How long should you try? Until.
Jim Rohn
You’ll never keep it up…
You’re wasting our money…
You’ll soon stop doing it…
I’ll give you a week…
What had I done to deserve these comments from the woman I love?
All I’d done was buy myself a pair of shorts, a couple of running tops and some cheap trainers. I certainly didn’t deserve 30 minutes of grief and negativity.
I do have a supportive wife. I do, but she knew how I’d really let myself go and the state that I had got myself in. She knew what my attitude towards physical fitness was and how much I enjoyed being a party animal. She didn’t think I’d be able to give up that side of my life. I’d done nothing to show her that I wouldn’t keep up the exercise, although I’d also done nothing to prove I would. She may have had a fair point; I’d done nothing in the way of physical activity for a long time.
I’ve already talked about the habit’s I’d perfected over numerous years and how I couldn’t even walk between holes on the golf course without getting out of puff. There were a couple of catalysts for starting to exercise, and nobody would ever have figured where it would end up.
On reflection, two people in my life were crucial in helping me take a small step towards getting fit. They didn’t know what a positive influence they were towards helping me to make positive changes to my life. These positive changes would influence my approach to health and fitness for the rest of my life. And it didn’t take a lot for me to decide to make the change. I wasn’t nagged by my wife until my ears were bleeding to get fit. I didn’t fail a medical and receive advice from a doctor that I needed to lose weight if I didn’t wish to die horribly. I didn’t even have mates in the pub taking the Mickey out of me, about how I’d put on a little (or a lot!) of weight since we last met.
* * *
I did have positive friends. I didn’t realise it at the time, and I certainly didn’t realise how important it was to have positive role models in my life. That came much later in life when the time was right, and I was ready to understand it.
Justin was one of those people that some would call “a running bore”. He did go on quite a bit, but in a friendly way; he certainly didn’t mean to be a bore. He’d probably say that he was passionate.
I saw Justin in the office most days; I always enjoyed our conversations, no matter what they were about. He’s very good at his job, modest with it, and not one of the loud ones; there were plenty of veterans to fill that role.
Every time I met him, he’d talk about something called Couch to 5k; it was even better if we were at the lunch table, it gave him more people to tell about it.
He’d proudly tell everyone who would feign interest about what week of the plan he was in, how far he had run that week, and extolled the virtues of what he was doing. Constantly. And it went on for weeks… Indeed, more than the nine weeks it took for Justin to complete the plan.
* * *
Thoughts from Justin Rowling, a friend and colleague:
I had ‘done a bit of running’ multiple times in my life – but never ‘become a runner’. The pattern went like this – go for a run without any real plan (how hard can it be?) – decide it wasn’t too bad – second or third run I would over-do it (didn’t take much) and be really sore – take a few extra days off, which turned in to weeks, which turned in to years. Then repeat about once a decade. When I came across Couch25K, I realised, quickly, that its value to me was not to do more running, but less. In other words, build-up slowly. For the first time ever, I started to ‘do a bit of running’ and was still running 3 times a week a couple of months later.
Once I could run 5K and still be able to walk forward downstairs the next day I started going to parkrun – this is a great institution – if you don’t know about it look it up
At parkrun, as well as lots of normal people, you will also meet members of running clubs. Some people like running on their own, but a club is a great way to keep motivated and have other people to run with on those dark winter nights.
* * *
In 2013 my daughter, Charlotte, chose to come and live with us. Shortly after joining us, my daughter entered a cycling race in London with work friends. It was a long ride, fifty miles, and she did it to raise much-needed money for Leukaemia and Lymphoma research.
The cause was important to her. One of her bosses had just been diagnosed with Leukaemia. As a mad cyclist, he wanted to raise awareness and much-needed funds. The cycling sportive was the perfect way for doing this. He signed up, which motivated everyone at work; his three brothers signed up next, quickly followed by half of the companies employees, including Charlotte.
She made it to the end, just! I’m not sure she deserved to. Being the caring father I am, I suggested that it would be good for her to go out on training rides. Being a teenager, she completely ignored me; I don’t know why I expected anything else.
I was a bit like Justin, and I told her regularly how good an idea it would be to train, so much so that I was accused of nagging her. Like all teens, she knew best, and I decided to leave her to do what she wanted, which was nothing.
Somehow, she completed the ride, as did everyone in their team. Maybe it was the motivation to ride for a great cause, but I expect the real reason was to make sure her favourite dad couldn’t say “I told you so”. It wasn’t easy for her, and it did hurt. She cried three times during the ride, her friend fell off her bike at traffic lights, and they got lost, despite several thousand other riders to follow and a well-marked route.
Thankfully her boss fully recovered, and positively, Charlotte learned a life lesson about preparation.
A week later, Charlotte entered the Reading Half Marathon, and my nagging started again…
***
You often hear a different message in a book if you read it multiple times; maybe that’s what had happened to me. I certainly didn’t make a conscious decision to start running. Still, something about the conversations I had with Justin must have changed how I viewed my fitness subconsciously.
I also knew that despite what Charlotte had said, she wouldn’t prepare for the race and that this could be my chance to help her. It must have been a perfect storm of events. I was aware I was getting overweight, though it didn’t really bother me, and my daughter needed encouragement.
Practically overnight, I decided that I was going to do Couch to 5K. I went to a local running shop and bought trainers and running kit; you already know how my wife reacted to that!
I told Charlotte what I was going to do, and she was fully on board. I didn’t need to say to her twice how much she needed to train; she’d ached for days after her cycling sportive and had learned an important lesson. “Dad, I’m going to train for this one” she said.
Finally, my nagging had worked. My daughter conceded that her dad was right, and it felt like a significant breakthrough in our relationship. If I could persuade her to train for a run, imagine what else I could convince her to do to help her through life. At last, I understood teenagers.
After just two runs, Charlotte stopped training with me. And she never ran the Reading Half Marathon.
***
I could have stopped too, which would have made for a short book! Nobody would have been surprised, and the running gear would have stayed in a closet until the next sort out. Even my wife would have stopped reminding me eventually.
Nobody would have guessed where the mere act of buying a few cheap items of running clothing would lead. Nobody would have dreamt that I would ultimately be running 250KM in 50-degree heat in the Sahara Desert and carrying all my equipment. Hopefully, I’d raise a lot of money for a charity that is important to me and ensure I had a hell of a lot of fun with some great friends along the way.
Something in my mindset had changed. My life was about to change for the positive; there was no turning back now.
Or had it?
* * *
What do you look for in a headtorch?
That’s an interesting question, and one which would depend on when you asked me.
A number of years ago I would have gone for cheap and cheerful, anything that worked would do, and there would have been [not be] very little thought about the practicalities.
Now that I’ve entered the Marathon des Sables I have to be very careful in everything that I take with me; if any piece of my equipment fails to operate then my race could be over. This question has prompted me to overanalyse my head torch choice, and encouraged me to decide exactly which head torch I’m taking:
1. It needs to be light (in weight, sorry 😉). Everything I take with me in to the desert will be with me for the entire week; I’ll be running six marathons in six days, so I’m likely to take [not taking] over 250,000 steps in the race alone. Keeping the weight down on every item of equipment is critical.
2. It needs to be light enough for me to be able to see where I’m running, there is no point in taking something with a battery life of 24 hours if it’s so dull I can only see six feet ahead.
3. The power source for the battery needs to be practical. If it’s chargeable I need to take (and carry!) a charger, if the battery life is poor I’ll need to take (and carry!) a solar panel to charge the charger…
4. I will be wearing the torch in the race itself on the “long day” where we run two marathons in a day, and only the fastest runners finish in daylight, plus around my bivouac in the evenings.
5. It needs to be durable, my pack is likely to be on and off several times a day and the torch could get damaged.
The “BLACK DIAMONDSpot lite Head Torch 200 Lum” tick’s all the boxes above. It’s been a go to headtorch for many MDS runners over the last couple of years, weighs just 56g, offers light levels from 6 to 200 lumens which is perfect for when I’m in the dunes at night, it takes two AAA batteries, and has a “red light” to ensure that I don’t dazzle other runners when in camp.
And as an added bonus; it’s waterproof.
* * *
I would love to be able to make this book widely available, with all profits going to a military charity (I’m supporting Walking With The Wounded). Please do give feedback on what you like, what you don’t like or anything else that’s constructive. I’d happily make positive changes if it makes the book successful.