory pop into my head every now and then, especially if I run past a place of meaning or importance. Usually it's pubs I've fallen out of, or doorways where I've stolen kisses. There's lots of those places around where I live so these little pictures pop into my head, a short, punchy memory of days gone by, but nothing substantial, nothing that follows me through the whole run, and the same goes for bad thoughts, they seem to have fallen away. It seems that the more I run, the less I think.
I must confess that I think about the marathon a lot, and what it represents. I've wanted to run this marathon for such a long time, and now it's 9 weeks away. And the average finish time I posted in London this year adds a delicious tension to Chicago. It's not a question of beating my last time, I could beat that if I spent the morning at a Pizza Hut buffet, drank a couple of pints, had a snooze and set off, I'd still beat that time, it's by how much? how fast can I go? And I know it shouldn't matter, and that the achievement is the real joy but it isn't. It's the beating of something that you know can be beaten.
There a solitariness about running, a sense that it really is you against you, and you for you. The effort you put in, the early mornings and late nights. The weird sleeping patterns and boring diet, all of these things you do to yourself in the hope of bettering yourself. You deny yourself what you want, in order to get what you really want in the future, oh sweet irony!
By all accounts I should be lonely. I don't go out anymore, I'm in bed by 11pm, up at 6am, I don't eat anything that doesn't in some way benefit my running, and I don't drink like I use to. In fact, I may have a glass of wine with a meal but that is it.
And it's shit. I hate it! I hate the lack of fun, I hate not seeing my mates, I hate the constant thought that somewhere the best night ever is happening and I'm not there. I hate seeing the photos and hearing the stories, I hate the tweets and status' I hate not being in the middle of the road at 4am kissing a sweetheart and not caring about the next day.
But I don't hate it at much as I hated a couple of months ago, when I limped over the line four hours and thirteen minutes after I'd started, I hated the looks of pity and disappointment, I hated the realization that nobody else had done this to me except me, I hated that so much more.
And this hatred is driving me forward but I worry that I'm pushing too hard, letting hate and determination cloud my better judgement, and we all know that nothing good ever came from hatred. Which I think is something from Star Wars but I can't be sure.
So I have decided to put love back into my running, and I LOVE it!
Then I just feel my body, how I'm landing, if my breathing is matching my steps, and I just go. The speeds vary now too, if I know it's going to be short one then I'll quicken as much as I can, longer runs I just pace it out. I don't wear a watch either, I'll match up the time I left with the time I get back, then g pedometer it as I greedily chow down my cereal. And I LOVE it!
But the strangest thing has started happening, I don't think about much anymore, the big things at least. I may have a happy memory pop into my head every now and then, especially if I run past a place of meaning or importance. Usually it's pubs I've fallen out of, or doorways where I've stolen kisses. There's lots of those places around where I live so these little pictures pop into my head, a short, punchy memory of days gone by, but nothing substantial, nothing that follows me through the whole run, and the same goes for bad thoughts, they seem to have fallen away. It seems that the more I run, the less I think.
I must confess that I think about the marathon a lot, and what it represents. I've wanted to run this marathon for such a long time, and now it's 9 weeks away. And the average finish time I posted in London this year adds a delicious tension to Chicago. It's not a question of beating my last time, I could beat that if I spent the morning at a Pizza Hut buffet, drank a couple of pints, had a snooze and set off, I'd still beat that time, it's by how much? how fast can I go? And I know it shouldn't matter, and that the achievement is the real joy but it isn't. It's the beating of something that you know can be beaten.
There a solitariness about running, a sense that it really is you against you, and you for you. The effort you put in, the early mornings and late nights. The weird sleeping patterns and boring diet, all of these things you do to yourself in the hope of bettering yourself. You deny yourself what you want, in order to get what you really want in the future, oh sweet irony!
By all accounts I should be lonely. I don't go out anymore, I'm in bed by 11pm, up at 6am, I don't eat anything that doesn't in some way benefit my running, and I don't drink like I use to. In fact, I may have a glass of wine with a meal but that is it.
And it's shit. I hate it! I hate the lack of fun, I hate not seeing my mates, I hate the constant thought that somewhere the best night ever is happening and I'm not there. I hate seeing the photos and hearing the stories, I hate the tweets and status' I hate not being in the middle of the road at 4am kissing a sweetheart and not caring about the next day.
But I don't hate it at much as I hated a couple of months ago, when I limped over the line four hours and thirteen minutes after I'd started, I hated the looks of pity and disappointment, I hated the realization that nobody else had done this to me except me, I hated that so much more.
And this hatred is driving me forward but I worry that I'm pushing too hard, letting hate and determination cloud my better judgement, and we all know that nothing good ever came from hatred. Which I think is something from Star Wars but I can't be sure.
So I have decided to put love back into my running, and I LOVE it!
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