Running and Writing.

pretty much every post since around 2011 has been me going "oh, look how long it's been since my last post...gonna start blogging again....posterity.....zzzzzzz".

None of that shit this time round (except for what I've just written). I made it through the whole of 2013 - some may say the most momentous year of my life to date - without so much as a letter typed, so all bets and expectations are off.

My Christmases sometimes have a present "theme" - in the early 80s it was Star Wars or Lego; this year it was running. Yep, that Tattie is still running. If I'd bothered to tell you last year, you'd know that my first prolonged period of consistent exercise, combined with continued abstinence from fags and some healthy competition from my mate Murray and assorted others, resulted in my Personal Bests tumbling on an almost constant basis.

At the British 10K in July 2012, as Britain was starting to show a passing interest in the upcoming Olympics (and the day before I was packed off to Bangalore for 3 weeks with work), I busted a gut breaking the 50 minute mark for the second time in my life, shaving 9 seconds off my PB (in 49:26). In late September I brought it down to 48-something, then in November at the Old Deer Park run in Richmond I crossed the line in 47:48. I liked this as a PB, because it was easy to remember.

Unfortunately, after a bit of a dip at the Bromley 10K in January last year (following 10 days in Poland over Christmas breathing in 2nd hand smoke and not running), where I staggered home last out of the 4 of us who were in the process of founding the Diamond League of Mediocre Joggers (although still managing just over 50 minutes), I lined up on my home turf for the Frank Harmer 10K in Brockwell Park, organised by Herne Hill Harriers.

Brockwell Park is where I first started to run way back in 2006. I dread to think what combined distance I've run around its perimeter, or how many times I've wheezed and grimaced up the back hill. I wasn't looking forward to attempting an actual race there, having generally managed to run around 16 minutes a lap when training, around a path approximately 2.7 km in length. It didn't take much mental arithmetic to calculate that this would see me struggling to break an hour for a full 10k - my previous slowest ever time being 57 minutes in Central Park in New York back in 2011. That came after a full week of boozing, smoking and sightseeing and very little training - this would be on my home track, and was 3 full laps plus a bit extra. I was seriously worried about getting lapped, and my sparring partner Murray was continuing to improve dramatically, unofficially beating my PB in Bromley. It was completely unexpected therefore to find myself overtaking him midway through the final lap as we passed my then-fiancée (who'd made the 2 minute walk from our flat just in time to see us go past) and come home in a PB-busting 46:39 - somewhere in the mid-60s in terms of finishers.

Following on from that, with a bit of hiatus for the small matter of my wedding, I ran 46:43, again around Brockwell Park, last August, and then, during the build up to the Royal Parks Half Marathon, smashed my PB to smithereens for the 6th time in 15 months, finishing the 10K for Crohns (who says running ain't sexy?) round Hyde Park in 45:05. So very close all of a sudden to the mythical 45 minute barrier - something I had identified after that British 10K in July 2012 as being the ultimate goal for my running career. (Murray, incidentally, scarcely even noticed the barrier as he powered through it, finally putting me in my place once and for all with a huge new PB of 44:04 in the same race).

I really enjoyed the Royal Parks HM on October the 6th, run in bright autumnal sunshine round what is surely one of the best courses in the world. I knocked 8 minutes of my HM PB, coming home in 1:42 and getting a measure of revenge over Murray for the 10K defeat a few weeks earlier, as I beat him by 2 minutes. This was followed up by an injury-ravaged Great South Run in Portsmouth at the end of October, run in pre-Hurricane conditions with a gammy IT Band which had prevented me from doing any real training for 3 weeks between the Royal Parks and arriving on the south coast. I'd never run a 10 mile race before though, so this can also be classed as a PB - another fantastic course with amazing support, which I completed in around 1:21.

So - I'd got quite into my running, helped further by our relocation from Brixton out to the relative rural bliss of Hampton, sandwiched between Bushy Park and the River Thames. It's prime running territory around here, the former home of Mo Farah - as testified by his golden mailbox on the high street (opposite the branch of Sweatshop he used to work in).

An Amazon wishlist was duly compiled in early December, and for Christmas, I received three running-themed books, which I devoured in a couple of weeks on my lengthy commutes to and from Waterloo - Eat & Run, by Scott Jurek; Running with the Kenyans, by Andharanand Finn; and What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, by Haruki Murakami.

There are common themes running (sorry) through all of these books, despite their differing subject matter. They all agree that distance running is as much (if not more) about mental strength than raw talent; about pushing to the edge of your limits to discover more about yourself. They acknowledge that there is a certain type of person who tends to run - everyone can do it, but only certain people choose to, and embrace it. I wouldn't claim to be the sort of person who wholeheartedly throws himself into the benefits of running - I'm too easily persuaded that other things are more important that the 7 km run I had planned - but there is a reason, I believe, that I am still sitting here talking about running on a blog I started 8 years ago prior to my first 10K.

Many people do a race to tick it off a bucket list, or jog because they feel they should. Despite my intermittent outings, I believe I am a runner. It takes a certain type of personality to enjoy the experience, and as a number of the books say, if you ask someone why they run, they probably won't be able to explain it. Yes, I think whilst doing it, but don't ask me to relay what I thought about when I get back. I am a happier, more upbeat person when I run regularly. I like other runners. Most runners are very sound, well adjusted, calm human beings. It may be through the meditative or philosophical aspects running long distances, often alone, brings to people. If you're in need of constant excitement or stimulation or male bonding, it's probably better to stick to football.

Likewise, running is a peculiarly self-absorbed "sport", excluding competitions. Of course I want to challenge myself against the friends I enter races with, but the likelihood of being similarly paced to any of them is slim. Murray and I drive each other on because, all things being equal, we are too. If we train the same amount as each other, we're fairly evenly matched. But ultimately, when Murray killed that 10K with a 44.04, I wasn't devastated he beat me by over a minute. There was no way I could have run that fast. I'd destroyed my own personal best by a minute and a half - which blew me away. If I'd beaten Murray but finished a minute and a half off my best, I probably would have been disappointed. Most sports aren't about quietly challenging yourself to beat personal targets. No one cares about how you do except you. But the feeling of wanting to achieve something within your capabilities, and then working towards doing so, is immensely satisfying.

The other common theme of the books is - naturally - that they were all written by runners. There is a link between running and writing as well, not least in Haruki Murakami's memoir. He runs so he can write, and the book draws on the parallels between the two activities; why one enables him to do the other. It got me thinking about this blog, and about how - once upon a time - I harboured dreams of writing professionally. Those have passed, but I still enjoy creating sentences. Twitter and maturity have made it harder for me to make the time to sit at a computer like I have tonight, and write whatever is on my mind for an hour. But I think that these two aspects - running and writing - are fairly fundamental to my character. I may not be particularly good at either by any common yardstick, but that's the point. It's not about comparison to the rest of the field, unless you get to be part of the elite. It's about whether or not what you do makes you feel better about yourself. Running and writing do both for me, even though I don't always get round to doing them as much as I'd want. I class myself as a runner. It took me a long time and I used to wonder how someone knew whether they were a jogger or a runner. Turns out it's like love - you just know when it happens. For me, it was on South Croxted Road in West Dulwich one dark week night around 2 years ago. I became aware of the distance I'd travelled, the speed I was going, and the movement of my legs, and it clicked. After 5 years, I wasn't a huffing, puffing, jogger anymore, I was a runner! And in the same way, through practice and training and setting myself little private targets, I will continue to type words on a screen in the hope that my PB improves. With both, all I want to do is enjoy doing it, have some time to get my thoughts in order, and be able to feel that I wrung the most out of what little ability I was blessed with whilst I still could.