Tonky Talk

Paul is remaking his body – and about time, too

My mini-revolution continues – I’m still doing thrice-weekly yoga, planking and calf-strengthening exercises. I’ve finally embraced whole-body fitness and I’m feeling a tad foolish that I didn’t do all this much earlier. As my body starts to feel a bit stronger, there are spin-offs. I’m feeling a little less disgruntled, more in control. It’s the constantly surprising magic of cause and effect. Do this new thing to the body and the body changes. The physical form never ceases to amaze me for its malleability, even in an old coot like myself. There’s a jauntiness to my stride and I’m making better choices in other areas. I’m walking to the checkout at the Co-Op without ransacking the chocolate aisle and, for now, I’ve replaced red wine with prosecco, which, as we all know, is basically pop, so I’m practically teetotal. I’m trying to break patterns, both physically and mentally, disrupt the habits that corrode. In this spirit, I’ve started to play a bit of football again.

I thought, if I can play for an hour and feel OK afterwards, it will be a nice low-mileage session and good overall workout. The last time I played football was four years ago and my core was so battered I could barely walk for a week. This time was better; I felt fine and the next day, although stiff, I was perfectly acceptable. It was also the first time I’d done anything like fast running in months. Lots of twists and turns and sprints. So then, that’s in – a midweek game.

I’ve got my Sunday long run, which is growing by 10 minutes or so a week, and the podcast involves a lazy hour or so of jogging and chatting. But I need to start putting in some quality sessions. I have a few little races coming up – 5Ks, a mile on the track. If I want to get through these unscathed, I will have to maintain all the flexibility stuff and introduce some speed.

The first outing was planned as an 8 x 150m wind-up sprint session, on grass. A reintroduction to the concept of speed after months apart.

So I jog to the park and, after a warm-up and stretch, I set off into the first rep. You need to start from where you are and I am not in a particularly fast place. So I saunter into the first one and it’s more of a lumber than a sprint. I sort of accelerate but it might not have been obvious to the untrained eye, and it’s over before it has begun; I’m not out of breath and so I jog gently, waiting for the next rep.

The second is a lot better; I’m quickly into my stride, bouncier, driving the arms and relaxing the shoulders. I’m still not going fast, but it’s like my body is awakening after months of slumber. Lockdown has been mainly steady running as therapy; this is like rummaging in your toolkit for a spanner you used to rely on all the time but that has rusted. Late in the session, my form starts to go a bit and towards the end of the seventh rep I feel my calf tighten slightly, so I stop, stretch and jog home. I’m training, not straining.

The yoga, the planking and the football are just as much a part of the running now as the running is. Running’s the true measure of how fit I am, but the packaging is increasingly important. Injury has taught me how fragile it all is, how reliant my mental state is on being able to run freely. The rest is bubble wrap. But we all know how much fun bubble wrap can be.