The Walker With Heart

I've said before that I'm a lucky sod, I've met many of my heroes, that strange mix of people who inspire me and keep inspiring me. And so on the way back from a weekend in Scotland we took a detour, rather than head straight to Liverpool we went down the the east coast to see one of these heroes of mine. Kieran is a try-er, he doesn't stop trying... I remember walking with him up Mam Tor, him in not a good way, his heart not in the best of conditions.  His humour and sense of wonder of being in the outdoors was infectious.  He fell asleep in his pint, but a legend was born.  The next day he pulled on his boots and walked again. That was a while ago and since then he's been given one hell of a gift, he's had a heart transplant and is trying again to do what he can to say thank you for that gift.  He's run the London Marathon, twice, and jumped out of a plane.  All of which have raised cash... But he's had a dream, for as long as I've known him ...

This is not a blog which will head of into new age clap trap, nor is it one that will say that all change come from within.  This is one of those blogs inspired by a conversation with a younger person with a dicky ticker, and yes they're happy with me to post it... Its a conversation that we've had over a couple of years. It starts with a simple statement - I am a dinosaur. My surgery was in the first 300 of its type at Great Ormond Street. It was done 41 years ago - the machinery used to keep me alive during that surgery is quite literally in a museum. If you walk into the Science Museum in London, walk into the gallery of scientific progress, (its a right turn after the entrance), you'll get to a big hall and on the right there's a heart bypass machine from the late 60's... It looks like a piece of industrial kitchen equipment.  Nothing is digital, nothing seems to be automated.  In short it looks crude. That's because it was.  That's not a critici...

There's many ways to start a training campaign... There's plenty of advice on how to start... There's the apps that will take you from couch to 5k. Or you can end up not running for the best part of two months, and not running consistently for six and decide to kick things off with a trail half marathon. THIS IS NOT A RECOMMENDED COURSE OF ACTION!!!! There are is a mild arrogance amongst a few of my friends, and indeed myself, who know deep down that on the day, with a medal at end, that we can strap on the shoes and churn it out.  We've lost count of the runs we've done of the years.  Our medal collection has reached the point where we only keep the ones that mean something; the ultras, the marathons, the firsts and ones that just caught on our souls. These runs with nothing behind them aren't, normally, the miracle runs you read about in the magazines - the ones where someone whose never run before runs an 80 minute half marathon.  These are long, slow...

I've said before that I'm a medal whore... show me something shiny and I'm there... Not for me the Gold, Silver or Bronze of the Paralympics, or Olympics, but something more tangible. Headstones (from beating the reaper), Rudolph's from Santa Dashes, representations of Mad Dogs, Countries, Romulan WarBirds, drum kits, the Liver Buildings and not forgetting Sefton Park and Scousers! In piles, its shows five x 5ks, one 8kish, six x 10k, two x Half Marathons and one Marathon... And then the bonus medals - two guitars with spinning plectrums, a juke box, a pair of headphones and a giant globe (if you too like medals check out Rock and Roll runs - always well organised and bonus medals galore for the dedicated whore). The medals are tangible, solid memories of the firsts - first fancy dress race, first overseas race, first virtual run, and my first 10k under an hour.  They clank as a reminder of what I have done and hint at what I will do in 2017. Something's are...

I’m not a runner who runs everyday or every week, I move in and out of desiring the feeling that running gives me… That desire can be generated, when I am facing a run or a distance that genuinely scares me – a marathon will do that. Or it comes back naturally, softly insinuating itself in the back of my head.  I catch myself wondering how to take my kit on a work trip, wondering where my Garmin is and whether its charged.  I start thinking about what I’m eating, not changing much, but just thinking… It must be infuriating to watch, as I seemingly go into running hibernation, still turning out for runs and not doing horrendously – nowhere as good as I should be, nowhere as good as I had been six months earlier. Which brings me to my first race of 2017 – an mixed terrain half marathon along the Wirral Way – I printed the plan, and I followed it for a week and then I didn’t.  The desire wasn’t there… So plan B is going to kick in, I know I can run halfs with little o...

Elite athletes have a concept known as periodisation - they organise their training around key events; there's the four year cycle of the Olympics, the Worlds, the Diamond League and so and so forth... They will plan their lives, marriages, children around these cycles. I'm not an elite athlete, I'm not genetically predisposed to that, nor do I have the single minded determination to make that. What I am is someone who can train hard for a focused period of time, push myself in that time slot and then get distracted afterwards and do other stuff... So, after the Dublin Rock and Roll Half, and if I'm honest with myself since the Liverpool Rock and Roll Marathon I've been closer to competing in an eating competition than bothering any of my PBs, the desire to get out there and run has been minimal and the weight has come back - I'm back to my pre-marathon training weight and feel it (uncomfortably in some trousers). But I've not been inactive -  I cycl...

Running in foreign lands holds a mystique, and for this dicky ticker runner a few problems – across continental Europe some race organisers ask for ECGs, others for positive approval from medics for undertaking an event. Whilst I’m sure I could get a copy of my ECG, I’m not sure it would help much – let's face it there’s plenty of general cardiologists who wouldn’t get my ECG and what it meant, let along alone if it's was flaky.  The positive approval thing is an interesting one, I’m encouraged to exercise – indeed welcomed as a shining light (on the exercise if not the volumes of food I consume, but as I’ve often said I’m no saint and definitely no angel).  However, in an increasingly litigatoius age would any cardiologist risk saying I’m positively fine to pound the streets for a number of hours??? Which made the choice of international run easy – I needed somewhere that didn’t ask for ECGs, and a run organiser I trusted to have the right support in place.  Roll u...