In January 2015, with little thought or planning, I went for a lunchtime run. This turned out to be the point I started regular running. Before then I had completed a grand total of one run in each of the previous two years. Going much further back, I was obliged to do the occasional cross country run at senior school for the first 4 years, and had a brief flirtation with athletics and the Liverpool harriers that lasted no more than a year. But that was almost 30 years ago.
So what was it that made this particular run different? Looking back, there were a few different reasons I think:
- The realisation that I was no longer doing any exercise whatsoever
- The chance to listen to some music, something else I was no longer doing very much
- Admitting that my football days were basically over. With family responsibilities I couldn’t commit to a full Saturday (as in the old days) or even a regular Friday night (the only option I had left). And being uncommitted, as anyone who’s played knows, soon leads to being unselected
- For the first time in my life, finding myself working in an office with showers which was also situated right next to a park. Well, three parks in fact. And then it turned out there was a drying room too
- A team challenge at work to collectively walk, run or cycle a total of 3,000 kilometres - the distance a colleague would be travelling to her wedding in Nigeria in the summer
- Running apps making the whole thing more interesting
- The wonderfully impromptu, just-get-out-and-do-it nature of running - needing no arrangements, no scheduling, no monthly fees, little to no equipment (or so I thought…), and available more or less wherever you go at any time of year
I'll let you into a secret: despite often extolling the virtues of running, as in that last bullet point, for a long time I thought that - all things being equal - given a choice I would still play football rather than run. I liked the adrenaline, the unpredicability, the social side of the team sport. At first it was as if running chose me, rather than I chose running, on the basis of feasibility.
But then recently, on two separate occasions I had the chance to play a one-off 5-a-side game - and turned it down. I had a race coming up, and didn't want to jeapordise it with an injury. I've also come to the conclusion that in relative terms I'm a better runner than footballer, and probably should have done more when I was young.
So, after a couple of years, the tide is turning.
running photo by Ed Dunens