Procrastination
The muffled chime of my phone sounds, 3.45am. Snooze. 3.54am and the alarm hums once more. Nine minutes. Why specifically nine minutes? Numerous theorists online differ in their reasoning, yet the manufacturers themselves appear to have kept schtum on the matter. Nevertheless, a mere nine minutes it may be but it’s enough to make the mammoth mission of abandoning the duvet’s temptress temperature marginally less loathsome.
The toddler usually stirs as I’m fumbling with the stair gate, fuelling my wife’s fire that I’m perhaps not the stealth assassin I believe myself to be. Stumbling tentatively I dress in the spare room, the literal definition of the term ‘got dressed in the dark’. This is on the proviso of remembering to retrieve suitable attire from the wardrobe the evening prior, or otherwise risk waking further inhabitants of the household.
Descending the wooden hill, the same fatigued cognition spins the usual dialogue - “Why am I doing this? Should it hurt just going down the stairs? Is this even sustainable? Is today the day something goes ‘snap’ or ‘pop’? How much is that doggy in the window?”
Another query often raised, not internally but by others, and at a more decent hour; “Why get up that early”?
Firstly, it’s worth noting that early starts, as with many aspects of life, are relative. My 4am is another’s 1am. Should someone work night shifts, it could be their 5pm. I guess mine is just what is traditionally perceived as ‘early’. Rising at 4am may seem both remarkable and implausible to some, but any expressed awe is rapidly quashed when I inform them of my insipid 8pm bedtime. Party on Wayne. Party on Garth.
I choose to run ‘early’ out of personal, and practical, preference. From a logistical standpoint I can be out and back by 6.30am, granting ample time to stretch, shower, eat, and do the nursery run before making it to work on time.
It’s a genuinely positive way to begin the day - clichéd perhaps, but accurate, you always feel better for it. Plus I generally possess far greater inclination to exert myself on a morning than an evening succeeding a full day’s graft, to the extent that an onerous long tempo or hill session is favourable to even just an easy, short twenty minute trot later in the day. The substantially reduced quantity of motor vehicles on the roads is a further determining factor - I’m perpetually conscious to look over my shoulder before stepping from the pavement anyway, but being able to proceed without hazard 99.9% of the time is a luxury I’d imagine those who run midday aren’t able to enjoy.
Then there’s people - fellow pedestrians. The absence of whom whilst out running is purely blissful. At 4am there is simply a scarcity of folk to get in your way - less grown adults cycling on the path and fewer moving obstacles staring down at the lightbox in their palm, oblivious to anyone/thing approaching them. Moreover, their decline in numbers is particularly pleasing in a pandemic when personal space becomes much more sought after.
There is the occasional nocturnal soul - dog walkers and early shifters making up the majority of a sparse few. The remaining minority appear to be cast at random from a pool of drunks, stoners, walk-of-shamers and downright wrong-uns- skulking around slowly, their beady eyes seeking something, anything, to which they can apply a five-fingered discount. They glare in my direction, as if sensing the threat of a potential witness.
Those who know me may argue another aspect to the pleasure I derive from the absence of others. I disagree but am regularly informed that I generally dislike people. A recent illustration of this claim came as my boss gleefully presented me with a fridge magnet which read ‘I fucking hate people’, stating that she saw it and thought of me. This, quite frankly, is a ludicrous and heinous slur on my character. I like nice people, there just don’t appear to be many of them around nowadays.
Shuffling into the kitchen, the lights flicker into life provoking a squint and it’s here the daily routine commences - pardon the upcoming references of unrefined vulgarity but you should be provided as accurate a picture as possible. The first port of call is the area affectionately referred to as my ‘office’ - the downstairs bathroom. The morning constitutional, a staple component of every runner’s pre-activity practice, is accompanied with a book for amusement purposes. An actual physical book, with pages and everything. A phone you say? Ha. My obviously elevated intellect is beyond the likes of Social Media at such an early hour.
Vacating the WC, our overburdened kettle starts its first shift of the day, shaking and steaming as it embarks on it’s climb to a sufficient climate. 4.15am-ish. The identity of the Chef the evening prior will have determined who was the Potwash, and therefore how great a task it will be to return all the dried dishes to their rightful places of residence. Wife cooks - I wash up, and vice versa. I adopt a considered tactical approach when placing the soapy articles upon the draining board, ensuring that they are stationed in a manner which will actually adequately facilitate the draining-away of water, and ensure smooth transport from countertop to cupboard the following morning.
My wife and I possess slightly conflicting opinions on this. Amy favours the breakneck Jenga technique - fire the plates through at great velocity as possible and pile them high any which way, who cares if they don’t drain? A thoroughly considerate and emphatic individual otherwise, she’s very well aware she won’t be the one at the mercy of the ceramic mountain, so it’s of zero concern to her that her precarious pile will require intricate deconstruction, and probably drying by hand, the following morning.
I’ve not quite reached what is deemed ‘middle-aged’ but maybe I’m ahead of my time if I’m discussing the finer practicalities of how best to dry your crockery?
The excessive billowing of steam from the kettle ceases and I pour a coffee, the instant variety that aficionados would turn their noses up at. Sorry Sir, but a proper machine would probably reach a decibel deemed displeasing given the hour at which I’d be using it. If it’s just a recovery run (‘run’ being a somewhat generous term for an activity which won’t even see my heart rate into triple figures) I’ll go with a standard strong black - whatever ‘brand’ variety happened to be on offer the previous week.
If it’s a session however - a long run, intervals, or anything that entails more than a comfortable canter, then I’ll opt for something I affectionately call Rocket Fuel. It may taste and bear the appearance of gravy, but it most certainly appears to be worthy of its title. Whilst there was never a determined specific search, it took years to find a super-strong instant coffee that provided me with a hearty kick but without the anxious jitters - five espressos are all well and good until you think someone is following you. Does it legitimately make any difference? I’m not sure. Have I done any research whatsoever into the influence (or lack) of caffeine on sporting endurance? Absolutely not. Placebo probably, but it appears to do the trick.
Thankfully, the consumption of food isn’t an issue, for no reason other than the considerable period of time it takes me to digest sustenance. Just a few morsels beforehand, be the run thirty minutes or three hours, and there’d be some serious gastronomical distress, so I’d rather just go without.
The coffee hasn’t always been a necessity, it probably still isn’t, but as the years hammering the roads, and the inability to look after myself, have grown greater, a tough ‘session’ requires pretty much as thorough a warm-up as an actual race. I may as well enjoy a drink whilst doing so. I’ll swing my legs back and forth in the name of ‘dynamic stretching’ in some half-arsed facade that I’m getting my weary limbs ’ready’.
This tepid exhibition of mobility is performed stood at the kitchen worktop whilst making my way through my high-brow technological browsing. Just 20 minutes after condemning the smartphone masses from my porcelain pedestal, I find myself sucked into the bottomless cesspit of the online universe. I regularly denounce the younger generation in their need for constant, wall-to-wall amusement but in truth, I’m probably just as bad, to the extent that I appear to have inadvertently succumbed to a specific browsing order.
Email - first my personal account, which is pretty desolate unless I’ve made another unnecessary impulse purchase, the receipt from which will be residing in my inbox. Work email, more out of habit than to believe, as a Primary School teaching assistant, I’m significant enough to be receiving communication throughout the night. That said, the habit has proved beneficial previously, and can be accredited for my earliest ever run - 3.30am, when the Ofsted Inspection siren sounded and we were to be in briefing at 7am.
Facebook. 99% mundane drivel from the same select people, career criminals of contrived content. Susan from the estate is flogging her “sequined evening dress, worn only eleven times, cost £100 new, looking for £98. Next up, Twitter - your one stop, non-stop shop for all covid-related facts, opinions, propaganda and downright nonsense. It’s either a hoax or we’re on the verge of Armageddon. Scientist, Virologist, epidemiologist, or just Susan switching platforms, everyone has a voice and everyone’s an expert.
By now it’s 4.40 and the Rocket Fuel will have infiltrated my bloodstream, the caffeine is great but detours to my colon, like the adolescent classic, Knock-A-Door-Run, hammering on the hatch, “Come on mate, it’s go time”! Second trip to the WC is often a more panicked affair than its predecessor - evacuate at once - bomb doors open!
Instagram - the app downloaded purely as a bog-boredom-buster, and quite possibly the king of Social Media absurdity, some of the sheer fuckwittery and narcissism on there is hilarious on a disturbingly staggering scale. Upon signing up I followed a few running-related accounts, on the naive assumption that they may actually offer some running-related content. Fool. Evidently, running comes under the ‘fitness’ banner, the engagement with which seemingly opens the floodgates to anything or anyone that could even vaguely, minutely, be associated with exercise.
Inconceivably beautiful women, perfectly pruned, salon fresh, gracefully bounding atop a snowy sierra. It’s visually majestic, yet the clip lasts just ten seconds. Wait, why is she wearing a bikini? It’s sodding snowing. It leads one to believe that perhaps that 10 second snippet was recorded 60 times, before she caught hypothermia and put her big coat back on. Funnily enough none of the women running round here look like that. Gutted.
As I begin to overanalyze the legitimacy of her thrilling feat, my attention is diverted by a frenzied waving of hands. “Look, LOOK OVER HERE, Do this one move to SMASH your PB” screams some random whilst executing a motion so moronically preposterous that it eclipses what could previously have been deemed the pinnacle of idiocy. Yet hundreds, thousands of ‘likes’ and a cascade of adoration - “Amazing”, “inspiring”. It’s a physiotherapist's dream ticket. “I’ve decimated my ACL doing a move that MadSpeedSteve82 swears by. It looked so cool in the video”. Scroll further and within seconds we’re ambushed by a walking, talking pharmacy - pumped with so many pills it’s a wonder they don’t rattle as they walk - “GO SMASH IT BRO, THINK OF THE GAINZZZ!”
By now I’m so far immersed in this vast swamp of eternal bullshit that I’m just as bad as the smartphone zombies carelessly stalking the streets I so brazenly condemned just a few paragraphs prior.
It’s 4.55am. Bloody hell.
The time of year and outdoor conditions play a significant bearing on my demeanour as the ‘period or preparation’ plays out. We live in a small village a mile from the inner-ring road, the summer mornings when it’s 10c and light at 4am are of an unrivalled magnificence - desolate country roads stretch for miles around, trails and forest tracks lead in every direction. But when it’s February and hail is battering our conservatory roof to the extent it’s audible through the three timber doors between my privy pew and the -5c elements, my temperament can maybe oscillate a little. I’ve no desire to try and run the same routes in the winter, I don’t own a headtorch, nor do I fancy an encounter with the Blair Witch should I venture into the nearby woods.
Other than doing multiple laps of the village, and thus potentially risking myself a ‘matter of concern’ in the Parish Newsletter, it’s a voyage alongside an A-road of speeding articulated lorries before reaching a network of lit paths and the City Centre. It’s not particularly pleasant, but needs must.
The caffeine has further wove it’s sourcery, often triggering a third passage to the pan. It’s getting wearisome now but the tedium is vastly outweighed by the fear of being caught short in the great outdoors.
It’s 5.15am, how is it 5.15? I’m suddenly engaged in a race against time to leave the house. The GPS sits on the window sill as it seeks a signal. In the warmer months I’ll wear as little as I can get away with within the boundaries of decency, other than a watch and maybe headphones I don’t want to be burdened by carrying anything else. Winter is a different ballgame. The temperature dictates the donning of a number of articles including a hat, buff, gloves and clip-on light, most of which eventually become redundant as my internal furnace warms as the endeavour progresses. I’ll often scrutinize beforehand their need given they may well become hand luggage, but then recall the day my eyebrows froze and pull them on anyway.
The Garmin beeps of its own volition as if nudging me toward the door, ‘Power Save Mode In 30 Seconds’. Piss off. I think I need another piss. I’ll attempt, and fail miserably, to turn the key and edge the door open quietly, the arctic blast engulfing as I step on the porch.
The watch will sound and I’ll set off down the road. It’s usually about 5.20am. Eighty minutes doing absolutely nothing of note, the period bumbling around often exceeding the duration spent actually running. My Half Marathon best is 79:22, which just makes it more ludicrous. Worse still, you’ve been subjected to this report which will have taken the same amount of time to devour as I should have really spent getting ready.
I’ll be the first to acknowledge its unnecessarily excessive, as well to lambast myself for turning such a short, simple task into a drawn-out exercise worthy of a lengthy written account. But in truth, on those mornings I enjoy the solitude, the silence, the sedate, and having suffered numerous desolate setbacks of injury in years past, even if my haphazard routine (well, the parts where I’m actually mobile) reduce the odds of a repeat misfortune even just a tiny fraction, then it’ll all be deemed worthwhile.
Unwarranted, irrational, inordinate, yes, but it’ll be the same tomorrow.
Image courtesy of Laura Clapperton of Clapperton Calligraphy York
Instagram - @Clapperton_Calligraphy_York - Facebook - @ClappertonCalligraphy
