The Fat Bloke Diaries

Episode Forty – Take it to the Limit

It’s time to step things up a gear.

I’ve been running (albeit very, very slowly) for about seven months now. How time flies when you’re having fun. Or even when you’re running.

I started off at the baby-steps level of just tentatively trying a thirty-second trot a couple of times during a long walk. To start with even that was difficult. But now, after gradually increasing the time running and decreasing the walking part, I can actually run for the best part of an hour without needing to take a break or call for International Rescue. Mind you, I have to do my standard warm up first; three quick stretches and some deep breaths. That’s it. Any more than that would make me look far too serious, as if I were a proper runner or something.

My general fitness level is much higher than it was a few months ago but my weight has reached a plateau. Somewhere along the line I’ve lost over two stones. I think it might be in the pub, but I daren’t go in there to check; I might drink it back on. But the decrease in my mass has stopped for now. I must have shaken loose all the easy calories. Now I’m struggling to throw out the ones that have got a good toe hold, and I'm not losing any more weight.

So it’s time to push it. Push it real good, as Salt-n-Pepa once said. Those girls had a lot of drive, even if their grasp of English grammar was a little inadequate. I took their advice to heart and last weekend real good did I indeed push it.

While all sensible people were glamming up for a Friday night of drunken debauchery (I can’t ever remember bauching in the first place, let alone de-bauching), I was clambering on to my mighty metal steed (my static bike) and pedalling for over 27 miles. At first I typed that I was peddling for over 27 miles, but I’d have had to have a large supply of ‘stuff’ for it to last that far. Send in the ROFLcopters, as I’d say if I were young and hip.

On Saturday I just ran for a gentle two miles. I love the way that I say things like this now. Until a few months ago I had never run more than a few hundred yards in my life. These days even two miles requires a ‘just’ prefix.

Sunday was the big one. Four and a quarter miles. That’s about two thirds of my target distance and much farther than I’d attempted before. I'm delighted to say that I managed it, especially as it included the dreaded Hill of Doom, a long incline so steep that I have to drop my little Fiesta down into second gear to drive up it. As I approached the hill my jog slowed to something marginally faster than the pace of a sleepy snail with painful bunions, but I made it all the way to the top. And then I made it all the way down the other side again and back to my house. I even felt pretty good when I got home, but I must have been tired because a big chunk of the afternoon is missing to me. I dozed off. It could've been that I was sitting in the sun. It could have been that there was some tennis on television. But I think it's more likely that I was just worn out after what was, to me, a really long run.

Taking the leap to over four miles was too much, I know that now. In truth, I knew it at the time but the allure of pushing myself to complete the circuit was too strong, like the pull of that one more pint when you’ve just said you’re leaving the pub.

I felt better for the snooze though, and over the next few days I felt my damaged calf muscles knitting themselves back together. They tingled in a bizarre but not unpleasant way, like my veins had been filled with those bright orange Moon Rocks that fizzed on your tongue as a kid.

As my legs recovered and strengthened themselves they started this really weird twitching thing, as if they’d been taken over by space aliens. They were jerking and jumping spasmodically. You know the bit in Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’ video where the zombies start to dance in a strange staccato way? It was like that. But seeing as I’m white, middle-aged and English there was obviously no rhythm to my movements. It was unusual, but there was no real soreness.

The strange thing is that however far I jog – one mile, two or even now four – my minutes per mile ratio hasn't altered. It still seems to be about a stately twelve. It appears that I’ve found my level. Now I know that I couldn’t keep up with Usain ‘Lightning’ Bolt for very long, but I doubt that he could down a pint of Black Sheep’s Riggwelter in less than five seconds. All skills are relative.

And one final thing this week; I’ve mentioned before that I think it’s a good day when there’s a lesson learned, and here’s a really important one. I found this out the hard way so that you (especially all you men reading this) don’t have to: Always put your underwear on before applying copious amounts of Ralgex deep heat spray to your knees…


© Shaun Finnie 2009

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