Still Running (weakly). Issue 166

PAST – inspiration –The four race walkers stopped for tea and cakes during the afternoon of their all-day training stroll.  As I noted later in our club newsletter, “I was immediately struck by how appropriate was each of my clubmates’ choice of baked delicacy.  Solid, dependable team-man, Roger, ordered a rock cake, Ray, the talker, had a waffle, Nolan, a Trinidadian by birth, tucked into a rum baba, whilst your correspondent enjoyed his fairy cake!”

Exercise, camaraderie and its inevitable companion, humour, have gone hand-in-hand for members of Surrey Walking Club across our 127-year history.  Not that this is funny, but you may remember that the club’s original badge featured a swastika – an ancient symbol of friendship – something we felt we needed to change in 1939.

When I joined the club, I was amazed to see that some older members were treated to their “50-year supper” on reaching that membership milestone.  And of course, I knew I would never get there myself.

Well, the club has proved that it hasn’t lost its own sense of humour by allowing me to remain a member since 1976, so that this month I too celebrate a half-century of belonging!

I shall enjoy my 50-year supper – hoping there’s a fairy cake for dessert.

PRESENT – perspiration – “Running in the family” continues.

The Team England squad for the Commonwealth Games included Renee and Alicia Regis, in the 4x100 relay (5th in the final), and the mixed 4x400 relay, (an unused reserve for the eventual silver medallists), respectively.

Their parents are Jennifer Stoute and John Regis.  Jenny won 4x100 silver and 4x400 gold in the 1990 Commonwealths, bronze in the 1990 4x100 Europeans and bronze in the 1992 Olympic 4x400.  John won 18 senior international medals, including an amazing four at the 1990 European Championships in Split – gold in the 200 and 4x400, silver in the 4x100 and bronze in the 100.

Regis also ran the vital third leg in the memorable 1991 World Championship 4x400, when the British quartet of Roger Black, Derek Redmond, Regis and Kriss Akabusi, upset the American favourites.  Waiting to receive the baton for the last leg, Akabusi described Regis as, “14 stone of prime British beef charging towards me!”

FUTURE – suggestion – Thinking once again about my 50 years of membership of Surrey Walking Club, doesn’t time creep up on you?

One minute you’re a willowy youth with vague ambitions and even vaguer ideas of how to achieve them.  Then you’re tilting at sporting glory for what now seem like barely a handful of hazy Saturday afternoon or Sunday mornings.  And now, well now you’re trying to run 5km in less than your personal best time for 10km, blessing the parkrun focus on participation rather than performance, and saying to yourself, “At least I’m still doing it,” and perhaps also, if we’re honest with ourselves, very occasionally, “I think I’ve got one more decent race in me.”

So, my friends, what am I saying to you?  What advice does this long perspective prompt me to offer you?

Firstly, do consider keeping a record of your training and races.  Sometime back in the 1990s, I wondered how many races I’d done and I was able to piece together my competitive history back to 1976.  Do remember, research and record as much as you can – and carry on noting it down from now on.  It will give you pleasure and pride for the rest of your life.

(When Bruce Springsteen was putting together his triple live album 1975-1985, he listened to a recording of Thunder Road and thought, “Yeah, that sounds like the start of something,” and made it the first track on the first disc.  I felt just as strongly that my first competitive race walk – the Surrey County 10,000m in 1976 – was the true start of my serious athletic career.)

Secondly, do not for one second disparage or disrespect what you have done – and don’t compare – or if you do compare, don’t despair.  We may be running half as quickly as we once did – for a fraction of the distance – but it still feels the same, doesn’t it?  Aren’t we trying just as hard as we always have?  Doesn’t the pain in our lungs and in our legs feel the same?  Aren’t we just as glad to throw ourselves over the line and stop, hands on knees, gasping for breath?  And doesn’t all of that make our present efforts just as valid as anything we have done in the past?

Defeat is not not winning.  Defeat is not turning up in the first place.

Thirdly, don’t give up.  What does that mean?  Don’t give up?  Well, here we go – immodestly – in the last four years, I have had a knee replacement, from which I was finally recovering when I got cancer, from which I had in turn partially recovered when I had to have all my childhood vaccinations redone, which then had the effect of locking up all of my muscles, making running almost impossible.  The little running I could do turned out to be so lopsided that it caused hip pain, making even those meagre efforts difficult!

But, if you’re unlucky enough to pass through Alton on a Tuesday or Thursday morning, you might just see this old bloke running painfully slowly – well, actually, painfully and slowly – for a minute, or two, maybe four on a good day, and then stopping, bending over, gasping, or walking and recovering, and repeating that for as long as he can………. and not giving up.

And fourthly and finally, don’t be tempted to let your envelope of possibilities narrow any more than it really has to.  Your envelope of possibilities?  If you can still run marathons, run marathons.  If your honest limit is 10km, run 10km.  But, if you can run 10km, don’t let your mind or your body – or your family! – persuade you that it would be more sensible to limit yourself to 5km from now on.

Out there, on those Tuesday and Thursday mornings, that old bloke seems to run as far as he possibly can – till he reaches the edge of his present self’s envelope – and then he stops or walks and recovers, and then he does a bit more, and a bit more………. dreaming of the day, working for the time, when he has breached that envelope and inhabits something bigger, better, truer.