My jogging tip for anyone thinking about running is to decide the night before to go in the morning. In the morning decide to go in the night. That night decide to go in the morning. Repeat.
Earlier today I went out in the rain, I intended to jog to the park, around the park and back from the park. These are my thoughts.
This is going to be easy. I have essentially all the same inside bits as Mo Farah, and we’ve got the same hairstyle. I’m still young. I used to play football. Maybe I’ll get my fitness back. Join a team. Why don’t people clean their teeth with the sponges we use to do the washing up? One of them, dowsed in mouthwash, layered with toothpaste. Chew that around for a minute. I’ll try that later.
Immediately jogging is stressful. I’ve not even left the house. I can’t find thick enough socks.
If my socks are too thin the plastic bits of my shoes will dig into my heels and I’ll have to come back early, then I’ll need to buy plasters to stick over the cuts in my ankles. Those skin coloured plasters are stupid. Everybody can see them. Can’t we invent skin coloured material yet? It’s 2013. We can print guns! How hard can skin coloured plasters be to get right? Note to self: find out.
I find some thick socks, but they concern me too.
The extra weight will make my feet feel heavier, I’ll be running like I’ve got a fat baby hanging onto each ankle. Which is probably the reason why I mostly walked last time. Note to self: check your ankles for babies before you leave. Also, check for babies around your ankles more generally than you do.
I’m leaving my block of flats but, before I exit, I have to put thirty feet of cable into the inside pocket of my jacket because although jogging is meant to be all about getting back to nature we don’t jog without cables, machines, music and technology; anything to block out the sound of the outside world we are running through.
Cables wrestled back inside me, like a Terminator performing surgery on itself after taking a cannon ball to the chest, I now have to find a radio station because my phone is so current it has no memory to hold music on. Every radio station I find sounds like it’s broadcasting from the moon, and the static whispers that I’m going to die.
Fresh air. This is good. This, is life.
I jog onto the pavement and cross the road because the side I’m on is swamped with walking people who don’t know how much fun running is.
I’ve jogged about thirty steps, and my first thoughts are all about my greatness.
This is easy! I can do this. Gloria Estefan was right – the rhythm has come and got me. I’m not old! Fuck you age! Age, you’re gonna need to be fit to catch up with this young stallion. That woman must live in those flats. That bloke looks aggressive. Why can’t I switch my brain off? Stop thinking, this is a spiritual thing. You are blocking it. I like the rain. I’m never going into that pub. Who goes into a pub with blacked out windows. What goes on inside? Why don’t the people inside care about light?
Fifty paces later…
Who does this shit anyway? The unimaginative? Those who want to fool themselves into thinking they are immortal? Any human recently dumped and trying to regain their sex life? Doggers, I bet doggers jog. Woah, that’s a big dog! Big dog, big dog – slow down, don’t want to alarm the big dog. Big dog is licking the bum ring of a small dog. Owners are having polite chat. Stop. Don’t want to interrupt their chat. Think my lungs are on fire. I need to spit. Where can I spit? Gross.
The dogs move on. I walk behind the big dog. The pavement has narrowed. Eventually the path widens and I jog around the dog, but after I’ve got around the dog my brain switches off, and cuts off the will to my legs as it does.
I walk. I jog. I get to a road I need to cross, and stop.
Is this even safe? Jogging across traffic listening to music? Better stop. Walk across. Walking is much better. My face is cold. This radio station is mostly adverts. I should call Nan later. If I’m going to run I should have two pairs of trainers. This advert makes Nike sound good. Walking is fine. I could be doing something better than this. Is that a kid urinating against the shop? Man, he’s not even that young. He’s like fourteen. By the time I get my camera out to take a picture to post on the internet he’ll be finished. Shame. That might have made all this pain worth it. Is uploading a photo of a kid urinating against a shop weird? Probably. Could I just upload the urine stain on the concrete? Is that weirder or less weird?
I walk across the road, and keep walking.
I walk into the park.
Walking is exercise too.
A lady wearing red is up ahead, jogging the same path that I should be.
Keep up with the lady in red, let her set your pace. Why are you lying to yourself? You hate this. Your legs hate this. Your lungs hate this. Your brain hates this. Just admit you are old. Go exercise your brain with words. Just get fat. Only idiots care what they look like. I’m an idiot. I’m an idiot. I’m an idiot. I’m an idiot. Just do it. Jog behind her. Just for a bit. Don’t get too close though. You don’t want her to think you’re a sexual predator. Did I just think ‘just do it’ because of that Nike advert? I’m such a loser. Leaves, I like leaves. Can’t see what’s underneath them though. Leaves are fucking weird. Avoid the leaves.
I jog behind the woman in red for two minutes.
I don’t want to worry her. Don’t be an idiot, this is jogging. Yeah, but I’m in a park and I don’t want my presence to put thoughts in her head about a weird man jogging behind her. She doesn’t know you are weird. She’s might have watched Dexter. How do you know an even weirder man isn’t jogging behind you, thinking even weirder thoughts. Bloody hell…
I look behind and an old man, three times my age, buckled spine, grey face, arthritis on all of his bones, slugs for veins, winks as he passes me.
Great. I’m slower than Hugh Hefner.
Hugh Hefner, God, he’s actually a person. That’s even weirder than leaves.
I stop jogging. I watch the lady in red turn left and go around the park again for another lap. I watch the old man take on another lap as well. My throat burns. My chest burns. The lady in red picks up her pace. I’m vulnerable in this state of exhaustion; a bird with a broken wing in a piglet costume at the feet of a caged wolf coming out of a diet.
I’ll jog the last bit back. That means I don’t have to jog the first bit back.
I walk the first bit back, until I reach Bermondsey tube station.
I’ll start jogging again from the bus stop.
I walk to the bus stop.
I’ll start jogging from the shops.
I walk to the shops.
I’m practically home now.
I walk the rest of the way.
How about you? Do you feel the pain and stop because pain is actually a bit rubbish, or do you push through pain like a trooper?
Feel free to leave comments and stories about failed/successful exercise regimes below.
