On Wednesday evening, I went to the running track. It was 21 degrees at 7pm and the infield was split in two by the August sun. For the first 200 metres we ran in the light, and then dipped into shadow on the curve before the final straight.
A group of fast kids were finishing their training before our session. One at a time, they sprinted past, upright and strong. Impossible leg action.
In our warm-up, I held the image of those kids in my mind while my body was transported back to school PE humiliation. Lining up in lanes, we tried our best to do high knees and squats and skipping, ignoring adult aches and pains.
Running around the track, with the wind in my hair, I felt better. I stopped caring how I looked from the outside. We ran a five minute tempo section and then began the intervals: 2 minutes effort, 1 minute break; 1 minute effort, 30 seconds break. Six times.
I was daunted at first. At the beginning and end of each effort I could only think about the ones stretching ahead in who knows how many loops. But after a couple, I lost count of the reps behind or ahead. I just held on to whether this was a 2 or a 1 minute effort.
When Kirsten blew the whistle I walked – no shame in it. I used to try to “float” between reps because I thought that’s what athletes did. I’m over that now. Not that it was a choice this week – I needed to walk to recover.
I entered a kind of trance. Circling and re-circling, passing and being passed. Light, shade and light again.
Towards the end, I found myself counting in my head to get through the reps. I sometimes count in races, or at the end of a run when I want to give up but I have one last section to get through. I count slowly – one count every two seconds – and it works. It uses up the time. It gets me through it.
Lately, I’ve been catching myself counting at other times. On a car journey. In a meeting. On a run when I’m just trying to enjoy it. I want to stop doing this.
There’s a short post in my ‘drafts’ from June 2023 that I kept because I liked the title. It says:
‘I went to the track this week. The last time I did a track session was four years ago. Saw the kids running. I could feel the magic but it wasn’t my magic. I could see it, and feel its shape, but I knew it wasn’t mine. I would never get caught up in it. As I left, I joked “see you again in four years’ time”.’
It only took me three years.
The post was called Borrowed Magic.
Not a Jogger 