On running

All the world's a race

Adventures in running 2019 - 2022

James Harris is running to raise money for Melanoma Focus.

I recently ran a 10k and there was a large man ahead of me, plodding along in a grey T-shirt and tracksuit bottoms. He’s not going very fast, I thought, indeed seems to be struggling, before my mind pointed out that I was behind him.

I’ve been running seriously since 2019. I did my first 5k in February 2019, followed by, at time of writing, seven 10ks, one ten miler and three half-marathons. And, as for Parkrun, well, I’m by now entitled to one of their 25+ T-shirts, though I am saving up for the 50, which comes in a rather more fetching red.

I’m not sure how I started, or rather restarted; I’d run a bit at school and finished 7th out of 15 in the 1500m in Year 10. It was creditable enough to stave off any bullying about the matter; ‘Not bad’, said Carl in my class, F. A couple of times around then my Dad took me out with a stopwatch to time my running around the block, in the hope of finally finding athletic ability in me.

Through my 20s and early 30s my main thing was playing football badly, but I found as my 30s wound on that wasn’t really helping my body as much as temporarily disabling it. Conscious that I’d be 40 soon, I bought some £25 shoes from JD Sports and began shuffling round southeast London.

In the early days I’d experience stiffness and pain afterwards, as well as a raw and consuming hunger which, when met, saw any food taste sensational. Both the stiffness and the hunger have declined over time. My body has changed too; my legs are now muscular and strong, and I note how quickly I can catch my breath back these days. My benefits have all been in recovery, strength and stamina. What hasn’t changed is my speed – that has only deteriorated, and the slow first half-marathon I ran remains my fastest.

I can cope with most aspects of slowing down, though moments when I’m overtaken by dogs and perambulators at the local Parkrun retain a bitter touch. Their appearance next to me is usually a sign I’m sliding back into a mediocre time. Equally I am regularly beaten by young children. Indeed, the demographics at my Parkrun, a communal Saturday morning 5k, are overwhelmingly younger; I often catch the age of my fellow middle-aged hombres, silver-haired foxes, before the run. We know. We know that we’re busting a gut in the way the whippersnappers will never understand; in a way, our race is against, or even for, each other.

For a while this year I was genuinely speeding up. I had a month where I set three personal bests, getting down to 26.03 for a 5k. I’ve formed a personal ambition to run one under 25 minutes. But it’s brutal – a few weeks off and I’m back down in the low 28s. And despite all this mileage and my powerful lower half I retain a small pot belly, lending me the physique of a beanbag on cabers; I lack the will to refuse the dietary indulgences which I feel my runs earn. It’s tough to sell me getting up at 7AM on cold Saturday in December if I’m not even getting a bacon sandwich out of it afterwards.

Having said that, both my personal bests were set with mild hangovers, so maybe indulgence and speed are not completely incompatible; you can go very fast when you can’t feel your legs.

I don’t listen to music when I run – I like to be in the moment fully, although that does often entail heightened sensitivity to every twinge. Mind you, music comes into my head unprompted sometimes; I was running at Clapham Common recently when the overture to Wagner’s ‘Tannhauser’ swelled up in my head, and I felt my feet were borne aloft by it somehow. Towards the end I was more running to an internal soundtrack of Pretty Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, but the memory of that sublime moment remains.

The main thing is I still generally run without pain. Sure, I have certainly learnt the virtues of a good stretch beforehand, and there have been difficult passages on runs, but I consider myself lucky to, at the age of 40, still be going along as well as I am. But I notice that even a week off now soon translates to a shocking time; I am, to pardon the pun, running just to stand still.

In such moments I remind myself that I used to not be able to do this at all.

For anyone interested in running my one tip is that if, barring in the very depths of winter, you are debating whether to wear an item of clothing, leave it behind. In all conditions and all weathers you tend to heat up. This applies especially to hats. In addition, if you are running a big race and want to use the toilet first, get there an hour before.

Anyway, I don’t anticipate my decrease in velocity abating, so I’ve decided now’s the time to do a marathon. I’m going to do it to raise money for melanoma charities – you can read all about it here – in honour of a lovely friend of mine who died of the disease. I’ll be running for her, of course, though I suspect the height of my personal ambitions will end up being to finish.

And yes, I am asking you, yes you dear reader, for donations - if you can contribute, the page will be running until May. And really no donation is too small.

I overtook the man in the grey bottoms at the end. Maybe he never even knew we were in a race – that it had spontaneously emerged over the course of a run that we were well-matched in pace and speed. For those minutes we were connected and that is, time and time again, the insight, or rather I should say the feeling, that running has given me; that I am in some way connected to all the people I run with. And the people cheering us on too. When you are running a long race, you start running to the crowd.

It’s been remarked that running slows down time, and it does, it makes you present and connected to your environment and what you’re doing in the way other activities fall short of; it is, and the pain of it helps here, immersion as much as diversion.

But even more it gives you a sense of connection to those who you’re moving through time and space with. Metaphor and practice align; together you are making your way through your race.