Tonky Talk

Paul feels the pain and he rather likes it

Setting off is sometimes the most difficult thing. Last Sunday, for instance. I’d done a 200-mile drive in the morning, but my marathon schedule said I had to do a 20-mile run. Mercifully, the storms that had assaulted the last two weekends had taken a day off. But still, 20 miles was going to take ages, a lot of it crosscountry, sticky underfoot and no company or music in my ears. The problem was I’d hit on a daring new training approach. To combine marathon prep with recovery for my ageing frame, I’d settled on three runs a week, all long(ish). That meant a fairly torturous 15 on Tuesday and a swift 10 on Thursday. It was sort of working. I was feeling stronger, but for it to mean anything I still had to go long on Sunday. If I didn’t, this would be a 25-mile week – not good enough a couple of months out from my marathon. If I could just get changed – that starts the whole thing. Then, a lingering coffee accompanied by the most perfunctory of stretches, then out.

I was wearing multiple layers to get a sweat on, I hadn’t eaten all day and had no drinks to hand. There was half a banana in my pocket. The aim was to gently push myself into the hurt locker and start to get comfy in there. It was designed so that on race morning, full of carbs and properly hydrated, I’d be flying.

I was going without a watch. This wasn’t a philosophical position; I’d just left the charger in a hotel. It meant the run was basic – I couldn’t be sure of distances so I was running to a park, doing seven laps, then running back close to my house and out the other way for another five-mile loop. To be sure of distance, I had to do the perimeter of the park, where it was nice and muddy. The day was hot and by the time I got to the park I was sweating like a slapped horse, so I tied one of the tops round my waist and picked my way round the park’s edge to avoid the really wet bits. The top on/off dance became a sub-plot of the afternoon. It was windy, so when I took the top off I got chilly. I put the top back on again – and heated up.

By the fifth and sixth lap of the park, I was no longer picking my way through the wet sections, but squelching straight through, soaking my feet in the clingy mud. Bystanders were looking at me

– a mad, tired-looking bloke covered in mud, lapping the park, taking his top off and putting it on again.

I was thirsty but decided not to drink until late in the run. It was a way of guaranteeing I stayed out for the final five-mile loop – which went into another park and to the refreshing water in the toilets there. From that point, all I had to do was run home – into the bath, a cup of tea, biscuits and there it was – 20 miles in the bag.

So I headed homewards, but not to go home. I had to do the final loop.

This was the 14-15-mile stage. I was knackered and with the pace I was going, I was looking at being out for another hour. My mind was playing tricks on me, trying to persuade me to go home – the difference between a 40- and a 45-mile week isn’t massive, it was saying. But deep down I knew it wasn’t about the miles across a week; it was about the 20 miles in one go. This was the marathon, this suffering. So I ate the half-banana just before the turn-off and it gave me the strength to head away from home for the final loop.

By now there was nothing in me that wasn’t exhausted, but there was also an idiotic enjoyment of the extremity of the whole thing. In the park at the 18.5-mile point, I swerved into the toilets and finally drank, sucking on the tap like a feral beast. As I left the park for the last mile and a half, it was like I’d been spat back into society. I was a sweaty man-creature in the middle of a civilised scene in Highgate.

When I finally burst through my front door, I couldn’t speak for a while. My wife just carried on her business as I stumbled round the kitchen moaning, gulping water, putting the kettle on and messily putting a smoothie together.

But I felt great. I was confronted by that uncomfortable truth yet again – this is what we do for fun.