Summer is rapidly approaching and my trainers are starting to become noisy. They sit there on the shelf glaring at me and daring to suggest that just perhaps, once again, you ought to shift some of that lard from around your midriff. They are cruel but accurate. I swear my body still thinks it runs 35 miles a week and is storing this largesse in case of an impending famine. It isn't as if I don't feel guilty - I do and every night as my eyes try to find my toes I tell myself - I will run, I will get fit, I will shed this mysterious five stones that somehow has attached itself to me. Somehow ! I know how, the anchor that tightens my trousers seemingly by day and night, is a terrible disfiguring disease. Found more often in the United States it has nevertheless made its way to South Yorkshire. Fatbastard's Doughnutitis is a creeping sort of virus that sneaks up on you in the lunch and tea breaks of Test Matches - those 5 days you spend pinned in the armchair admiring the battle between bat and ball. And subtly, gently, session by session, you turn into a ball.
One is still able to appreciate Athleticism simply not perform it. I remember that first great sentence of "The Competitive Runner's Handbook" which said "You are an athlete" and at that time I believed it. Nowadays those PB days of 1.34 are long gone. In the last Sheffield Half Marathon I ran in it was over 3 hours until I finished. The stewards were dozing and failed to point me into the stadium, the medals were all gone and the following sweep bus spend the whole race trying to overtake me.
And now I want to run again. I have considered retirement but the thought of developing larger breasts than my partner is distinctly disturbing. After my kidney transplant I was so keen to run, presumably just because I always had done and was now not allowed to. I counted down the 90 days until I could run and I then did. Slowly. And I got slower. And I got fatter. Until now.
Now I aim to change this. To change the worst excesses of my debauched lifestyle. To cast away champagne and oysters, foie gras and melted toblerone (on cornish ice cream); I have divorced my doughnuts, discarded my Dime bars, pole-axed my pork scratchings. I know it will be difficult and I will not lament my pre-transplant times (1995) but set up a set of new criteria. I will run to smell the roses, to feel the wind on my face, to face the oncoming traffic, to fit into a size 38 waist once more. I will let you know how I get on.
Thursday, June 5, 2008
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Where are you ?
As I approach the half century and consider my impact upon the world (minimal) and the world's impact on me (monstrous) I lie awake at night and consider other more important questions. Will Sheffield Wednesday ever win the Champions League ? Will I ever lose those last few ounces to bring me back to my fighting weight (five stones to be precise) ? Will I find out where two of my school friends disappeared to ?
It is not urgent. I am simply curious. If they are hiding from the combined police forces of the Western world then I don't want them to give themselves up. I simply wonder. My friend Sam, possibly the finest full back since Skinner Normanton to destroy a ball-juggling Fleur-de-lys Ronaldo, finds a real faith in God and does his work in difficult conditions. But where are Michael Duerden and Jerome Clough ?
Michael, from Todmorden, out there in the badlands between Yorkshire and Lancashire was the bloke I always picked first in my footy team as I struggled to put a game together on those desolate Fylde coast Sundays.
Jerome was more of a mystery. Father something to do with Coca-Cola and Liberia but like Michael never mentioned in any Rossallian newspapers. I hope they have prospered and I really would like to know how they have got on with their lives. I have no intentions of appearing at their front door to reminisce about juvenile pranks or profound speculations about the merits of boarding schools (or their failings).
Out of all the people you know and talk with regularly where do thoughts like this come from ? Why these two boys/men - last seen in 1976 ? Why have their names floated back to me all of a sudden. If for instance my life was summarised as rapidly as possible it would read. University. Failed. Dole. Job. Thinking; temporary. Still there now. Clearly Permanent. Librarian. Married. Divorced. Kidney failure. Transplant. Val. Baby. Carrie. Now 11. Which brings me back to the impact of an individual and the connections that he or her makes around him. C. M. Duerden - Where are you ? J. Clough - Where are you ? Is it really a small world ?
Rossall School was a strange environment to grow up in. I always felt somewhat of an outsider and somewhat rebellious but always with the feeling that my idealism might be, after all, misplaced. I couldn't play the games which that world wanted then and I certainly have not since. I still wait for that Eureka moment when the world I inhabit now finally makes sense and I understand it. If I have found answers to questions they have come from the pages of a book. Answers balanced between interpretation and criticism but not essentially mine. I think I am still doing now what I did then. I act, I posture, I pretend, I look as if I am in control but I am not. And then suddenly I think in the midst of this middle age, in the dark of the night, I wonder Whatever happened to ....
It is not urgent. I am simply curious. If they are hiding from the combined police forces of the Western world then I don't want them to give themselves up. I simply wonder. My friend Sam, possibly the finest full back since Skinner Normanton to destroy a ball-juggling Fleur-de-lys Ronaldo, finds a real faith in God and does his work in difficult conditions. But where are Michael Duerden and Jerome Clough ?
Michael, from Todmorden, out there in the badlands between Yorkshire and Lancashire was the bloke I always picked first in my footy team as I struggled to put a game together on those desolate Fylde coast Sundays.
Jerome was more of a mystery. Father something to do with Coca-Cola and Liberia but like Michael never mentioned in any Rossallian newspapers. I hope they have prospered and I really would like to know how they have got on with their lives. I have no intentions of appearing at their front door to reminisce about juvenile pranks or profound speculations about the merits of boarding schools (or their failings).
Out of all the people you know and talk with regularly where do thoughts like this come from ? Why these two boys/men - last seen in 1976 ? Why have their names floated back to me all of a sudden. If for instance my life was summarised as rapidly as possible it would read. University. Failed. Dole. Job. Thinking; temporary. Still there now. Clearly Permanent. Librarian. Married. Divorced. Kidney failure. Transplant. Val. Baby. Carrie. Now 11. Which brings me back to the impact of an individual and the connections that he or her makes around him. C. M. Duerden - Where are you ? J. Clough - Where are you ? Is it really a small world ?
Rossall School was a strange environment to grow up in. I always felt somewhat of an outsider and somewhat rebellious but always with the feeling that my idealism might be, after all, misplaced. I couldn't play the games which that world wanted then and I certainly have not since. I still wait for that Eureka moment when the world I inhabit now finally makes sense and I understand it. If I have found answers to questions they have come from the pages of a book. Answers balanced between interpretation and criticism but not essentially mine. I think I am still doing now what I did then. I act, I posture, I pretend, I look as if I am in control but I am not. And then suddenly I think in the midst of this middle age, in the dark of the night, I wonder Whatever happened to ....
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)