Lemon into Lemonade

I used to be a runner. I even ran the 2006 London Marathon reasonably well. But since 2007, my only running season had been one of three months in 2013. Instead, wishing to preserve my knees and hips, I walked. Through much of this year, my aerobic exercise consisted of late-night walks, my ears filled with pounding music, exulting in the freedom of streets that were deserted at two o'clock in the morning.

But one day in September, I made the mistake of going out too early, when the streets were not quite empty. At 12:45 in the morning I was confronted by a couple, with one shouting at me while the other grabbed both my arms. I felt the desirability of running off at full speed.

That incident, combined with my awareness of my upcoming 65th birthday, started me thinking about running again. I thought, "A nice way of warding off post-OAP depression would be to get myself onto the National V65 5K list”. To do that, I would have to run 5K in under 25 minutes.

On November 3, two months after the unpleasant walking encounter and five days after my 65th birthday, I ran my race. It was the Gravesend Floodlit 5K, two laps of a cyclopark circuit containing several sharp turns. Belying the race name, large parts of this meandering course were in complete darkness. Frantically trying to avoid a fiasco, just before the start I managed to borrow a head torch. This helped me a bit, especially once I picked up a knack of tracking the grass verge that bordered onto the tarmac. The verge represented something to actually see, as opposed to sheer blackness. I gave the race my full commitment and was rewarded with a time of 24:52. But the race produced a more significant benefit; I found it had renewed my love of running.