Run! Run! Run!
Through the gate, across the road to the tiny bus shelter, up the hill towards Eddie’s and Eddie’s house. My MP3 player blasts fashionable and motivational running music in my ears.
Is this another one, I ask myself? Another false start? Another stuttering and short-lived attempt to fend off the lumbering and inevitable onset of middle-aged fatblokeness that forms the horror of my own doom?
Or am I just going for a run.
Truth be told, I have been afraid. That is why I have put this moment off. I am not afraid of many things, apart from big snarling dogs, people who merge with the motorway at forty-five miles per hour, pubs with no real ales and blue lights in the toilets, being given two tickets to see the band ‘The Feeling’ for my main birthday present, forgetting to cancel my free Sky trial subscription, comments (0), a Clegg government, the LTLP, the LTLP deciding that she wishes to become a man, discovering things contain marzipan, other big dogs that look like they might start snarling at some point, social situations, phone calls out of the blue from Tim Smith from the Steve Wright show saying ‘I hear you have a spare ticket for the band ‘The Feeling’, do you fancy going together?’, last orders, putting petrol in the diesel car, being caught re-using jokes, people who like snowboarding and any form of social shame whatsoever. But I am afraid of running.
I am afraid of the pain that I know it will cause. I am afraid the pain will, basically, hurt. I know that I will need to feel the pain before the running becomes easy again. But that does not make the fear go away.
I continue my run. Up the hill, towards the war memorial.
There is a famous bit in the Superman film where he flies so fast, so incredibly fast, that time itself goes backwards and he is able to go and rescue Lois Lane.
My running is not like that. If anything, the opposite is happening.
I put on a spurt as I pass Eddie’s and Eddie’s cottage. I would be embarrassed for them to see the slowness of my running, should they be looking out of the window in case of passing runners. I slow my spurt immediately I am past their gate. I need to reserve my energy, as I will require another spurt when I get to pass Len the Fish’s, and the Village Shop, and the Village Pub.
It has been an odd few weeks. I am working a lot more than I am used to, which is ‘a bit’, and I have been trying to stay away from the PC screen in my spare time so that my eyes do not fall out and I stop getting headaches. I have had to remember what I do when I am not pissing around at the PC screen. It is a depressingly short list.
Run! Run! Run! I stagger on, the Anti-Sportacus. I am so scared, I am hardly moving my legs at all. To call it a ‘trot’ would be pushing it. I abandon my spurts policy. Hopefully nobody will be standing outside the Village Pub smoking, and I wil not be laughed at.
Big futuristic buildings start springing up around me, and the world falls under the rule of giant ants.
When I return home, I am grateful just to be alive. If this is what life is like away from the PC screen then it is harder than I realised. The pain is there but, to be fair, it is not as bad as I’d anticipated, which, to be fair, was very bad indeed.
If I am going to do my triathlon then I will need to do much more of this. It hurts. It hurts. But I cannot just give up again.
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Run Jonny Run!
I think anyone who happens to see you running / jogging / trotting / etc. will be wishing they themselves were fitter and better people… so you’re one up on everyone else to start with! Hold your head high as you scurry past….
I thought about going for a run once. But my thighs chafe when I walk so I thought better of it.
All I ever see on my blog is comments (0) – oh to be popular!
I too fear Tim Smith and all things Steve ‘Love-the-Show’ Wright related. My left eyebrow spasms when I hear the title music and I get an overwhelming and urgent need for a bowel movement – which can be a problem on the M25.
Thank god for Mark Radcliffe this week.
@lucy you should fill in the website bit when you make a comment.
Oddly, I still get lots of visits for people searching for what the theme music to the Steve Wright show is. I have always wondered why they want to know this.
Is that a factoid Jonny?
Love the show Jonny.
Recycling jokes? Heaven forbid. Ahem.
I do it of course. All the time. But when you write one as rarely as I do you have to milk every last pitiful opportunity to use it.
(If it is any consolation, much like the boogeyman, I too am scared of the LTLP.)
I’m sure you’ve done a post before called “I go for a run” … Google search blogs … Ahahahaha – you did – on 26 October last year. But you enjoyed it more, last time.
Steady on, Jonny! This must be the second time this year you’ve gone running. Mustn’t risk injuring yourself, or you won’t be able to fulfil your many celebrity duties, like the Queen spraining her Waving Wrist. After all, you do know Tim Smith. A grateful nation relies upon you.
Sorry to hear that you fear the LTLP deciding that she wishes to become a man. If it’s any consolation, at least she need harbour no such fear about you…
I always like muscle ache because it gives me a sense of accomplishment.
Cycling on the other hand involves a lot more wooshing, so blurs the line between super athlete and newby – well at least it would on the less than alpine slops of Norfolk.
Triathlon has a bike section in, so you could pep yourself up with a legitimate training woosh around the village.
Perhaps a swim in the duck pond wouldn’t be a good idea though.
Jonny…I just found your blog and I am definitely adding you to my List of Sites I Like … I don’t call it a BlogRoll. Maybe you should consider a stationary bike that powers a battery connected to your computer. The only juice your PC gets depends on you. Your private secret diary would then be powered by your private secret exercise! Sounds like a plan.
http://contentinacottage.blogspot.com/
Slopes. I meant slopes dammit.
Hullo Rosemary and welcome!!! But if I did that, I would have to disconnect the chicken treadmill.
Stop all this ‘not p***ing about at the pc screen’ and get back to regular blogging.
You know it’s what really makes you happy and all these other hobbies are just p***ing fancies!!
Putting petrol in a diesel car isn’t frightening. In fact you don’t even know you’re doing it (well I didn’t.) Dealing with the consequences afterwards? Now that’s a different matter.
The prospect of going for run, on the other hand, would scare me rigid so let me say how much I admire your efforts. Hope it doesn’t hurt for too long. . . . .
Abandoning your spurts policy was the socially ethical thing to do. It’s necessary to have some runners about who are not in sleek lycra effortlessly cruising along at 20 mph. You provide a service to everyone – beginning runners have a warm fellow feeling, average runners happily consider that at least they aren’t there any longer and sleek lycra runners can lap you and despise you twice per run. You should consider an inspirational mural depicting your selflessness (in allegorical fashion natch) on your gable end.
Is there room on his gable end for a whole mural?
Blog while sitting on one of those vibration workout machines Jonny. Multitask! 😀
by some coincidence i just watched a pretty fantabulous movie about running tonight.
please don’t give up. i used to have this really weired (not obsessive) (no) crush on dylan moran. now i’ve seen his naked butt, twice, i am a strong advocate of running.
not that i have a weired crush on you (actually, i really don’t) i just want to know there’s one less saggy white british butt in the world.
it would help me sleep better.
Do not worry or be ashamed about your weired crush, gargravarr. I have had lots of bloggers and readers have crushes and you get used to it after a while even if it can get alarming with people wanting to touch your clothes etc.
Blimey, gargravarr, I watched Run Fatboy Run too last night (for the first and probably the only time). I don’t remember that Dylan Moran ran at all, even if he did display his arse at every opportunity.
What music is both fashionable and motivates running? I don’t know any.
a good question Z* and potentially a Steve Wright phone-in for the future
I suggest staying clear of the link above which includes WILL SMITH – Wild Wild West. I do find myself singing the “Wiki Wiki Wild Wild West” bit when I use Wikipedia, though.
(*I thought you were dead baby, dead baby)
the LINK doesn’t show I notice. This goes with message #25. Sorry to take two
http://www.propeller.com/viewstory/2008/02/27/102-great-running-songs-for-a-fun-and-fast-paced-workout/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fobesity.BattlingForHealth.com%2F2008%2F02%2F102-great-running-songs-for-a-fun-a
Does your LTLP know you’ve had lots of bloggers?
Keep running with your Gable End hanging out like that and the Village Pub will probably turn up the sound system playing, Benny Hill Theme Tune, whenever you pass.
I did have a slight giggle at the thought of you being chased down the road by snarling doggs.
I quite randomly, also went for a run on Wednesday, for the first time in ages, so I was sortof creeped out reading your blog (to which I RSS) on Thursday. I also wrote about it…
http://jossiesideways.wordpress.com/2008/07/18/i-went-for-a-run/
Johnny,
I too have reached that age where however long you keep it up, running just never seems to progress beyond a painful trudge.
I took up cycling and have found it much easier to keep to. Heart and lungs still get the work out but no achy joints, no man boob nipple rash and you actually feel like you’ve covered some distance instead of knocking your pipe out for an hour to cover a distance you normally do in two minutes in the car!
It has the added benefit for a bloke that as we all like gadgets, you can obsess all ride about the bike and it’s workings. If you get one of those bike computers there’s loads of stuff you can play with (average speed, maximum speed, distance etc..)
Plus you can spend weeks deciding which bike to buy which means you can convince yourself you’re taking fitness seriously without leaving the PC.
You know it makes sense.
Hello Johnny,
I can remember when Tim Smith had his own whole 3 hour show every weekday afternoon right across London.
Be very grateful if you never got to hear it.
Norfolk is flat. OK? I have Gertrude Lawrence’s word for it so it’s from the horses’ mouth. Sorry Gertie.
Have you got a jelly to avoid wrist strain on the computer? I have.
Do you wear gloves when running? I can never understand their function.
Jelly…?!?
Ahem, who is Tim Smith?
My attempts at running positively dangerous, too well endowed, if u get me, liable to knock myself out unless well strapped down 🙁
@3 lucy, put your blog up, i’ll visit, u can then visit me and we can both leave a comment for each other ok 🙂
I thought the LTLP was the man and you, the old women?
The thing you’ve failed to realise here Jon, is that running is crap. Running was what people did in the eighties. This was when having a filofax was the height of fashion, when Thatcher was sexy, when Hale and Pace were funny. Nobody runs anymore.
Bike. Row. Step, even. Not run.
I started running for the exact same reason- a disappearing waist -it seemed the lesser evil than giving up wine. I also heard about a so-called runner’s high but I’m just grateful to get home.
PS I also fear comments(0) hint, jonny, hint. Julesritter.com.
Hamish I can promise you I won’t be running in my eighties. Or rowing or biking. Just moaning.
Jonny go and visit Jules for goodness sake. It’s always the same with you – a big fuss for newcomers and then Zilch! Tsk tsk!
Hale and Pace were funny in the eighties?!?
I saw them live
*shame*
But I didn’t pay to get in, so that was all right.
@40 Pat, What fuss are we talking about then, i’m a relative newcomer and jonny hasn’t been to my site:( 🙁
Will you jonny, please, please, nd leave comment so I know you were there, please:) 🙂
P.S. Check out my post on blogging at anyscribbles.wordpress.com/2008/07/08/this-blogging-business
if you like:)
You are a cheeky pat, Pat. I always try to say ‘hullo’ to new people because lots of people say that they are too scared to leave comments because they are new. But I sometimes lose track of who is new and who is not.
Such as scribble/scribbles08. Hullo scribble/scribbles08 and welcome!!!
Why thank you JonnyB, you were meant to leave a comment on MY blog but you did visit didn’t you! But i’ll let you off since youre obviously too busy what with all that running and training to be testicular? toctestular? ah tempicular, that was it wasn’t it?
But you like me really don’t you?