Pre-Christmas

Christmas is coming, apparently. Until last Saturday this was a fact I had largely managed to ignore. It’s a pretty easy feat to accomplish. I don’t watch TV very often and as such I’m not subjected to the constant reminders that the most commercial of religious days is almost here. I work in an office with a sum total of zero sparkly decorations in it and, apart from the odd well-wisher saying “Happy Christmas” to me or someone within my immediate ear range, this year’s festive buildup has almost gone entirely unnoticed. Sure, there have been a few Christmas parties but these could just as well have been ordinary, non-Christmas parties. 

However, my passive ignorance to Christmas all changed on Saturday due mostly to the efforts of one friend, who took it upon herself to drag me into the spirit. She stepped me into Christmas if you like.

A day later, on Sunday, while I wallowed in my subtle hangover, I started thinking about what really makes up my Christmas and holiday period. More specifically, I started to think about what makes me feel Christmassy. I came to the conclusion that a number of things really need to happen before I’m capable of being festive. Some people may scream “Scrooge” at me at this point and berate my inability to switch on a sufficient level of Christmas charm at the drop of the hat. But despite the odd remark from a few bitter ex-girlfriends, I’m not a machine, I just can’t do it.  

So, I hear you ask, what are the results of my musings? What makes pre-Christmas, well, pre-Christmas?

Christmas Music - I seem to struggle to listen to much music these days (God, I sound old). The radio was once a stable in the daily diet that is my life, but sadly that’s no longer the case. A combination of spending more time chained to my office desk and a general waning of enthusiasm for a lot of new music has resulted in the radio becoming a neglected relic in my household. The upshot is I’ve missed the barrage of Christmas classics that traditionally ooze from the wireless. You’ll be pleased to know that last Saturday I Spotified a good Christmas album and got stuck in.  It’s staggering how a few cheesy tunes help to get you in the mood. As a sub-category to Christmas music, I absolutely need to hear a bit of Chris Rea and The Pogues. Also if possible, at least one Christmas party needs to end in Frank Sinatra's New York, New York being blasted out. I don’t know why - after all I live and enjoy living in London - but it does. 

Christmas Jumpers - These normally come out at the variety of office and personal parties that Christmas generally encourages. Sadly this year the first time I had cause to wear mine was Saturday. The overcrowding of the wacky jumper space has gone someway to cool my desire to don one at any opportunity this year. It was a bit like James Blunt before he was famous. He was kind of fun. Not really fun, but kind of fun. Then it he was overplayed, resulting in a genuine feeling of nausea whenever I see or hear him. It’s the only comparison I can  make with Christmas Jumpers. They were fun, but now that the wally brigade are wearing them in force, the shine has somewhat come off the whole thing. 

Christmas Films - Just like the music section, there are a few films that can really help to kickstart Christmas spirit. In order of feel-good factor, these are (in my humble opinion):

1. It’s a Wonderful Life
2. Elf
3. Die Hard.

I must confess that for the first time in a long while, Netflix has let me down in regard to these titles; none of the above films are currently available. Die hard 3 was, but this simply does not count as it’s clearly the least Christmasy of all the Die Hards. Now I know Die Hard the original is a fringe choice. Some friends even queried its validity as a Christmas top three entry, or even a Christmas entry at all. To these naysayers let me respond, “Now I have a machine gun, Ho Ho Ho”! I feel More Christmasy already.  

Note: For any dullards who believe I may actually own a firearm: I don’t.

Christmas Flings - As a single man, Christmas flings are about as part and parcel as the office Christmas party itself. It’s a disappointing and unfulfilled holiday period if at some stage at least some bodily fluids have not been exchanged. As I said, I’ve found it difficult thus far to get into the spirit, so you can probably deduce that fluids have so far stayed un-exchanged. Despite it being Christmas eve I remain an eternal optimist.  

Friends, family, food and drink - Food, drink, friends and family are a necessity for any festive spirit. Now, I’m pleased to say that I’ve succeeded with all four of these in 2014, but given that I generally manage to socialise, eat and drink all year long, this hasn’t been too much of challenge. What I would say is that Christmas is a time for extra socialising, excessive drinking and gluttonous eating. So excess was the drinking and eating last year that my bones still shake just thinking about it. I was so in need of purity that I signed up for a marathon in January. This year I hope the aftermath is less horrific to remember, but who knows.

So to finish the story. Last Saturday I ate lots, drank lots, listened to far too many Christmas ditties and watched the most Christmasy movie available via my limited DVD collection and Netflix - Four Weddings and a Funeral - while wearing a reindeer jumper. I did all of these things with good friends. Despite the shockingly un-Christmasy visual entertainment, it got me in the mood. So on this Christmas Eve, I say to anyone reading this: Yippee ki-yay, motherhuffer! And a happy Christmas to you all.

The Perfect Day

Last weekend I went out for dinner with a friend. We were sat in Brixton village, eating Brazilian cuisine, and drinking wine, when the subject of fond memories came up. An expansive topic admittedly, but one which sparked a wave of conversation. We talked about the times when we’d felt happiest, why that might have been, and then delved into times when both of us were, for lack of better phrase, not so happy either. We even discussed politics and religion in relation to our own wellbeing, both subjects contentious to say the least, but at this juncture the wine was flowing and the risky subject did not seem to matter. Then, much later on, just when the topic of happiness seemed to have run its course, I asked my friend what was her best day ever. She thought for a moment, before declining to answer on the basis the question was too tricky. She then proceeded to ask me the same thing.

I think most people would find it hard to recall just one day, where they felt happier than they ever have before, and I am no exception. Despite the fact I raised the question I hadn’t really ever given it much thought.

Not deterred by the wine and the hindrance it had placed upon my cognitive function I proceeded to rattle my booze hazed brain for an answer. Could I pick just one day? A day above every other day where I felt the best. A day I’ll never forget. One perfect day. It’s a hard thing to do, but I implore you to try as I did. Why? Simple, because the day you come up with may surprise you. It certainly did me. 

There have been many very good days.  In fact I look back on things like, my best friend’s wedding, or the day I got Masters exam results, or even the time I got offered a job after being unemployed for two months. Those were very good days. However, good, or even great is not the best. Take my best friend’s wedding. It was a fantastic full-on experience, jam packed with brilliant friends, great food, loads of booze, and a lot of love. However, I had to give a speech, and that really scared me. As such it’s hard not to look back and remember the terror I felt on that day. I do however sincerely hope it was the best day of my friend and his now wife, lives. After all that was what it was really about. As for my exam results, the day really only started after I opened that tiny envelope, and following that I think I became quite sick. Okay, okay there were at least five or six excellent hours in between where I felt awesome as I tucked into pint and shot after pint and shot, but it still ended in disaster and as such cannot possibly qualify for “Perfect Day” status.

Next up there’s getting a new job after being unemployed for a long period of time. This event followed on from me frivolously sacking off a perfectly good job with nothing to go to afterwards. Understandably, the relief when someone finally took me on was incredible. The joy of that day was inevitably replaced very quickly with dread. Dread because of the realisation that I now had a job and as such would have to go to work again. So, that day cannot be my best day.

How about running a marathon? No way. That day was too painful. The day of my first kiss? Not even close - really bad breath and banging foreheads saw that that little beauty didn’t even make the top five. My parents’ twenty fifth wedding anniversary came close. Dinner at the Savoy and a nice bar crawl around London. This was vetoed because, as the name of the event suggests, it was my parents’ twenty fifth wedding anniversary, and really nothing to do with me. Despite that small fact I did make an excellent third wheel for a day. 

So what’s left? I’ve had personally very important days, but perfect’s a hard nut to crack. Just when I thought I’d have to concede that the question was just too open and difficult an answer struck me. My perfect day was, not an extraordinary day, it was just an ordinary day. A day I’d often talked about cheerfully, where a mixture of something special and yet something commonplace happened. Let me explain fully.

At this point I should issue an apology to anyone reading this who doesn’t follow football, because this next section requires a little bit of background knowledge. Start off by googling “FA cup final 2006”, then click on wiki link. Within the first paragraph wikipedia will tell you in no uncertain terms that this is often regarded as the best final of all time. It was definitely the best final I’ve ever witnessed. It was meant to be a final that I watched in a pub with a group of mates, but as it happened I didn’t quite make it there.

Maybe some background is important at this point. Something to set the scene. In 2006 I had just graduated. I had also fallen in love for the first time. I know university is meant to be the time where you meet people who challenge you romantically, but I waited until my last month of a four year course before that really happened to me. The weather was unbelievably hot, I owned my own car and the beach was about twenty minutes away. Moreover, I lived near all my close friends at the time, and none of us at that point had gotten jobs, so were breezing care-free head-first into the summer. Unsurprisingly, I spent a lot of the time sun bathing, drinking and shagging. It was what Frank Sinatra would have probably referred to as a very good year. 

So, back to the pub, or not as it was. I was meant to meet my mates about half an hour before kick off. However, the night before I’d had a few beverages with the above mentioned girl and as such ended up staying at hers. The morning was a perfect hangover morning. Firstly there wasn’t a hangover, well not a hangover as I understand them now - as a thirty something. Then there was the girl. As i said, for the first time in my life I was in love and that morning consisted of an absence of hangover, along with hugs, sex and tea in bed. The world outside was quiet and peaceful, the sun was shining and inside her room, it felt like I could have been anywhere. Admittedly I wasn’t anywhere particularly spectacular, I was in Plymouth, but that’s not of any relevance. With kick off fast approaching and my friends beckoning it became evident that I’d have to leave the room and the girl in order to fulfil my football watching ambitions. Truth be told, I really didn’t want to leave said girls bedroom, let alone her house. At some point, as I was mulling this conundrum around in my brain, a voice suggested, as if reading my mind, that I didn’t need leave, but instead I could watch the football from the comforts of the bedroom. Additionally, I was also informed that if we (despite my memory being slightly hazy I still believe the ‘we’ word actually being used) were going to watch the football in bed, we’d better get some food as well. And this is how I ended up laid in bed naked, with my first love eating KFC, for what turned out to be one of the best football matches I’ve ever witnessed. The game was played to one hundred and twenty minutes and was a real cliff hanger all the way through. Penalties decided the result, but as a fan of neither of the teams sporting colours that day the final score was quite unimportant. The rest of the day mostly involved more snoozing, and a little more “intimate time”, before we emerged from her bedroom and headed to a nearby pub for a friends gig. We met my other friends, the ones I’d meant to see earlier. They didn’t even give me a hard time about missing that afternoons drinking. They were far too happy from the spectacle they’d seen and the drinks they’d drank.

When I look back nothing particularly unusual happened that day. I ate rubbish food, I watched an annual football event and I spent my day with someone special.  Then I listened to some music and had a few beers. That was my perfect day. Potentially what helped to made it more memorable was, that for the six months before, all I’d heard from lecturers, friends and family was how the University years would be the best of my life. My best day wasn’t at university, it was actually just after. I was unemployed, broke, but in love and happy. Waiting for, what grown ups often condescendingly call, “real life” to start. Since that day, I’ve traveled a lot more. I’ve met other women, made other friends, and thankfully, gained employment. However, with so much emphasis from books, television, radio and the internet telling people to get up, get out and make great things happen, I find it comforting to remember that good, and indeed very good things also happen when you are idle as well.

Until the next time....

Keep on Running

For those of you who know me, it must have been almost impossible to remain oblivious to the fact that I’m training for a marathon. For those of you who don’t really know me and are casual followers of this blog or have just stumbled upon it by accident, I’ll reiterate the bottom line - I’m running a marathon. To be more specific the London Marathon, which takes place in just under three day's time.

Now, I’m not a big fan of self promotion, in fact as an attribute of a person I find it a bit of a turn off. That said, I am of course just as fallible as the next person to bursts of arrogance, boastfulness and the general ‘bigging myself up’ type of behavior I generally despise in other people. However, I try very hard to limit these outbursts to as small a number as possible, which has made this article a bit tricky. I mean, how exactly do you go about writing about a marathon; the training, the sacrifices, the unbelievable aches and pains, without kind of saying inadvertently, I’m a bit awesome? Answered simply, I’m not sure you can.  What I can do instead, in my jumbled, muddled kind of way is explain a little bit about the journey of which I have, somewhat naively, embarked upon. By the way, as a point of clarity, I don’t think I’m awesome; it just might sound like I think I do sometimes.

To start I think it would be wise to give you an overview of my physical condition at the point that I signed up for this.  I’m a twenty nine year old software geek by trade. Basically this means I sit down all day and have a chronic addiction to caffeine and sugar based food products. I also quite like E-numbers. I don’t play any sport unless it involves a beach and a beer. That said in the summer, on a good week, I sometimes muster a couple of runs, up to distances of five miles or so. I’m not a massively healthy eater; I am however a moderate to heavy drinker and an ex-smoker.  Hopefully you’ve joined up the few dots mentally and realised I’m not really a health freak. This was a fact made staggeringly obvious after the Christmas period which, as is traditional, contained far too much boozing, a little smoking and more fatty food products than you can wave a pork scratching at! Put simply, in the first week of January, the day my training was meant to commence, I was a sweaty, hung-over, borderline-alcoholic mess.

At this point it would be sensible to assume that I attacked the first week of January with as much exercise-based rigor as possible. Well sadly I didn’t. Sensibility didn’t come into play I’m ashamed to admit. Why not you may well indeed ask? Well, it kind of boils down to an administrative blunder. As with most things in my personal life, I entered my marathon application at the last minute, if you wanted to be really finicky you could even say late. The upshot being, I wasn’t guaranteed a place. In fact, it was well into the second week of the month before I was aware that I’d been given a place to run in a marathon.  At that point, the spot I’d been given was for the Brighton marathon, and as excited as I was to run the race, it was lacking the prestige of London, and well, I’m a bit vain and fickle. This further delayed my earnest start to training. Fortunately, it wasn’t too long before the organisers of the London event got in contact to notify me of some drop-outs  and thus my inclusion in my local event - I live in London, and depending on your definition of what a Londoner is, I’m a Londoner. Right, that just about sets the scene I think, about two weeks into January and not really training properly, yep that’s about right.

In the third week I began to crank things up a little bit. I needed to. I downloaded a training guide and began to stick to it. The first few days were tiresome and hard, but after a week I started to get into it. I also clamped down on fatty foods, and even invested in some spandex type running tights and some new flashy trainers. The spandex tights leave almost nothing to the imagination and every time I leave the house in them I’m genuinely terrified I may get arrested for gross indecency. Now that you’ve absorbed that truly terrifying mental image I’ll move on. At the end of the week and in keeping with my proneness to celebrating shallow victories, I bought myself an Indian and opened the first beer of the week. It was to acknowledge my first proper week of training and the first of many ten kilometer runs. Basically, it was the classy mans Saturday night in. Sadly, this is a tale of woe and as such I am obliged to inform you my takeaway special, was more than just a little bit ‘special’, and in the undesirable food poisoned kind of way.  The result was that the next eighteen hours or so were spent hugging the toilet. The one silver lining of this horrific experience was that, the bathroom was recently refurbished; and although I would rather not have slept at the base of my toilet, it was a far more pleasant experience than it would have been just a month or so before. You may wonder why this is in any way relevant, but as I gazed up at the bathroom ceiling in its newly painted glory, feeling as though I had just expelled all my insides out of every available orifice, I counted the small blessing. The next three or so days were a write-off! That evening had left me feeling like a bean bag, without its inners, a fluffy toy without its fluff, a sock without its...oh you get the picture, I was knackered, empty, spent.

Following my brush with food poisoning and the lackadaisical training to which had proceeded, I began to really apply myself. I think what prompted the general increase in effort was that I started to collect money on behalf of Macmillan Cancer Support, the charity we had decided to run for. This made everything more serious and as donations began to drip into our Just Giving page it became obvious that there would be no backing out. So to begin with I consulted a few people much more in the know than me, exercise-wise, and found out a list of do’s and don’ts. I started training regularly, pretty much quit drinking and began to eat better. I also made a note to never to visit the Indian round the corner ever again.

After a few weeks, my fitness drastically improved. I began to ramp up the miles and got a feel for my own boundaries. One thing which surprised me was actually how quickly, once I’d stopped drinking, my fitness improved. As an ex-smoker I also wondered how my lungs would react to long distance running. The answer is, they were fine. As I say general fitness, was something which came to me very quickly. What didn’t come to me very quickly were muscles. As anyone who has ever actually met me in person can vouch for, I am not a particularly muscular specimen. This is not something which has crept up on me, I’ve always been skinny, and so my lack of muscles was not a surprise in itself. However, what I didn’t account for and what was a bit of a shock was just how physically painful the entire duration of the training would be, and what a strain on those feeble lumps it would be.

I can honestly say that during the last twelve weeks almost every inch of both my legs has at one time or another has been in pain. It’s kind of strange, I ran a twenty mile training race about three weeks ago and when I finished I was panting but I didn’t feel that bad. My legs on the other hand were screaming out at me to stop, miles before I eventually did. They ached, they moaned and at one point a subtle, sinister but noticeable tremor trickled up and down my knee.  Even as I write this, almost three months after the Indian takeaway night, I am sat with a bag of peas wrapped around my left calf. It hurts just to walk to my kitchen. Thank God I have a housemate to make me tea (I have said this last sentence out loud as my current cup is beginning to get low and I have no desire for motion).  

One friend recently posed the question whether or not running a marathon is actually good for you or not. I assume she asked me this because as I cooked her dinner I was limping a bit more than she was accustomed to. I would also be lying if I said it hadn’t been a thought which had crossed my mind as well. In terms of my consumption of food and drink, I’d say yes, it’s good for you. I’m eating healthier, although a damn sight more, and drinking less than I have since I was old enough to drink. Actually that’s a lie, I’ve drank less than since I was old enough to be served alcohol. The benefits of both these things don’t need to be explained. But as someone who once glutinously drank champagne (because it was free) until he threw up, drinking less has been a real plus (don’t even get me started on all-you-can-eat buffets).

On the flip side, I do seem to be constantly dehydrated (no matter how much I drink), always tired, and as mentioned before there are some rather unnerving vibrations coming from the lower regions of my body. Head out of the gutter people, you know what I’m talking about.  Another negative consequence of the sadistic training schedule I’ve been enthralled in is that my social life has taken a beating. I’ve been very boring, in bed by ten and tired, and un-conversational hours before that.  In the beginning I tried to mix an active nightlife with running but it simply didn’t work. One good friend witnessed what ‘a few’ pints after a twenty mile run do to you. I’ll spare you the absolute details, but let’s just say it was similar to that of an undercooked Chicken Saag.  Last night I took my first ice bath in an attempt to shift a calf pain, which was, well not to state the blooming obvious, very, very cold, and unpleasant.

The negatives list is relatively large, and that’s before I have even mentioned the actual labors of running. These are often written about so I won’t bore you with more details, but in summary there’s plenty of hard work, commitment, focus and, well, running. One thing I will say, as the days stretch out into the promise of summer and the weather warms up, it’s worth bearing in mind that when I started training for this it was dark, wet and cold. One Sunday morning in particular will stick in my head for a long time. As I made my way steadily around the East London canals the force of the wind and the hail stones rattled my very soul. Okay that’s a bit dramatic, my soul remained un-rattled, but the thought “what the bloody hell am I doing this for” did pop into my head a least a few times.



As the big day approaches and I am well into the ‘tapering down phase’ (that’s apparently the word for training less), I have asked myself whether I’d put myself through this again?
The answer can only be about as ambiguous as my feelings toward the training and the impending marathon in general. After all it’s been terrible, but also strangely enjoyable. I mean who wouldn’t, if given a choice, want to be fitter and healthier than they’ve ever been in their lives? But, as a counter argument who in their right mind would want to give up their social life, quit boozing and be in pretty much constant pain? It’s a toughie.

I have few doubts that I will, as I did before, start to drink too much, but probably (and hopefully) to a lesser degree after Sunday. I even suspect that my diet will also take a turn for the worse. But, whether I take on another marathon, or not, is probably not that important. The main thing is that I will keep on running. After the last three months it would be almost impossible not to. After all, putting the aches and pains aside for one moment, there are staggeringly few times in life where I have managed to find such peace and welcome solitude as when I am out, on my own, running.