The resurection will not be televised

23 Weeks to Go (11 November)

I was hoping to have rediscovered my enthusiasm this week but it’s not really materialised.  I’m still grinding out regular runs but they’re getting shorter and shorter.  And I’m getting tired, the increased exertion over the last few weeks taking its toll on my unfit body.

Also, my initial excitement at rediscovering London has run into a significant barrier: Even with daylight savings, it always seems to be night time.  In Brisbane I drove Gabriella mad by setting my alarm for half five every morning to watch the sunrise; in Paddington, I can pop out the office and catch it rising and setting in the time it takes to finish elevenses.

It’s like an advert for moles.

Finally, the fundraising side of things is spooking me slightly.  I had an idea to host a football tournament for the NHS and cover the venue cost with corporate sponsorship, but I’ve misjudged either my own powers of persuasion or the severity of the current financial climate.  The pharmaceutical industry would happily write a blank cheque for Harold Shipman a few years ago, now it appears they’ve put in place all sorts of processes and justifications for not throwing their money away.  I turn to my last resort, the medical rep, and cannot believe my ears when the same person who invited me to attend a two-week ‘study tour’ of Dubai three years ago apologetically explains that these days she can’t sign off so much as a free pen.

I’ve also mentioned it to a few of my friends by now, whilst failing to admit that the reason I want to collect a couple of grand is to buy my way into the marathon.  Without exception they’ve told me stories of how people they know raised millions within a matter of minutes, which is obviously no fucking help whatsoever but at least my hatred of these anonymous people is fuelling my stamina.

It’s not all bad, though.  For a start, I’m now only aiming for £1,990 after I receive my first surprise donation from Paul Mehta – surprise because I’ve not yet told him (or anyone) what I’m doing.  He’s tracked me down on Just Giving after I gave him a pack of Tim Tams to say thanks for storing my bike whilst we’ve been away, his place at the top of my ‘most generous man alive’ ladder secured when he also texts to offer to fix my chain for free.  Who’s that selfless?

No one in this picture has consented to their image being used in this way

Further donations creep in.  Bringing a box of Celebrations to a meeting that coincided with World Diabetes Day yielded surprisingly generous donations and my girlfriend is now so sick of my whining that she’s taking a more active fundraising role.  So far I’ve been filing her suggestions mainly in the ‘need more development’ box, but I won’t get anywhere without her constant enthusiasm and support so I keep my concerns about some of her ideas to myself.  Yes, popping to the continent then selling bootleg fags and cheap booze might bring in some much needed capital but a bit of me feels like I should at least pay lip service to ‘healthy’ fundraising.  Having said that, her suggestion of a work bake off adds a few more shiny coins to the tin and I realise that what seemed an insurmountable task is fast becoming a task that is merely very, very, very hard to surmount.  As my old boss used to say ad nauseum, how do you eat an elephant?  One bite at a time. 

There are even some positives on the road, too.  I’ve chanced my first run with a purpose rather than just for the sake of it, jogging home to Clapham from Victoria after a conference.  With that under my belt I’ve also jogged to work, 8km, a short distance in the scheme of things but an eightfold improvement on my initial effort.  Funny to think that a distance that seems enormous on a bike in the rain Monday morning actually needs a quick lap of Hyde Park tagged onto the end of it just to meet 10k.

I’ve also identified some tools to increase my motivation, the best of which is somewhat unexpected: Hummingbird.  A near-miss with a van as I crossed a road without looking led to my new personal best time, as I followed the Hummingbird Bakery delivery van all over West London dreaming of the treats that lay in store. 

Having mocked people publishing their dreary Nike+ stories on Facebook previously I’m now an overzealous convert, relying on it to keep me distracted with podcasts as much as mapping my progress.  It’s a statistician’s dream, analysing the pace and distance of each run in comparison with your averages but my lack of competitive spirit means that I notice my interest seems to be purely academic rather than to motivate me to run further and faster.  There’s some satisfaction when I finally run the distance of a marathon, though; admittedly tempered by the fact that it’s cumulative over my last six outings.

Finally, I’ve had my first out-of-London runs, one in Nottingham and one in Sheffield.  The former came after an unsuccessful job interview (“We’ve decided to offer it to the internal candidate who has been acting into the role for the last six months”, not that I’m bitter) and was very cathartic.  It culminated in a lap of the National Water Sports Centre whilst watching the GB white water rafting team train to an audience of three: Where are you now, London 2012?  Fickle.   

It feels good to run past my old house by Trent Bridge and so I stop to photo it, prompting the beginnings of a vague quest to take pictures of each place I’ve lived as an adult.  After discounting my time living abroad I’ve still got houses in Derby, Mansfield, Birmingham, Sheffield, Heanor and London to get round.... maybe I should settle down for a bit, I muse.  

This is the first of many life thoughts.  The best thing about being out and about each day is the thinking time it affords you and I’m coming back from each jog as mentally fresh as I am physically tired.  And my thoughts at the moment are that I’m as likely to sack it all off and bum around Italy for a decade or so as I am to complete the London marathon, so watch this space...

Oh, piss off

24 Weeks to Go (4 November)

The honeymoon, predictably, is over.

England rains.  I’m tired.  My feet hurt.

A dreary week at work and a weekend watching the government blow up thousands and thousands of pounds in fireworks before announcing a fresh round of job cuts leaves me fairly unimpressed with the state of the country.  I slip over in Hyde Park, pulling my hamstring and tearing a hole in my shorts, leg.  I force myself to go for a jog on Thursday evening knowing all of my friends are out of the cold in the pub having a considerably better time, no matter how much I pretend to be enjoying listening to the Smooth Jazz podcast while getting soaked to the bone on the A406.

And some bastard at work has nicked my iron, too.  My £3.99 Argos Value iron, which has happily provided me with heavily-creased work shirts for over three years.  Together we’ve endured the lows and the slightly lower lows of coalition NHS and I can’t disguise my emotions now that it’s gone.  It feels like I’ve lost a brother.

I’ve got zero enthusiasm all week but force myself to go through the motions, a brief moment of cheer from my NIKE+ when I cover the distance of a marathon somewhat muted by the fact it took me nine cumulative jogs to achieve it.

My choice of music, too, is something of a hindrance. Though happy to have avoided the gym cliché of remixed 90s dance anthems I’ve not yet found a better solution, and as much as I’m enjoying listening to Alan Davies’ podcasts whinging about the Gunners’ catatonic forward play it doesn’t exactly give me the inspiration for a record-breaking sprint finish.  For a change of pace I play some of my music on shuffle but to no avail, and when the Cranberries’ painfully slow dirge No Need to Argue comes on I seriously contemplate throwing myself under a Routemaster.

I’m also finding some sympathy for Paula Radcliffe, too, and a buttock-clenching early morning run leaves me shamefully contemplating the purchase of some ‘Marathon Pants’ (read ‘nappies’) from eBay.  This is not the movement I had in mind.

Finally, there’s the weather and the state of my feet.  My ambitions have been upgraded slightly, so whilst I’m still not telling anyone I’m entering the marathon I have bought myself the cheapest jogging shoes I could find (£22, Sports Direct).  These give me a more pleasing bounce along the pavement than my Asics did but there’s a downside, which is that after a short jog it’s hard to say where blister ends and foot begins.  By the end of the week I’m eschewing socks in favour of a tapestry of plasters.  

 I’d have hit my £2k target a lot quicker if I was collecting for Dr Scholl.

And the weather?  Fuck me, it’s cold here.  Week one was a t-shirt and shorts; as we enter into winter I’m coming out each morning togged up like Han Solo on Hoth.  It shouldn’t have come as that much of a surprise that I’ve felt the cold so much since coming back – I wear a base layer under my work shirt, after all.  (Lesson five: Australia makes you nesh.)  The idea of a nice jog round the park when the birds are tweeting and the sun is shining is one thing (Fig 1); when it’s fucking it down with rain and the grass is a rich and muddy brown it’s something else (Fig 2).  I resent even leaving my bedroom when it rains, let alone mustering the enthusiasm to trot aimlessly round Clapham Common getting splashed by every tosser with a car and some pent up aggression.

Fig 2: Wank

Fig 1: Inspiring

Not happy, Jan.

Of Canals and Conkers

25 Weeks to Go (28 October)

Week two of regular jogging and my enthusiasm sees no sign of waning.

Jogging is surprisingly fun.  Because I’m not taking it at all seriously I’m relishing every second that my stamina can keep me out and about.  It’s great thinking time, I’m actually listening to music properly for the first time in years rather than just having it in the background.  And above all, I’m loving being immersed in the best London has to offer.

In the 30-40 minutes that I can currently manage I can make it to Hyde Park, Regent’s Park, Holland Park; along the Thames, or the Regent’s Canal; to Chelsea, Maida Vale, Oxford Street.  London is so much smaller than I realised and for the first time since buying a bike for my daily commute, I’m building up a clearer picture of how it all fits together. There's always something new popping up, and even my regular lap of Regent's Park throws up the occasional surprise find.

A lot of London is beautiful, too.  Since ‘discovering’ Hyde Park I want to spend as much time in it as possible and each time I go something new catches my eye.  There’s so much more there than I’d ever realised, from horse training and the Italian gardens to the convent and pet cemetery  How can you not want to jog about the city, when a twenty minute route can take you past so many stunning buildings and iconic places?

I’m Yorkshire by trade, which means I started off greeting every runner I came across with a cheerful ‘good morning’.  That went a-begging on day three, the lack of responses draining my enthusiasm to engender a sense of community only marginally less than the young lad threatening to chiv me up by the Houses of Parliament.  But I’m not disheartened: It’s just nice to be out in the city, watching the gypsies and squirrels foraging for food.

When I get into the office and talk to my colleagues, it’s hard to keep the smug disbelief out of my voice.  What, you mean you didn’t get up at 5.30am and go for a jog?  It seems crazy that people wake up and go to work without taking the time to do something for themselves first, like I’m in on a secret shared by a chosen few.  It gets to the point that I’m almost evangelical about it, holding new-edition Hyde Park conkers in my palm and marveling at the idea that people are passing by within a few hundred metres every day and never stop to enjoy the nature at their doorstep.   

You can’t get a fresh London conker in Australia and I post one to my friends there to let them know it’s not all bad here [Lesson three: You don’t have to rely on the postman to get hold of a Hyde Park conker] [Lesson four: You can’t rely on a postman to get hold of a Hyde Park conker, as they destroy it at border control to avoid the spread of invasive species].

London is so much more accessible than the tube would ever have you believe and I wake up each morning excited about what I’m going to jog past today.  Like butter on a cat’s paws, this is distracting me enough that I’m forgetting to be as depressed as I should be about the weather and the constant darkness.  Its inspiring me to see and do more and I don’t have time to be miserable, I’ve got too many projects on the go and things to look forward to.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to the Islington canal path to pick up a kilo of Sloe berries for Christmas gin.