The Fat Bloke Diaries

Episode Fifty-Nine – I Need A Bit of (ooh!) Shock Treatment

“I once ran a 10k road race.”

Are you getting bored of hearing that yet? I certainly am. I did a great job on the day, but that was then. Ten weeks ago. What have I done for me lately?

It’s more what I haven’t done that’s the issue. I haven’t really exercised since then. Sure, I’ve done the occasional short run, and I’ve signed up for a road race next September, but I’ve not retained the habit of getting my shorts and trainers on and doing something – anything – to hold back the return of the middle-age spread.

Immediately after my glorious performance at the Great Yorkshire Run back in September I took a few days off to let my legs recover a little. Then I treated myself to a few more days of idleness, because I thoroughly deserved it. Then I went on holiday for a week. And after that… well after that I just didn’t get back into the old routine. I got back into the even older routine. Instead of running or cycling I caught up on some reading or simply sat watching TV with a snack. TV, me, books, food. We’d missed each other. It was just like old times.

Of the two and a half stones that I lost in the run-up to September’s race, one has already sneaked back into my shirt. I think it’s the same one. It’s pink, hairy and wobbly, so if it isn’t the same stone then it has a twin. So I’m back to wearing my old clothes again. Remember how I made such a song and dance about how tops that I hadn’t seen in years had come out of the cupboard and even looked good on me? Well now some of them have gone back from whence they came. Even those that are still wearable are feeling tight around the chest and belly once more.

I’d like to say that all that lard has got back into my body via osmosis, that I just passed a pie shop and it mugged me, seeping into my pores like whisky seeps out. But Momma Finnie raised me to tell the truth, so the real reason that I’m getting chunkier is all those muffins, puddings and chocolates that I’d taught myself to regard as occasional treats. How soon we forget. Now there seems to be an ‘occasion’ every day. A meal isn’t a meal without something sweet to round it off with. And cheese, obviously. But not sweet cheese.

I’m smart enough to recognise triumph and disaster as the impostors that they are, but sometimes things need to be done. So last weekend I dragged myself out for a little run. Not far mind, just about a mile and a half. But that was plenty far enough.

I know I’ve done a few little circuits recently, but this one was much more difficult than the others. It was possibly the hardest run I’ve ever done in my life, even though it was a route that I’ve jogged dozens of times. A mile and a half; I guess that I thought that I could do it fairly easily now. I’ve raised my expectations of my own ability, whereas in the past I’ve surprised myself discovering what I could do. This time I surprised myself discovering what I couldn’t.

I couldn’t breathe.
I couldn’t lift my legs.
I couldn’t complete my planned route.

For the first time ever I quit on my run and took a short cut, knocking quarter of a mile off my planned distance. I still jogged the entire way, but my heart wasn’t in it. It was busy trying to keep beating without exploding.

My legs felt like lead, and still do even now. Sweat ran from me in a way that it never should on a relatively cool autumn afternoon. I couldn’t speak for about ten minutes when I got back home (which of course pleased my Beloved, a woman for whom the novelty of listening to me brag about distances and timings has long since worn off). I had a stiffness and pain in my left shoulder that I couldn’t shift while running, and which stayed well into the evening. That scared me, as you can imagine, but not as much as the tightness in my upper body that came later. It wasn’t like you see on the adverts; there was no restriction like a belt around my chest, squeezing the life out of me. There was just a light pressure, like an angel’s hand gently pressing down on me, just below my left collar bone.

I was a fat bloke suffering from pretensions of fitness.

I know, even at my fittest I was a pretty unfit person, but I’ve now lost what little muscle condition I had, and the speed of my decline has shocked me. I’ve become jowly, and my belt is hidden at the sides of my trousers again. There’s a fleshy Shauny overhang that I thought was a thing of the past. People who until recently had been saying “Wow Shaun, you’re looking really good” are now keeping their own council. That’s damning with no praise.

I know what I have to do. But it was so much easier when the evenings were lighter.



© Shaun Finnie 2009
 

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