Final Surge

I am a runner. No, scratch that — I am a running bore.

I run four or five times most weeks. I think about running more than any well adjusted human really ought to. There is no new piece of running tech that does not get me slavering at the prospect of “marginal gains”. And when I see someone else out running, I feel a pang of jealousy. Every single time. Even if I’ve just been for a run.

Ridiculous.

For all that my obsession has grown, my times have got steadily worse. I hit my peak, speed-wise, about 9 years ago, and every year since then I’ve been a bit slower than the year before. This should not matter. It’s an inevitable factor of ageing, and I should accept the biology, right?

But it’s hard to take. I’m not ready to be slower.

So earlier this year I set myself a challenge — to run the quickest 5k of my life. Could Present Greg, likely well past halfway in this big old game of life, beat Past Greg? Could I turn back the clock and have one more go at being quickest Greg ever? With the right training, the right habits and the right attitude, you’re goddamn right I could.

Be warned, there is bragging, lecturing and tedious technical detail in this piece. But it’s worth enduring all of that for the UNIVERSAL TRUTHS that I intend to share with you.

I wasn’t always a runner. Far from it — school cross country was torture. I would jog gingerly around the grim muddy playing fields, too compliant to join the boys who smoked their way through a pack of B&H then skipped a couple of laps, but too slow to keep up with the natural born athletes. I couldn’t understand why those other boys glided around the field with ease, while I found it so damn hard. I became certain that I had an undiagnosed lung disease which made every painful breath a heroic victory against the odds.

Looking back, I accept that there was no rare illness involved. My chubby little legs just wouldn’t move quickly enough, and I ate too many custard creams.

It was only much later in life that I came to running. I played Sunday league football, and decided that I could overcome my lack of talent by becoming fitter than everyone else. I played in the bottom division of London’s Jewish football league — this is the lowest level of football imaginable, and the pace could be, shall we say, a little sluggish at times — so this wasn’t actually a bad strategy.

I started running regularly. And here’s the thing — it was desperately boring. Every run was an effort to get out the door. Every mile was a constant battle of will power to keep going. I did enough to improve my fitness, but there was no joy.

And then, something changed. About 15 years ago, a couple of my friends entered a 10k race, and asked me if I wanted to join them. So I agreed and started training for it. I had to be quicker than them, obviously. So I downloaded a training programme, started timing my runs, and got faster. I discovered that once I started running with purpose, the improvements came quickly, which is incredibly motivating. Everything clicked, and I fell in love with running.

My regular runs stopped being a chore, and became a habit, an integral part of my life which I squeezed in whenever I could. My children still shudder at the memory of Smelly Dad, fitting long runs in between drop off and pick up for Sunday afternoon parties, turning up stinky and dripping with sweat in time to sing happy birthday to some lucky child. Holidays became a thing I did between morning runs — in truth, there is no better way to explore a place than by running through it first thing, before the rest of the world has woken up.

Though I started running to keep fit for football, I quit football to focus on running. It was a simple calculation for me — the more grace, coordination, or technical skill a sport required, the worse I was at it. Conversely a sport that mainly required grunt work to improve was in my athletic sweet spot, as I immediately got rewarded for putting in the hours. Moreover, I couldn’t imagine playing football much past the age of 40, while me and running — we were at the start of a life long love affair.

I became evangelical about running, boring the pants off anyone who made the mistake of asking me about it. Or even if they didn’t:

running to develop mental discipline…the power of a daily running habit… running as the spirit-lifting, head-clearing, zen-inducing secret to a happy life. I mean, it’s all true, but I may have got a little overbearing about the whole thing. Sorry.

I began racing regularly, anything from 5k to a marathon. I ran the London Marathon twice. The first time, in 2009, didn’t go so well. My knee started to hurt quite early in the race, which wasn’t ideal, but the true ordeal began about half way along, when I got a nasty case of the shits. I hobbled grimly on, from portaloo to portaloo. I’ve seen Glastonbury toilets at their very worst, but nothing prepared me for the horror, the dirty protest, of the 25 mile marathon bog. I crawled over the finish line, and swore I’d never put myself through that again.

I spoke to a doctor about the knee pain, and he made the obvious point that if I didn’t want sore knees, I shouldn’t run marathons. Absolutely right.

But three years later, I’d forgotten the advice, or the promise to myself. Unfinished business and all that. So I ran the London Marathon again in 2012, and it was unforgettable. The photo below is a magical moment in time, seeing my family at the 23 mile mark. It was very tough and my knee did start to hurt towards the end. But it was also one of the greatest experiences of my life, London at its finest, and I finished in a time that made me very happy.

I regularly ran Parkrun 5ks. On one occasion, a cold icy day, I had an unexpected experience at my regular Oakhill Parkrun. I set off at my normal pace, ready to follow the leading runners, to discover that it was me. I was in the lead, with nobody to follow. It was the strangest sensation — I panicked, before getting my head down and running my race. A tiny turnout, to be clear, but still…I had not come first in a running race since primary school.

That was my peak, performance-wise. Until recently, which brings us back to my quest to revisit old glories.

I got myself some magnificent new gadgets, of course, and started training a new way (running geeks, message me and I’ll chew your ear off about running with power).

It was happening. I was getting quicker. I upped my mileage, and the years rolled away. I could just, might just, make it back to being fastest Greg.

That sore knee, which had never completely gone away, showed up again, but I managed it carefully. Well, carefully -ish. I saw a physio regularly, did lots of stretching and worked on my knee strength.

I fixed my “A” race for May, the run in which I would aim to set a new personal best. I might not succeed, but I enjoyed the feeling of getting stronger. The process was the purpose.

At the end of March, I took part in a parkrun, to test my speed. I had to stop halfway. That knee pain. It was much worse than I had experienced before. And unlike previous dodgy knee moments, it continued after I stopped running. It continued at night. It just continued.

I have not run since. All talk of Fastest Gregs and personal bests went out the window. My only concern became this — what had I done to myself, and when would I be able to run again?

I had an MRI, and last week I consulted with a specialist. He told me that I’ve torn my meniscus, a helpful piece of cartilage in my left knee, which, when fully functioning, acts as a shock absorber. I expected this. But the punchline, the bit I didn’t see coming, was that there is also osteoarthritis in that knee. I gather I’m on the young side for that, but, Google tells me, it’s a degenerative form of arthritis that occurs most frequently for those who are 50 and older. So, well done me — I just made it into the catchment.

This is not the piece that I intended. Idiot that I am, I had a whole plan in my head, to write an article about my passion for running, topped and tailed with the story of my effort to beat my record. You readers would be intrigued, moved, maybe even a little bit inspired.

As it turns out, this story has a rather different ending. Because this is the end of my life of running. Which is pretty gutting.

That’s not to say I will never run again. Conversations lie ahead about keyhole surgery, physio, pain relief and rehab. The injury, and the arthritis, seem relatively mild, and I ought to be capable of jogging again at some point. But if rule 1 of smart training is “listen to your body”, well my knees have been patiently cajoling me for years. One of them just screamed.

And please don’t let this put you off running. Firstly, most people don’t run like me. Most people are not maniac obsessives. And secondly, we’ve no idea what caused my pain or ailments. Regular, moderate running is only a good thing.

God I’ll miss it. Nothing beats that feeling, hitting the ground, your heart rate increases, the endorphins kicking in. A little nod as you pass a fellow runner. Getting quicker. The satisfaction of another great run under your belt, job done. The glorious anticipation of the open road. Running is magic.

Right. Who’s up for a bike ride?