Marathon running and why my body is amazing

Five years ago or so, shortly before Ruby died, I started to seriously consider my health and age for the first time. Not long after this I became vegetarian and have also kept an eye on my ingested food and gin calories (I had stopped smoking a few years before then- I went from a heavy 30 roll-ups-a-day to zero in one day, cold turkey). I was motivated by a colleague from work, George, who had started running not long before and was not only reaping obvious physical and mental health benefits but wouldn't shut up about it. So I bought the cheapest kit I could, downloaded the NHS "Couch to 5k" podcast, joined the local gym and jumped on a treadmill for the first time in my life. 

I loved it. I found the training quite an endeavour but it was manageable and, most importantly, achievable. As the nine week programme of walk/run/walk/run/walk intensified I was running 20 minutes non-stop by the end of week six and this was when I left the treadmill, waved the gym a happy goodbye and started to run outside. 

This was a life-changing event for me, my rebirth as "a runner". I have run without any major injury for nearly every week since then. I have run on my birthdays, on Christmas Day, at midnight, with a hangover, with a cold, through snow, on holiday, up hills, on roads, barefoot. I ran within a month of Ruby dying and within a week of Mum dying- I had to, I was compelled- I run to stave off depression and to maintain a consistent plateau of wellness. 

In January this year I started training for the Belfast marathon. I had been running two short runs and one long run of around 10-15 miles each week but it was time to crank up the energy and really push myself. So I then caught two nasty bugs and was out of action for a month.

But a month ago I joined the gym again, learnt how to use free weights and machines and set up an intense training programme. I attend the gym twice a week for strength and stability training plus once more for hill running (the treadmill again but the runs are short and very intense) and I have one long run outside at the weekend. The long run has been deliberately extended by 2 km each week so even though I was running a regular 18-22 km until last month, I ran 32 km (20 miles) a few days ago, the longest I have ever run, which is the typical maximum training distance that a first time marathon runner would aim for. 

So I am at my training goal, 20 miles. I hope to complete this distance two of three more times and then have an easy week or two before the marathon. I will continue to harbour fantasies of completing ultra-marathons (races over 26 miles, typically 50 to a hundred miles or more) but, for now, the marathon is in my sights. 

My training path has been, as far as I am aware, typical but has also been surprising in some ways- my gym membership, anathema as it always had been to the old me, has proven its cost. Certainly I get out what I put in and I have seen and felt obvious changes within only a few weeks, my stamina increasing and flexibility improving. Most startling of all is the ease with which I have increased the distance on my long run, 2 km week after week, although the muscles and tendons in my feet have struggled to keep up- my soles are bruised for days after each run and I have to hobble and stretch to recover. 

Rest days are considered "active rest" days. I perform a series of gentle stretching exercises for all major muscle groups, use a foam roller to help muscle recovery and carry out a set of lower leg strengthening excersises, useful for barefoot running. I don't actually run in bare feet very often but it is the term denoting a style or form of running signified by a forefoot strike as the foot reaches the ground instead of heel-striking, typical of most runners. Forefoot striking is the oldest and most natural way of running and, when not totally barefoot, I run in huaraches, Mexican running sandals which are, essentially, a thin layer of hard rubber held onto the foot by a strap. They do away with the sharpest of stones and broken glass but let me feel underfoot as if I wear nothing  at all. Traditionally they were made from cut up car tyres. 

Having never been a fan of my body I am now much more respectful as to what I never thought it could achieve. I have had no serious injuries during the entire time I have been running (only one twisted knee and one sore foot putting me off for a few weeks each) and, after an MOT by my GP recently and a thorough medical assessment at hospital prior to elective surgery (that in the end wasn't necessary) I know that, although my BMI would suggest I am "obese" I am in very good health and can outrun almost everyone I know. I am extremely appreciative of my good health and the physiology that will allow me to run a marathon, something only 1% of people have done. My joints can hold up my obese body for mile after mile, in comfort and in fact for fun. My bare feet will cover the distance that my hunter-gatherer ancestors have filled their days with for two million years. My obese, wobbly, middle-aged, greying, balding flabby body is amazing. It is aesthetically embarrassing but anatomically awe-inspiring and for those particular reasons, in those ways, I love it.

Baring injury I might just make those 26.2 miles on 1st May. 

Sisyphus

Sisyphus was a Greek mortal whose wiliness angered the gods so much that when he died and had to be forcibly taken to the underworld his particularly fiendish punishment entailed rolling a boulder up a mountain to its summit. It may have taken only a few days, months or maybe even years but, however long it took, however great the toil, when the rock reached the summit it would roll down to the bottom again. Sisyphus begin again, rolling the boulder back up the hill only for the same thing to happen. This would continue for eternity.

His condemnation does not lie in his upset and depression at his task (he does not, after all, refuse the activity and we can assume he is actually compelled to complete it) nor the sheer physical labour he exerts. His punishment is not that he has been given a task to build something at the top of the hill and sees his goal thwarted. 

His torment is eternal, his damnation complete, because of the sheer futility of his task. The boulder goes nowhere up the hill, it goes nowhere down the hill, it has no purpose, no reason (it is easy to imagine why treadmills were originally designed as such a hideous form of punishment in Victorian times. All that energy going to waste, the futility of the activity). Here is the hellish oblivion he must endure- to put effort into nothing, forever, for no reason. 

If purposelessness like that of Sisyphus' is a definition of eternal hell then surely the opposite- purpose and direction- is one meaning of a reason for living, for heaven on Earth, for happiness. Maybe there is no real value for immediate satisfaction or gratuitous sensory pleasure in our lives but, instead, we should demarcate who we are and our reason for being based on our role and objectives. 

If my happiness is based on my productivity, what should I produce and what is my role? According to the Greek gods my existence has meaning insofar as it has utility. How, therefore, am I best utilised in the brief time I have here in Earth? 

Ruby is always there

It has been many weeks since I last wrote. My mum died six weeks ago and I haven't felt motivated to write or do many other things. I was off work for a few weeks and spent some of it back in London visiting my dad and sister. 

I thought I was ready to return to work but my reality was that it took a few weeks for Mums death to begin to affect me. This blog is supposed to be about grief and mental health but right now, I can't, or don't want to, put my thoughts and experiences here. The most obvious thought I will share is that grief remains predictably unpredictable. 

Of course, Ruby hasn't been far from my mind. 

It was Shrove Tuesday recently. Pancakes were my and Ruby's favourite food and I have been unable to cook pancakes (crepes) since she died almost four years ago. The last few years I made drop-scones/ Scottish pancakes which was an obvious second best. But this year I just got on with making a big pile of proper crepes for breakfast and even managed to use the frying pan I bought Ruby for her own foodie experiments which has been at the back of the cupboard for years. She used it for a chicken-and-spice experiment- we cut a chicken fillet into bite-sized chunks and she marinaded each piece in a combination of different ground spices which were then labelled carefully and fried. Her favourite was a smoked paprika, coriander, cumin and turmeric mix which ever since had been known as Ruby Spice in our house. Even Tom has liked it from a young age and we keep a pre-mixed jar in the cupboard, just in case. Ruby was, of course, not far from my mind. 

I remain a jogger, preparing for the Belfast Marathon in May. I have recently started strength and stability training at my local gym, practice a hill run each week and a long run at weekends (I have just got in from my longest ever run- 28km- so my recent gym membership appears to be worth it). It takes a great deal of psychic effort to attend the gym or to spend hours away from Claire and Tom at the weekends but I keep the greater goal in mind of crossing the finish line and of raising money for a heart charity. And, of course, Ruby is not far from my mind. 

Adding to my recent feelings of loss was International Women's Day last week, always an emotional day for me. Although I feel a little uncomfortable as a man calling myself a feminist, I undoubtedly am one. There is no reason to not be a feminist. I lost my daughter four years ago and my mum six weeks ago. I am a nurse, of whom many more are women than men, and I have been one of very few men in any team I have worked in and rarely with a man as a manager. I generally prefer the company of women, professionally and personally, I prefer female comics, filmmakers, journalists, photographers and makers of art I admire. International Women's Day isn't just another day to me, it is a chance to openly consider and discuss ideas, interests, joys, admiration, and respects of great interest to me. I spent the lunchtime at Belfast City Hall supporting a pro-choice rally (abortion is still totally illegal here in Northern Ireland. But it's 2017) and then watched an amazing writer and academic speak at City Hall- Angela Davis, an American activist who focuses on ideas of poverty and lack of choice as being the most restrictive type of abuse women receive around the world. It chimed strongly with me as I so strongly believe Christopher Hitchen's maxim that almost all the worlds problems could disappear in one generation if all women were given absolute birth control. 

I wished Ruby was with me. She was never far from my thoughts.