When my running app broke it was a revelation: ‘being better’ is about taking care of yourself
In early 2018, I was training for the London Marathon – the first and only marathon I’ll ever run in my life. I had treated myself to an expensive fitness watch that tracked my time, pace, splits – every piece of information I could ever wish to know about what I had just endured.
At the end of my final training run – a gruelling 21 miles (34km) during which I got lost on Wandsworth Common and had a lovely little cry on the bus afterwards – I threw myself down on the floor the moment I got home, only to see my watch had failed me. Twenty-one miles briefly flashed on the screen before it went blank and disappeared for ever.
Instead of feeling proud of myself for the phenomenal achievement of running for what I believe in athletics is known as “fucking ages”, I screamed in anguish because there was no record of it. My aching muscles, my salt-crusted lips that tasted of sweat and Jelly Babies, the increasingly disgusting blisters on my feet – it all meant nothing to me. I may as well not have done it.
That tragic image of me sobbing while choking down a conciliatory Cornetto on my living room floor pretty much sums up my relationship with exercise tracking technology.
I’d like to say at this point that I know running apps are brilliant for some people. It can be a total joy to watch your stats change as you get stronger and faster. I once got a kick out of it too, but at some point it became a stick I used to punish myself. I would watch my pace (slow, always slow), compare it with other people’s, admonish myself for not doing that extra mile, or for not doing it 30 seconds faster like I had last time. I would run for five miles, get home and feel disappointed in myself for not doing six.
I never really recognised exercise tracking as a problem, because I was so used to tracking and logging my life. Things I have tracked include but are not limited to: calories, my weight, my sleep, steps, my speed, my heart rate. It seemed to me that tracking was the route to self-improvement, and the point was to improve, wasn’t it? The point was to be better.
In the past year, the concept of “being better” has taken on a different meaning. My mental health took a spectacular nosedive, and things that were once easy and I was very good at, such as brushing my teeth, washing my clothes and going outside became unimaginably difficult. Being better stopped meaning getting faster, stronger, leaner, thinner, more impressive. It meant taking care of myself in the most basic sense, feeling some joy in a day, remembering to take my meds, remembering that everything is temporary.
Once I started being better, I reflected on what about my life made me happy and what did not; on when I felt peaceful and when I did not. And so I stopped tracking my runs. I simply deleted years’ worth of data that was once very important to me and now meant nothing. Years of personal bests and personal worsts and targets and goals and achievements and failures. And once it was gone, what was left was me and a pair of running shoes and miles and miles of trying to clear the fog in my brain.
What has become very clear to me since I quit tracking my runs is that I genuinely love doing them. I run around my local park with a silly little smile on my face, I love it so much. But I do not love running quickly. I hate it, in fact. I do not love targets. I do not like races. I do not want to be pushed to be faster by other people or win a medal. I’m sorry to say to all the enthusiasts that I do not even like parkrun. I like to run alone accompanied by a playlist that will never see the light of day.
Things I notice about my runs now include: how my legs feel and how my mind feels afterwards (clear and focused). I notice how many flies are in my mouth, dogs, the smell of the cow parsley along the canal and the sunshine (OK, wind and rain) on my face.
I notice with interest how some days a 20-minute jog around the park feels like a marathon and how on others I want to go for miles and miles, my legs springy and filled with what feels like boundless energy. I notice how neither one is better or worse than the other, how the guilt has disappeared.
I am better. Or sometimes I am worse. But either way I’m slowly plodding along, and that’s good enough.
Laura Kay is a former Guardian journalist and the author of three novels, including The Split, which is about running
an off-camera cry of “motherfucker!”. Matsson had “played her like a pregnant cello” … but now it was game on.
To kill or crown the king?
With Shiv back, the siblings formed a powerful voting bloc. They needed to present a coherent plan to the board, including a credible leader. Not “a troika, a trio”, not “the incredible fuck brother bandwagon”, not “a cop-out at the fudge factory”. Kendall was the obvious choice – partly because Logan “sat me down in the Candy Kitchen in Bridgehampton when I was seven” and said he was heir. There’s an image to conjure with.
Roman insisted that Logan had said it to him most recently. “He offered it to me too,” piped up Shiv. It was playground squabbling but gradually logic prevailed. Roman didn’t really want it. Shiv had been working for the other side. As Kendall said: “If we wanna hold on to this company, it’s me.” They’d rule over separate fiefdoms: Shiv could change the world with the news division, Roman could disrupt with social media. As they anointed Kendall king, Roman said: “It’s haunted, cursed and nothing will ever go right but enjoy your bauble.”
There followed one of Succession’s happiest ever family scenes as the siblings horsed around. They impersonated Kendall and joked about murdering him. They mixed “a meal for a king” from random kitchen ingredients, made him down the blended goop, then tipped it over his head. Mocking Peter’s “special cheese” and “frozen nobbies”, they were scolded by their mother for being noisy. Their naughtiness was endearing, but next morning it was back to business.
The Antiques Shitshow
Just time for a stop-off at “the Great Reallocation”. At Logan’s apartment, new owner Connor (Alan Ruck) presided over a “sticker perambulation circuit” to claim heirlooms. Con was set to relocate to Slovenia, while aspiring playwright wife Willa (Justine Lupe) stayed off-Broadway. When Shiv faux-casually mentioned that ongoing court cases over the Wisconsin result meant that crypto-fascist Jeryd Mencken might not win power and Con’s ambassadorship wouldn’t happen, Willa was crestfallen. She’d clearly fancied a long-distance relationship.
Cue another warm family scene as they sat down to watch a home video. Scene-stealing from beyond the grave, Logan did his party piece: reciting “the loser’s list” of failed presidential candidates. Gerri (J Smith Cameron) performed a lewd limerick. Karl (David Rasche) crooned Robert Burns’ Green Grow the Rashes. As Logan joined in and Kerry (Zoë Winters) rested her head on his shoulder, the siblings welled up. Their unity wouldn’t last long.
Tom admitted to Shiv that the CEO was going to be him instead. Betrayed by her husband once again, she was newly galvanised to tank the deal. Tom berated Greg for his treachery and the Disgusting Brothers had the worst onscreen fight since Colin Firth v Hugh Grant in Bridget Jones’s Diary. He told Matsson they had a “big fucking problem”. “Wake up, zombies,” bawled Matsson at his team. “Time to activate.” Boardroom battle loomed.
‘The losers never triumph’
As the sibs swaggered into Waystar HQ, it was all systems go. Chairperson Frank (Peter Friedman) ran around “like his testicles were on fire”. PR chief Karolina (Dagmara Domińczyk) hailed it as a “chance to change the culture”, which happened to include sacking her boss Hugo (Fisher Stevens). “Activist backtivist” Stewy (Arian Moayed) was on-side. But it was the siblings who wobbled.
Rattled by the sight of Gerri, Roman became tearful that it could have been him but he’d “pussied out”. Kendall clutched him in such a tight bear-hug that Romey’s forehead stitches popped. If it was a power move, he was cowed for now. Come the vote, it was Shiv’s turn. With the count tied at 6-6, she had the casting decision but dramatically stormed out. Just when we thought we might get a happy-ish ending, sibling rivalry reared its head. “I don’t think you’d be good at this,” she told Kendall coldly. “I love you but I can’t fucking stomach you.” She wanted the job, didn’t want him to have it, but also knew he wasn’t capable.
As he pleaded, Pinkie dropped her bombshell: “You can’t be CEO because you killed someone.” Chekhov’s dead waiter had to be brandished some time. Deep in denial, Kendall feebly claimed the Chappaquiddick-echoing car crash never happened. “I’m the eldest boy!” he declared pathetically. Now Roman turned too, taunting Kendall that he wasn’t “the bloodline” because he wasn’t the biological father of his children. The fight turned physical in full view of their colleagues. They really weren’t serious people. The vote went 7-6 against the Roys. Desolate Kendall departed. He’d sat in his father’s chair for all of an hour. Nobody does a haunted corridor walk like Jeremy Strong.
Jubilant in his polo neck of power, Matsson arrived for a deal-signing photo op, Tom in tow to survey his new fiefdom. Golden parachutes beckoned for Karl and Frank but he’d bring back Gerri. What of quad squadder Greg Sprinkles? Emperor Nero couldn’t be without his Sporus. He stuck a sticker on the leggy princeling’s forehead, signalling ownership.
The final fuck-off
A flip-flopping, feel-bad ending but a masterly one. True to form, the scions were their own worst enemy, backstabbing each other and handing power to an outsider. Roman had asked Shiv in Barbados, “Who do you think Dad actually wanted to give it to?” “I don’t think any of us,” she’d replied. He got his wish.
Roman sat alone at a bar, sipping a martini and smiling ruefully. Realising he was better off out, it hinted at a return to his dissolute party lifestyle. Tom rode home with Shiv, proffering his hand like an alpha monarch. As she half-heartedly took it, the power balance in their toxic marriage had tilted. “Firecrotch and Normcore” were back. For now.
Finally, crumpled Kendall walked through a park, bodyguard Colin (Scott Nicholson) hovering behind as he had with Logan. As he gazed out at the choppy, slate-grey Hudson river – water has long been an ominous motif for Kendall – his desperate words to Shiv echoed: “If I don’t get to do this, I might die.” He wasn’t underlined, he was crossed out. A psychic death, if not yet a physical one. Is that a tear in your eye or bodega wasabi?
The heir apparent
Tom-Wam wins. Proof that it’s sometimes the “interchangeable empty suits” who rise to the top. A depressingly realistic resolution. Bring on the insincere handshakes and biodynamic bubbly.
Line of the week
Amid the Shakespearean tragedy and dynastic dysfunction, a light moment was Shiv’s comeback to Roman’s talk of late-night paternal promises: “Hmm, persuasive. What else did he say when no one was around? That he was the Zodiac Killer? That he did Tupac?” Pics or it didn’t happen indeed.
Notes and observations
All three previous series finale titles – Nobody Is Ever Missing, This Is Not for Tears, All the Bells Say - are lines from John Berryman’s poem Dream Song 29. With Open Eyes completes the set.
Lots of Anglophile touches in Jesse Armstrong’s farewell script, from Branston Pickle to Black Lace’s Agadoo, Pink Floyd pooing in swimming pools, to the siblings’ Dick Van Dyke accents.
Lots of knowing callbacks too. Lawrence Yee resurfaced from the Vaulter storyline. Shiv spat in Kendall’s drink, as she did his notebook. Kendall even called, “Oh Romey, where are you?” in an echo of his season-opening line.
A closing caption read “In loving memory of Ellen Tam”, the show’s late and much-loved assistant editor.
On the wrap day for Alan Ruck and Justine Lupe, his sign-off speech included “the Roy family toast”: “Here’s to you, and here’s to me/The best of friends we’ll always be/But if someday we disagree/Fuck off.”
Thanks for your witty company, Roy-alists. I’ll miss you almost as much as I’ll miss the virtuoso swearing. For one last time, please leave your thoughts, theories and farewells below.