The Running Man

As of today I still can’t swim. Despite well meaning people telling me that once I get into the water I'll be fine and I’ll just float I have to point out that I have carried out some research and discovered that, on average, 427 people drown in the UK every year and that 95% of all people who drowned whilst swimming were male.

This worrying information comes from the good people at the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents who also warn the public against alcohol, bravado, carelessness and recklessness. Funnily enough all four of those were reasons I ended up in The Burghley Arms on Friday night, but that’s another story.

Then there’s non-fatal drownings which I didn’t even know existed but that can lead to memory problems and the loss of basic functioning. Now that reminds me of Saturday morning. I blame the ‘Dr Pepper Bombs’ myself, which strangely don’t contain Dr Pepper but do contain Lager and Disaronno.

So the application form for adult swimming lessons has gone nowhere for now, but I promise I’ll pull my finger out at the weekend and drop it off at the pool. Lessons are due to start in April so I don’t want to miss the bus, unless of course that bus is careering off a bridge and into a ravine full of crocodiles.

Despite this fail on the swimming front, on Sunday I took the first steps towards the non-water related New Years resolution. I put my trainers on and started to run. If you believe the hype, man (and woman) is built to run, we just stop doing it when we get older.

These words of wisdom were firmly at the front of my mind as I headed off down the road and surprisingly I felt good. I built up to a reasonable pace, the wind was flowing through what’s left of my hair and I was jogging along nicely.

Marathon runners will tell you about ‘hitting the wall’ after about 20 miles. I hit the wall approximately 1 minute and 8 seconds into my turn around the block. Seriously, I nearly vomited blood from my ears it was such a shock to the system.

Undeterred I got back on the proverbial horse and carried on walking and before I knew it I jogged a little more and walked a bit and jogged a bit and….well, I’m no Haile Gebrselassie just yet but then who is? Apart from Haile Gebrselassie of course. OK, so I had to Google ‘famous marathon runners’ but maybe one day my name will be on that list. In fact I might go and add my name on to Wikipedia now and see if anyone notices.

What I’m saying is I am on course for October and the little 5k race in Peterborough which at the moment feels like it may as well be a marathon. I went out again yesterday and I don’t feel too bad for it, apart from the fact my legs feel as if they’ve been hit with tiny hammers, probably by leprechauns.

I even have a tricky route that I run. I don’t mean that it’s uphill or anything but it goes past both a pub and a chippy. Mind you I did note on my way past that the pub was selling Woodforde’s Wherry as a guest ale, and some of the regulars were wearing leisure wear so I would have blended in just fine but I resisted and made a mental note to pop back at some point when I wasn’t sweating out all the fluid from my body through my face.

I’m not the only one who has entered the world of athletics, the present Mrs Hayward is also on the run, so to speak. She’s been out twice as well but we don’t go together, we’d just get competitive and try to out-run each other which would only lead to one or both of us collapsing on the side of the road possibly whilst coughing up a lung. We’re going out separately, at our own pace, and that works well for now, mostly as it means that one of us cooks tea whilst the other one is pounding the streets.

So the Haywards are staggering into the world of physical fitness. By the summer I will be slim, toned and energetic. Either that or I will have just had my second stroke. No really, I’m not getting any younger. That would just be weird.

Mind you all this exercise makes a man thirsty, and the pub is only a couple of minutes walk away. In the words of Homer Simpson, “Mmmm……beer”.