Day four. Nothing left to do but run, run, run... (4/1/19)

Yes, it's a Doors quote. 'Not To Touch The Sun' from the never officially finished 'Celebration of The Lizard' ("I am the lizard king, I can do anything") but appearing on its own on 'Waiting For The Sun' but it's okay, I'm not still banging on about the Doors, it's just a nice segue into today:

(Soundtrack: The new Elvis Costello album 'Look Now' having listened to the excellent interview with EC on the thoroughly fabulous 'Sodajerker on Songwriting' podcast. The reason why I was listening to that will become clear quite shortly.)

The knees hurt. There's a bit of a pull in my back so I'm sitting quite erect for a change, trying to make my posture as correct as possible (he says, leaning back into his chair again, giving a lie to that statement as he tries to write his way out of the sentence he's started).

I've been for the first run of the year.

And there is no way that sentence would have appeared in the first year of this. My opinion of runners at that point was, "why, in God's name would anybody want to do that?"

I was disparaging. Publicly disparaging, as I can often be about many things that I later change my mind about. Ask anybody who worked with me across my time at HMV about my Led Zeppelin stance. Until 'Mothership' came out and I decided I possibly needed to write to messrs Page and Plant to apologise personally. "Dear sirs, I have come to realise that, despite spectating the punk wars, you are actually *not* the enemy...". Ask J about my attitude to mayonnaise until finding myself forced into eating the bloody stuff on the only sandwich I could get one hot afternoon in Lindos. "Hey, it's really nice this, isn't it?" "Oh, for...."

My position on AC/DC, Abba and cheese remains unaltered and always will. Never going to be a fan of any of them.

The running though. There was no way I would ever run. Specialist running shoes, fluorescent tops to alert all those big heavy things moving faster than your poor fragile body? Not for me ta.

And then I realised something. Middle age spread was... well, spreading. I was becoming a skinny bloke with a belly. Leaving HMV meant many things but one prime difference was the fact that suddenly I was spending more time sitting down that I was running round like an idiot trying to do too much and living on a diet of nothing but chocolate and nervous energy. I was quite happy with the fact that I'd put a couple of stone on, even though six foot two and eleven stone still isn't what you'd call chubby. Skinny with a belly though? I'm not vain, I've never believed I was anywhere near decent looking enough to embrace vanity, but I wasn't having this.

"How's that couch to 5K thing work?"

"Why?"

"I'm thinking of doing it."

And I did it. Walk for three minutes run for one. Walk for three, run for three. Seriously? You want me to run for three minutes? THREE? You realise that could kill me? But the lady in my phone was so quietly, pleasantly, confident that I could do it that I felt I couldn't let her down.

The first time I ran, without stopping, for an entire half an hour, was on the seafront in Gran Canaria. The bug had bitten me to the extent that I had to run every two to three days. HAD too. Couldn't not. It felt too good. There was a genuine sense of accomplishment at the end of each run.

And the process is so enjoyable. It's the perfect way to start a day, it's a great way to run off the events of the day just gone, it's incredible for clearing your mind of anything and perfect for planning. As a writer, headphones in, music blasting, it's wonderful for working out ideas. All there is, is you, the road, the music and the inside of your mind.

It has to be the road.There has to be a changing backdrop, there has to be the feel of having moved somewhere. I've tried it in a gym on a treadmill. Dull. Pointless. No fun at all. The road may be much harsher on your knees but it's far more interesting.

Two small regrets in the whole thing. I've hit 10k on a couple of occasions and on each occasion I've done something nasty to my knee. At one point I was limping for three weeks. Unfortunate, that, as my OCD means I have to move to the next thing; I need to be running 10ks. Three 5ks a week? Sound but I want 10ks. I quite fancy a half marathon. Every time I'm close to getting to 10k again, something happens; a minor pull, an illness (today was the first run after a fortnight of the worst flu I've had in 25 years). This year is for getting to, getting past 10k.

The other small regret? Last January, our New York visit came in the wake of some minor surgery. Nothing important, nothing serious, but it meant I couldn't run for a while. I'd have loved to run while we were over there. Not Central Park. I wasn't bothered about running Central Park. Central Park on a wet January morning is just like every other rainy park on earth, nothing romantic about it. The streets though? I'd have loved to run the streets of Manhattan. Next time.

The belly? Still there. The middle aged spread is still there. I'm still a skinny bloke with a belly. One photo taken the week before Christmas proved that.

I have a horrible feeling this may be the year I join a gym.