The Fat Bloke Diaries

Episode Thirty-Six – In Praise of Learning

It’s always a good day when you learn something new and the lessons have been coming thick and fast this week. For example I’ve discovered that:

· downing a big jug of coffee raises my heart rate sky high. Not a great idea before what should have been a gentle jog. When they say that caffeine helps you to focus when running, I don’t think that they meant quite that much.

· 4x4 drivers are just as likely as Barnsley boy-racers to aim for a strategically placed huge puddle. And running after a heavy downpour is great for variable speed training; timing sprints past the puddles really gets you warmed up.

· I shouldn’t use Prog Rock as the soundtrack to my run. Not only does it show me to be the aging hippy that I am, but the frequent tempo changes messes my pacing up.

This last one’s going to be difficult for me to change. The music of Yes, King Crimson, Asia etc makes up much of the track list on my MP3 player. I love their musical complexity, but using it to time my footsteps is asking for trouble. The constant changes from, say, 7/8 to 4/4 has in the past seen me stupidly trying to do some freaky little hopping jig every 13th step like a demented rhythmless rabbit caught up in a Riverdance line-up. My head has no idea where my feet should be going and tries to wing it. My feet, having no brains of their own, just try to obey orders.

I’m rambling now. That coffee must have kicked in.

When I jog my heart might pound like a Carl Palmer drum solo (ask your granddad or, more likely, Wikipedia), but the running, combined with the other bits of exercise and eating more healthily, is having a positive effect. I’ve lost over two stones (that’s 28lbs or almost 13kg if your measuring stick differs from mine – about the weight of a full-grown male North American bobcat, if you have one handy for comparison purposes) and I can now touch my toes – just – for the first time since I was a boy. Heck, I haven’t even seen my toes for over thirty years until recently. Last time I saw them they hadn’t got any hair. Now they have plenty, and it’s all grey. I must be getting old.

But age shall not weary me; the running will do that instead. Training for my upcoming Great Yorkshire Run 10k goes on apace and I’ve now heard that highlights of the day’s events will be shown on Channel Five. Watch out for the gasping fat bloke near the back. To increase my motivation I’ve now told the British Heart Foundation that I’m raising funds for them. Most of us know someone who’s been affected by heart or circulatory related disease, and the BHF does great work both in helping sufferers and attempting to reduce the number of people affected in the future.

They’ve been very encouraging and, bless them, they’ve even sent me a running vest to display my support for them on the day. They claim that it’s the biggest size that they have, but I’m not so sure. I can’t be the biggest bloke ever to do a fund-raiser for this worthy cause, can I? Am I still that much bigger than average? I guess ‘normal’ runners must all be skinny, because this extra large top doesn’t even come close to fitting. I had to roll it onto my body like a red and white condom. To continue with that analogy would be inviting trouble, but let’s just say that it’s snug. That’s not snug as in the nice, comfortable back room of a friendly 1960’s local pub (it’s nowhere near that large), but snug like a sausage skin that's about to burst. And you certainly wouldn’t want bits of my insides splattering the top of your cooker.

Maybe it’ll fit by September? Fit, maybe, but not fit to be seen in public.


© Shaun Finnie 2009

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