Champions Are Made In The Winter

As featured in issue 39 of LikeTheWind magazine.

"If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant: if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome". The most prominent of early English poets, one could be forgiven to imagine that Anne Bradstreet was referencing the plight of the long distance runner during the months of darkness.

I’m perched on the bottom step thumbing at my laces, the three layers of attire proving somewhat of an obstacle as I attempt to crook forwards. Only my eyes remain exposed, my skull otherwise entirely obscured by a beanie and buff, soon to be complemented with gloves that wouldn't look out of place on a polar expedition. Wainwright wrote; “there’s no such thing as bad weather, only unsuitable clothing”, which justifies my ensemble - a look I’ve christened “bundled up like a toddler in a Ski resort”. I’ll often scrutinise the necessity for so many articles knowing my internal thermostat may eventually render them hand luggage, then recall the day my eyebrows froze and pull them on anyway.

I stand before the door for a moment before a grimace and brace, preparing for the inevitable, and gently turn the key in the lock. The gale howls and I’m immediately engulfed by an arctic blast as I inhale and shuffle off the porch into the bleak darkness.

It’s 5am in early February and the great British winter is as charming as ever. 

It seems an age since the leaves fell and the tones of chestnut and juniper faded to a blanket of slate and charcoal. The golden light of Autumn now a distant memory, the emotional strife of running throughout the winter far eclipses the actual reality - the physical act is just the same but the cognitive apprehension provokes a perception of fear and hardship of far greater intimidation.

The ice and wind are a formidable foe enough - introduce precipitation into the equation and it appears the stakes climb a notch even further - Mother Nature unleashing another element in her vast arsenal, a declaration of full scale cold-weather psychological warfare on the poor soul just setting out for a jog around the block. Many a time I’ve stood finishing my coffee to the strains of a deluge battering the conservatory roof to the extent it’s audible through the three timber doors between the kitchen and the -5c barrage, causing my temperament to perhaps oscillate a little. Being cold AND wet isn’t a particularly endearing prospect.

We live in a small village a mile from the inner-ring road - the summer mornings of 4am sunrises and 15c temperatures are of an unrivalled magnificence - desolate country roads stretch for miles around - trails and forest tracks drift in every direction. This morning is a somewhat different picture and running those routes in the winter would be perilously precarious. Other than doing multiple laps of the village, and thus risking myself a ‘matter of concern’ in the Parish Newsletter, it’s a voyage alongside an A-road - drenched with surface water in the headwind of speeding articulated lorries just feet away - before reaching a network of lit paths and the City Centre. Summer is over.

With the exception of two weeks of New Year enthusiasts, the intrepid toil often proves a lonely affair, the abundance by comparison of warmer-season pavement inhabitants - the dog-walkers and walk-commuters - fall dramatically in number when the mercury drops. The masses pack up their belongings, batten down the hatches and migrate south for the winter - they have little desire to tackle the horizontal hail, battle the blizzards or struggle to simply stay upright on the ice-sheeted asphalt. 

Yet a hardy few choose to stay behind, and for them the work begins. When every intuition and fibre screams to not abandon the allure of the duvet - the embrace of warm, comforting seduction, they listen to the whisper that beckons them forth into the cold and on to the concrete footways and fog-strewn avenues. 

At a glance you’ll miss them, but look with diligence and you’ll see them under the streetlights, grafting away silently in the shadows - they won’t be spending three months in hibernation. They’ll speak little of their strife, for they know words serve little purpose in their quest against the conditions.

It’s never pretty - elegance and grace are deemed redundant in the winter pursuit of progress, there'll be no postcard landscape to the grind - the industrial estate now as commonly travelled as the sun-strewn fields of summers past. Rudyard Kipling stated that to prosper one must ‘meet with Triumph and Disaster, and treat those two imposters the same’. If the late Spring mornings - with their picturebook skies and dawn birdsong - are triumphant, then the long climb to the vernal equinox could well be perceived as disastrous, yet both demand equal investment of fortitude and resolve if one is to emerge victorious. Anyone can lace up on a blue-sky day, but the clock doesn't stop when it drops below zero. 

When the elements besiege like a beast - the metaphorical snowy sasquatch stalking every sleet-strewn step into the abyss - the winter warrior refuses to yield, summoning their deepest sinew to evade the relentless yeti. Physiologically they’re no different from you and I - they too suffer the anguish of wind chilled cheeks and the inability to operate their watch - frostbitten fingers registering them incapable. It is their mindset in which their strength permeates - the tenacity, pertinacity and downright doggedness - qualities we can each adopt given the necessary motivation. They’re disciples of the ‘Winter miles for summer smiles’ movement, and acknowledge the adage with a solemn nod, for they know its followers will stand by them atop the figurative podium. 

The decision to face the struggle head on, the refusal to surrender to the onslaught, was the spark that gave birth to the fire, their inner furnace feeding the inferno of the desire within, and as each day in the dark passes, their engine room grows stronger, and every sub-zero slog throws gasoline onto the flames. 

They strive in the dark to shine in the sun.

Whilst they know the ultimate prize awaits, the journey often offers smaller rewards along the way - though infrequent and ephemeral, the dark occasionally makes way for a resplendent morning - a dazzling, blinding white eutopia, when the sun climbs above the snow and the frost, a dense fog hanging with remarkable splendour over the landscape. Filling the lungs with hope, the sun shines in anticipation - hinting at the glories to come. It’s a spectacle only those outdoors can hope to witness.

Yet no sooner has optimism dared to present itself, it is once more snatched away -  the cold and darkness prevail and it seems the eternal cycle of darkness will never cease.

In reality, the winter will eventually yield, the cold will relinquish it’s grasp and the spring sun , for which we’ve longed so dearly, will surface on the horizon.

As the commonalty emerge, bleary-eyed from their prolonged repose, they’ll gather together with a collective assumption that there was little alternative to their preceding three months of inaction. Yet hidden in plain sight, reticent, the winter guard goes unnoticed, their day of vindication has arrived as they stand majestically, primed to reap the rewards of persistence and perseverance. 

The masses don’t know yet, but they will very soon. 

For those earnest few, winter presents a period of immense opportunity. So when the sun lives shorter, the gales blow greater and the sky grows darker, each as they infallibly will, one would be wise to heed six words of great wisdom. I can’t lay claim to their conception nor do I know who first coined the phrase, but it remains a proverb upon which many a prosperous athletic endeavour has been built;

Champions are made in the winter.