I’m A Runner Travis frontman Fran Healy on his Hollywood route
THE TRAVIS FRONTMAN, 47, ON COLD STARTS AND HIS HOLLYWOOD ROUTINE
I HATED CROSS-COUNTRY but I was good at it. I was the typical 15-yearold who never trained and just turned up on a Sunday. It would be the icecold environs of a Scottish park, a guy would bang his gun and 200 boys would tear away. I remember being cold and hating every minute of it, but I’d usually come in the top 10.
I THOUGHT THE strip of my running club was cool. I ran for Bellahouston Harriers in Glasgow for about four years. We had these blue vests, with a St Andrew’s cross down the chest, that looked great. In the track season, my main event would be 800m, but then I got weirdly very good at long jump and triple jump, and started to prefer that to anything else.
I STOPPED RUNNING when music took over. At 16, I started singing in a band at school. Then I went to art school. That period of your life, you’re just partying. I started running again when Travis were based in London, about 10 years later.
I WAS AMAZED at how unfit I was. I could only run for about five minutes and it floored me. I’d be in bits. So I just thought, ‘Tomorrow I’ll run for seven minutes, the next day I’ll run for eight,’ and so on. I slowly worked my way up to full match fitness.
I DON’T BELIEVE in marathons. I’d never do one. I don’t think people are meant to exert themselves that much! It’s not a good thing to do to your body. My thing is speed and short distances, and I’ve got a brilliant route for doing that now.
THE RUN I DO now is my only run. It’s a lap of the Hollywood Reservoir, a six-minute drive from my house in LA. My family lived in Berlin for 10 years and we’ve been in LA for the last three. It’s almost three miles, a bit hilly, and I do it about four times a week.
I DIDN’T REALISE how OCD I was about it. A few months ago, I got part of the way round, and a gate that’s usually open was closed, so I had to go back the way I came. It was the most upsetting feeling, not being able to go clockwise.
I CAN’T LISTEN TO music when I’m running. I know some people go out for a run and sort through all their problems. My brain just shuts down.
IT’S A SIMILAR feeling to being on stage. Going on tour, to me, feels like this going-up-the-mountain, Zen thing. You don’t eat much. And you go into this weird, transcendental state when you’re singing. When I come back off tour, running is a simple way to recreate that Zen feeling.
BEING IN A RACE is like performing. I said I didn’t like cross-country, but it is a different dynamic when you’re racing. Running by yourself is the rehearsal. When you get in front of an audience, you tighten the belt slightly.