26.2 Miles to Happiness by Paul Tonkinson

Author:Paul Tonkinson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

14

Early March. You are my hero

As March crested, signalling seven weeks before the big day, the running dial had switched up a notch. For the first time I was actually training properly for a marathon, following a schedule. Every week: one long run, two speed sessions, parkruns at the weekend. On the other days I’d be dipping into Highgate Woods for some good times. I was running six days a week, with total mileage regularly spiking above 40 miles. Interim races that I had put in to prepare for the marathon showed that the work was paying off.

The Watford half marathon returned a time of 01:27:18. A month later, the Bath half marathon was even better. 01:25:02. Both races felt profoundly different to anything I’d recently experienced. Mentally, I was stronger than before. In training I’d been regularly beating down my inner Snoop; pain had been welcomed, revelled in. During races it had become almost nourishing. I’d seek it out, feasting on it. It was a new feeling – on the verge of anger, but fun too, attractive in its way. It was like mining an inner bubble of furious joy. I’d connected running to my ego again; I was competing, but from a more centred place.

Short fast steps had become my motto. I’d been YouTubing Alberto Cova, an old hero of mine. Cova was an Italian long-distance runner of the mid ’80s, an Olympic and World Champion over 5000 and 10,000 metres. As a teenager I’d connected with his daring sprint finishes, his modest demeanour, his light, quick steps. Thirty years later, I channelled Cova on the streets of Bath, albeit a more portly, middle-aged version. Regardless, I felt real progress.

After races, I’d relax in that gorgeous post-race glow, like the chill-out zone after raves but way healthier. I’d open up, babbling away to fellow runners freely without a care. I felt open to all, as if a film that separated me from the world had been removed; a truth had been established and settled on.

Bodily changes manifested themselves. The bathroom scales, like my belt buckles, spoke a wondrous message. Ridges on my legs appeared, which I hadn’t felt before. There is an undeniable vanity to running fitness. For me, it’s mostly in the legs: I love a sculptured set of oaky pins, they don’t have to be mine. Just the sight gives me great pleasure. My mind was clearer; it sounds stupid, but the lightness in my body rippled through me. I felt almost reptilian, like my senses were more acute.

While at rest, I began to glimpse the deep attraction of running and what it gives us. I share these thoughts in the spirit of generosity – and give them in the knowledge that really, I know nothing.

(Strap yourselves in.)

In short, as well as fitness and all the obvious physical stuff – the endorphins, weight loss, lustrous hair, clear complexion and legs of a stallion – it strikes me that running offers up something very simple and also very seductive: a certain sense of control.

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