Mayday! Mayday! Jim fears his body is in freefall
I’m starting to think of myself as a pilot and my body as an aircraft. When I say pilot, I’m talking about one of those washed-up old wrecks who, having survived WW2, spent the next decade or so flying exotic under-the-radar cargos around East Asia. And when I say aircraft, I mean one of those patched-up old crates abandoned after the war and pressed into service by the aforementioned pilots.
Indulge me here in an extended metaphor, because going for a run these days often feels like taking one of those planes for a trip over the Burmese jungle.
Each time the pilot coaxed his machine into the air he knew something would stop working or catch fire or fall off. He took the view it would be nothing he couldn’t deal with. When the time came, he’d find a safe place to wedge his scotch and then fashion some ingenious solution out of whatever was lying around the cockpit. Then he’d settle back into his seat and return to the important work of finding the bottom of that bottle of Teacher’s. But in the back of his mind would be the unspoken fear that one day it would be something he couldn’t fix and he and his plane would spiral unnoticed into that vast rainforest…
One last flight?
You see where I’m going with this. I’m on borrowed time. Every time I run, my old body twinges and twangs, grumbles and sulks and threatens catastrophic failure. In the past, I’ve had operations on both knees and major surgery on my back. But it’s my right leg that’s playing up these days. Each run brings pain in a new place, as well as all the old ones. I’ve tried favouring my left, but as every runner knows, that’s really just hopping.
My body needs a complete and thorough overhaul. There are plenty of options available. I could go to the physio who sorted my back out years ago, or try the university sports clinic up the road. But I resist for the same reason I never go to the dentist; the same reason I didn’t take my wife’s car to the garage until the clutch mechanism was scraping along the tarmac. I just don’t want to know.
I don’t want to be presented with a long list of urgent repairs by someone with glowing pound signs in their eyes. Most of all, I don’t want to hear the words, “Stop running.” I have my foam roller, my post-run stretches and my weird yoga moves – developed over the years to target particular niggles. But I fear I’m only fending off the inevitable.
Each time I pull on my trainers, I worry it could be my final trip; when I disappear into the metaphorical jungle. Perhaps I should run with a bottle of whisky, to take the edge off when the time comes. Yes, that’s far more sensible than physio.
Jim smiles through the pain
