As we creep out of the darkness that winter has held us in for the last 4 months or so, I’m finding myself casting my mind back a year. I don’t want to. I’d told myself I needed to move on. And yet, here we are, reliving many of the negatives of a year ago and I’m not entirely sure why.
This time last year, I was 4 months into my recovery after heart surgery to fit a pacemaker. I was suffering physically and mentally. However, while physically I was slowly getting better and might even have started running again, mentally I was struggling.
I would continue to struggle for a while longer too.
This time last year though, I could at least feel like the end of being so poorly and frankly useless, was in sight. Every day I’d go for a walk and since starting this in the November of the previous year, I’d gradually been able to go out for longer. So, a year ago I was managing to take myself out for a walk for a good hour, some days more if the weather was brighter and warmer. I’d just wander, but mainly I had two routes. Either I’d walk slowly up to one of our local parks and take in the sights there, or I’d head out a bit further across some farmland and along a public footpath, past horses and cattle and down towards a golf club before realising I was way too tired and ambling home.
As the days got warmer and lighter I started noticing more. Leaves appearing on trees, buds of life on shrubs and flowers and as soppy as it might sound, it gave me a bit of hope.
A year on and it’s funny how things change. I’ve been back at work and back to the usual routine since around March 2023 and I don’t feel like I’ve settled at all. I still feel my pacemaker every day. It’s just there; a slightly heavier presence in my chest than normal. Day by day, it just sits there and whenever there’s even the slightest palpitation or flutter, it just kicks in and works. Sometimes, for no apparent reason it makes the area around it ache and can be more than just a little bit uncomfortable. Recently I’ve had a sharp pain around the place on my chest where the wires come out of the top of the pacemaker. I don’t think it’s anything to worry about, but I’d rather it wasn’t there as well.
Being back to ‘normal’ has been strange, mainly because deep down I don’t feel like I am really back to normal. Most things are a bit more of a strain than I remember. I’m much more tired, much more easily, which in turn means that I have to really try hard not to be grumpy at everyone and everything! And I am really trying.
In September, when the new academic year started, I made it my goal to just try and be relentlessly positive. I praised classes for the slightest thing, spent a chunk of down time every day adding positive points to our monitoring system so that kids could see I appreciated them, kept smiling and was as energetic as I could be in class and even in meetings, which was a major struggle for me!
I felt that the positivity had slipped around Christmas time. I was counting down the hours of the day, the days of the week and just clinging on for the weekends when I could relax and just get out more and have time to think.
Since January I’ve tried to get back on that positive horse and I think I’ve done ok, but if I’m honest I’m still just clinging on. But then clinging on is not losing my grip, so maybe I should be grateful. I find that I’m looking back a lot. For one, I wish I’d admitted to being poorly about 6 months before I did! Whether much would have changed, I’ll never know. I’m also thinking back to those early spring walks and noticing the colour returning to the world. Oddly, despite feeling so lost at that particular time, I really miss it.
I remember speaking to a friend when I first had my operation last year. He’d previously had heart surgery too and he told me that feeling like myself again was going to be a long process. Turns out he was right!
So, while the buds appear on the shrubs in the park and trees begin to go green once more, I’m looking back when I really need to look forward. Maybe I should take spring as my inspiration. Clearly, some kind of changes are needed.
Today, my body hurts almost more than ever. There’s a dull ache almost everywhere, except for my pacemaker scarring and the area around it. That’s really very sore and it feels like almost every movement on my left side makes me wince.
It’s all OK though, because that dull ache, the fatigue I feel and the way my brain seems to be telling my eyes to just close is just the result of another turning point in my recovery. I’ll explain later on why I feel so rough.
It’s been just over 7 months since my surgery and while there have been setbacks that have brought me crashing back down to Earth, there have been some notable turning points that have told me that everything is going in the right direction. A lot of negatives, but enough positives to keep me going.
The first one was actually getting out of hospital. Whatever the reason for being in hospital, I think you automatically feel a little bit better when you’re back at home. The familiarity of it all, the good will and love of family and friends will give you a certain air of contentment, however your body feels.
It took me a couple of days before I felt strong enough to go out for a walk and we only went a very short way, but the sense of achievement was more than enough to make it feel like a big turning point. I wasn’t just lying in bed, feeling sorry for myself; I was trying to recover, trying to get stronger and fitter and I knew that this was exactly what I had to do for every day that I was at home and away from work. From day one I was determined to get well.
My next turning point was accepting that what had happened – having to have a pacemaker fitted – was quite a big deal. However, despite the fact that I was struggling to feel remotely alive, I was sure that the operation was just routine and that it was more my age that was holding me back. A few people had to sit me down and have a bit of a word before I was able to take in exactly how serious things had been. Coming to terms with it all has been a huge factor in beginning to feel anywhere near my old self again.
Heading back to work after 4 months off was part of this. All of my friends and colleagues were very kind, checking up on me, letting me know that I’d been missed and that it was great to see me back. I didn’t believe any of them when they told me that I looked well, but that’s another story! However, getting back into the routine of work and seeing that I could still do everything that was necessary to be a high school teacher was a definite turning point and something that helped pick my confidence up from the basement level where it had been previously residing for 4 months!
The first major turning point in recovery was visiting friends in Toronto in April. I can’t pinpoint exactly why, but suddenly I felt a lot better about everything. It was of course wonderful to see our friends – Andy and Kim and their kids, Hannah Mae and Benji – but still I can’t say exactly what made me feel so much better. Perhaps it was simply seeing such brilliant people again? Perhaps, the knowledge that I was capable of heading to the other side of the world and being on the go all day, every day? Or perhaps it was just the freedom of it all and the fact that I enjoyed everything so much? After all, they say that laughter is good for the soul, don’t they? Whatever it was, my body felt lighter when I returned and my mood had very definitely changed.
Running again has definitely helped me turn a corner. I ran a 10k race in May – my first in almost 8 months – and it proved to me that my body was capable of more than I’d dared to imagine. Even going out on short runs had been a boost. However, the biggest turning point so far came on Sunday just gone and it’s the aforementioned reason why my body aches so much this week.
On Sunday 18th June, I ran the Leeds 10k and proved a lot of things to myself. It told me that my body is inching towards being better, fitter and stronger, although I’m already aware that it’s going to be possibly another 6 months before I reach the kind of condition that I’d been in before my surgery.
I won’t bore you with the minutiae of the race, but I can tell you that it felt like I did well. ‘Well’ that is, in the context of being a 51-year-old man just over 7 months out from heart surgery! This was only my second 10k run since October last year, but my best time since then too. Strava keeps reminding me that I was averaging around 52 minutes for the distance last year, but my one previous effort this year had been completed in a fraction under an hour. So, to achieve a time of 56.54 on Sunday felt like winning the lottery.
For weeks I’ve felt down about the times I’ve been posting when out on runs. I’ve had numerous setbacks and had to rest for weeks too, which has made me feel really low. So completing the course in 56 minutes felt good! A friend has repeatedly told me that times don’t matter, but being as stubborn as I am, I just haven’t been able to ignore that clock!
There was also the fact of how my body felt on the run itself. Apart from one short lived, but very tired spell in the final kilometre, I felt very good (again, in the context outlined earlier!). I felt light and strong, which I’ve not felt all year. Runs have felt like I’m heavy and plodding, dragging myself around my routes. It’s felt like no fun at all and and yet on Sunday it was an absolute joy to be out on the roads and not feel the energy drain from my body at any point. I kept telling myself to relax, reminding myself when to lengthen my stride and when to shorten it for uphill stretches. Most of all though, I kept reminding myself to just keep going! I hadn’t managed a full 10k in training and so that made me slightly nervous, although I knew deep down that I wouldn’t stop until I crossed that line! But for almost the whole 10k, I felt completely in control.
Without doubt, this was a massive turning point in my recovery so far. Without sounding too dramatic, but while also trying to simply tell the truth, it was one of only a handful of times in the last 7 months when it’s felt truly wonderful to be alive. The payback has been how badly my body has taken it! My efforts have really worn me out and for the first couple of days afterwards, it was tough just to get through the day. However, I’m confident that will pass. Anyone’s body needs to recover after being pushed to its limits and I know only too well that my body is no different.
It’s been a good last few days and a nice reminder that I am getting better. Now, the hope is just that I can keep on moving forward and not be forced to take too many backward steps any more. My next 10k race is in October and I genuinely can’t wait!
Every once in a while I’ve written an update of what I called my ‘Pacemaker Diary’ over the last few months. It’s mainly because it’s a good way for me to have a bit of a moan, but it also fills people in on how things are going and means that there might just be a few less people that I have to lie to and fob off by telling them I’m ‘getting there’. I mean, if I had a pound for every time I’d said that since November, I’d be a millionaire. I’d also be very annoyed at myself for not discovering this get rich quick scheme a lot earlier.
I thought I’d update simply because a lot of them so far have been about progress, however small that’s been. But lately, my progress has slowed to a crawl again. Maybe writing about it might help me find the motivation that’s needed to keep moving on. Or maybe it’ll help me to ‘frame myself’ as some would say in our part of Yorkshire.
It’s been a shock that such a small thing could derail me so much. But initially it was a slight cold that slowed me right down. It was a couple of weeks ago that I was aware that I was slowing down again. I couldn’t go upstairs without feeling out of breath and had a hint of a cough. So it wasn’t a heavy cold, but it was having an effect on me.
At the same time I’d stepped up the hours of teaching on my phased return to work, taking on an additional class and four extra hours of teaching a week. That weekend the football team that I coach had its game cancelled, leaving me with a free Sunday. Rather than rest, I decided to go for a run in the early morning sunshine. Boy, would I regret that.
I hadn’t even ran a mile and I was struggling. But, I kept on going. Not long after though, a little voice in my head was telling me that I couldn’t do this. It was a voice that dominated me when I was younger, but one that I really hadn’t heard in years. Still, I kept on until faced with a long hill to run up, I decided on a compromise. With my body aching and struggling to breath steadily I re-routed, doubled back and avoided the hill, settling for running a 5k (3.1 miles) rather than the 4 miles I’d been aiming for. It was slow and ragged, but worst of all, I didn’t enjoy even one step of it.
I only just made it. My legs felt like they were falling forward independently of the rest of my body and I was wheezing heavily. I was alarmed by just how I terrible I felt. I took a photo of myself when I’d finished and it horrified me when I looked at it later. I looked haggered and old. Everything hurt and it left me feeling very down. My body continued to ache well into the next week.
On the Monday at work, my Year 7 form were added to the mix on my timetable and even on the first day of that happening I was struggling. I’d had a poor weekend, not really sleeping and struggling to shift the tiny bit of cold that I’d picked up. On the very first day of the week I put in a request to have my last lesson of the day covered in order to head home early. Work, as ever during this whole nightmare, were kind and obliging. A great start to the week though and enough to show me that getting back to a full teaching timetable might have to be a way off yet.
I’m also struggling with a back problem that had first hit me in February. I’d bent down to pick up my son’s football boots and been hit by nausea inducing levels of pain as my back froze. I’ve struggled with my back for many years, so I though it would pass within a week or so, but it hasn’t. Instead, even as I write, I can feel pain in my hips and hamstrings. The pain has moved down my body and in way, I feel more fragile than ever. Nothing to do with my heart – for once – but enough to begin to get me down.
The next weekend brought even more problems and no run, making me feel like any recovery had very much ground to a halt. I seemed to have picked up some sort of bug and felt dizzy and sick the whole time.
My heart continues to just plod along nicely, kept in check by the little machine that sits just underneath my left collarbone. The scarring hurts still, but that feels like the least of my worries.
The most frustrating thing of all is that my heart feels fine. However, having hidden the problem for around 6 months last year and then had to take so long off work after my operation, my body might just be a little bit broken. Clearly working for so long with the problem has really cost me. Clearer still, spending four months at home, only managing a daily walk while being otherwise inactive doesn’t keep your fitness at the levels you might need, however much you might kid yourself.
I’m quickly learning that my body is going to take much, much longer than I thought to heal. It feels like the slightest little problem, like a cold or a stomach bug, is going to have a huge effect, setting me back if not to square one, then square 3 or 4 at best. Impatient as I am, I wanted to be just stepping off square 25 by this point. As a result, I’m angry and sad and I really don’t like feeling that way.
I’m hopeful that the coming weeks will go better for me. I’ve rested and not gone out for a run for over a week, but I hope that I’ll feel ready enough soon to get going once again. I’ve entered a 10k race in May and am desperate to take part. It’ll really hurt if I’m not able to do it.
A couple of weeks ago I posted a poetry blog and a bit of an angry rant of a poem called ‘Simple as that’. That one was a poem about the troubles I’ve had with my heart in the last few months. Well, apologies because I’m writing about the same thing again. I suppose this is inevitable as my health dominates every day at the moment, but I’m sorry if this seems like I’m raking over old ground. You can take it from me though, there’s a lot to talk about on this subject!
This poem is, in a way, the partner poem to ‘Simple as that.’ Where that one was pretty much furious in tone, this one could maybe be viewed as me feeling just sick and tired of it all. It’s one written when I wasn’t sleeping so well, so probably written around 2am one Winter morning and I would have felt like just giving up.
Anyway, have a read.
Reach
You're not quite in any kind of hell,
and while you're very definitely moving forward
it's sometimes hard to tell,
like trying out the treadmill in diver's boots,
a head full of questions, but no answers
and of other people's made up thoughts and opinions
as the paranoia kicks in and leaves its mark
alongside all of the other scarring.
Suddenly mortality is on the agenda
and you sleepwalk your way through hours, days,
contemplating just how long you might have left.
Every stretch, every reach, every twist is some kind of pain,
the opportunity to hold someone who matter has gone,
replaced by something tentative, mechanical.
Some days are more positive, so you lose yourself in song,
contemplate enjoying things again
and force yourself not to think that you're just glad to be alive,
because that particular platitude feels like nothing more than consolation.
Every piece of good news and every milestone is blighted by doubt.
One day things will be normal again,
your smile not forced, the back of your mind not crowded with clouds.
For now, moving on is just out of reach.
At the time of writing this poem it just felt like I was never getting better. Yes, I’d be able to do a little bit more every day, walk a little further, maybe even do some dishes, but I found it very frustrating. I’d gone from being very fit and capable – for my age – to being very slow and poorly and old! I really didn’t enjoy this at all!
I’d been told not to raise my left arm above my head for at least a week, for fear of dislodging my pacemaker wires, and that this was a process that would be difficult and uncomfortable for 6-8 weeks. Six to eight weeks of having pain when you lift an arm up! It meant that shaving, washing, washing my hair etc were difficult to say the least and I needed help getting in and out of my clothes. I mention mortality in the poem; not because I thought I might be nearing my end though. It was just that I used to be out on my daily walk, knowing that when I got home the day would be more or less at its end as I wouldn’t be able to do a lot more. It felt like I was wasting time and I began to think about that in terms of having already probably lived half of my life. It was just about what I’d be able to fit into what was left, I suppose.
Things have got better. I’m nowhere near where I want to be but know that it’s going to about steady progress with the odd stumbling block. I hope you liked the poem.
The idea for this blog came from a tweet that I liked a few weeks ago. It popped up on my timeline just because someone I follow had liked it and I usually scroll straight past most of these ones. However, there was a picture of a man wrapped up, wearing a hat, out in the woods by the looks of things and it made me think of myself doing similar, day after day for these last few months.
The tweet read, ‘Healing is not as simple as ‘rest’. It’s exercising, rehab, falling down, fearing and going deep into the pain and fighting your way back.’
In a strange way, the tweet made my day. Since having my pacemaker fitted and spending months off work, I’ve gone through all manner of stuff, but have lost count of how many times I’ve felt the need to brush it off and tell anyone who’s asked that I’m ‘slowly getting there’.
Over 3 months on from my operation and I thought I’d try to explain my own personal experience of recovery. I haven’t fully recovered and I think feeling that way is actually a long way off, but I think I’ve managed to get myself into a position where I feel a great deal stronger, fitter and more confident about my heart. So, before I start to forget the things I’ve been through, I thought I’d get some of it down.
I didn’t think I’d done a lot of resting, until my family told me otherwise. I was talking about the fact that I thought I hadn’t really got many naps in during my time at home and it brought about a few smiles from those around me. Apparently, the truth is more that I was napping pretty much every day for the first three weeks of being out of hospital. And while in hospital I just felt like I lurched from nap to nap, even pretending to be asleep on a regular basis so that the bloke opposite wouldn’t talk to me!
So in fact, I’ve been so exhausted during my recovery that I can’t even remember how it’s been a lot of the time. The first few weeks are a blur. I know that they featured a lot of pyjama action, a lot of irritability on my part and, so I’m told, a lot of napping. I’m told that there were times where I’d just fall asleep mid conversation, which sounds a lot of fun. I also remember feeling very frightened by it all, worried that one wrong move would pull the pacemaker wires out of place meaning that I’d have to go back into hospital.
When my first sick note ran out – after a week – I had a telephone appointment with my doctor. This made me realise how poorly I was. We spoke for a good while and I felt like I was having to fend him off at times, as he alluded to me going back to hospital. Then, when he settled for just issuing another sick note, he instantly doubled the time that I’d asked for. This was good, in that it settled me down a bit while also making me think that I could find lots of things to do with all of that time. It became bad pretty quickly when I realised that I wasn’t strong enough to even sit and read for over long, before I was nodding off! It quickly felt like it would be a very long month.
There have been quite a few unusual times since then. While recovering, I seemed to develop a bit of a stutter and at times simply couldn’t get the words out. Furthermore, I’d find myself talking about something one minute, then unable to remember a word or where the conversation was going next. And people would tell me about things I’d said and done, but I literally couldn’t remember a single bit of it. And – as per the quote that inspired this – there’s also been a bit of falling down. It’s amazing how many times I’ve taken a tumble when just trying to tie my laces, but that left hand side of mine just wouldn’t work for a good few weeks!
The healing or recovery process has been one of the most frustrating times of my life. I joke about tying my laces, but there were plenty of times in the first couple of weeks where someone had to tie them for me. My wife had to help me get dressed, as well as undressed, including doing things like zipping up my coat and putting a hat on my head if we went for a walk! I hated it, but it’s definitely the kind of thing that keeps you grounded, in terms of how you think your recovery’s going! I found that lack of independence incredibly frustrating and it was something that I struggled to deal with as normally, if something needs done, I just do it myself. Then suddenly you’re in a place where you’re not allowed to even get a glass of water and someone’s started doing your jobs around the house. Awful!
A combination of beta blockers and lack of sleep (I think brought on by taking beta blockers) made me feel like I wasn’t recovering at all. Every day, I’d just feel like I’d taken another hit and was back to square one, which was kind of demoralising. I’d be out on a walk, feeling like I was definitely getting stronger, watching my heart beat not quite hit what it had the day before at the top of a hill and being able to walk just a little bit further and yet I still couldn’t sleep, still couldn’t remember things, still couldn’t hold a conversation without telling someone to forget it because I couldn’t remember what I was going to say!
I struggled to sleep for well over a month. It’s still hit and miss now, but when it was night after night after night, it felt like it might never go back to normal and that being awake until 3am might well be how it was now. As well as leaving me exhausted, it also had me worried that I wouldn’t be able to hold down a job. Because of this, for a good while it felt like my life was about to encounter an even bigger change and it was a fear that didn’t sit well at all with me.
By far the most difficult part of the whole healing process has been the mental side of things. I’ve always felt that I was mentally very strong, but for the last few months I’ve been filled with a kind of fear and doubt that I don’t think I’ve ever experienced before. I suppose it’s kind of a given that I feared I might die, particularly in the early stages when I didn’t fully understand what was going on and then again when I stopped taking beta blockers. I felt that they were absolutely crucial to keeping me safe and so although I was pleased to come off them, as I was assured that they were adding a lot to my fatigue, I was nervous about what could happen when they were taken away.
It’s been difficult adjusting mentally to not being at work. Alongside that though, has been a bit of fear about going back there too. My final episode with palpitations and extreme dizziness happened in my classroom and I’ve not set foot in there since. The prospect of doing so again fills me with trepidation, even though thinking logically, I know it’s not the classroom’s fault. Nor is it work’s fault. But both things terrify me. I went back for an attendance meeting recently and to discuss my phased return to work and despite having worked there for 8 years I was physically shaking when I entered the building. It took me more than an hour to feel anywhere near right again and it was only when I ventured down to my old department that I settled more.
I’ve suffered with guilt the whole way through my recovery. Having covered up what was wrong for over 6 months, I feel awful about what I put my family through. My wife and kids watched me pass out in the airport before we went on holiday, as the palpitations hit and that makes me feel horrible about myself. My daughter has watched me like a hawk ever since and it’s been a balancing act dealing with the guilt as well as stopping myself becoming irritable as she’s asked again and again if I’m alright.
But the guilt hasn’t stopped with my immediate family. I know that my mam and dad have worried too, as well as my sister. Come to think of it, I’ve probably had my most in depth conversations ever with my dad across the time of my recovery as he’s opened up a bit and made it clear that he was worried about me. Believe me, us northern men aren’t always so forthcoming when it comes to our feelings, particularly when we’re of my dad’s vintage!
I’ve struggled with similar feelings where friends are concerned. Nobody knew a thing and I’m not sure what people must think of me for not at least confiding in one of them! Friends from work have had to cover my classes, set my work and even learn to adjust to life without the kind of ridiculously inane emails that I send on a daily basis. I really can’t thank them enough. Knowing that my other kids – my classes – are in their safe hands has eased that particular side of my guilt, but it’s felt like a real struggle. I know people would tell me to not feel guilty, but it’s been hard to avoid.
In all, like the tweet said, recovering has not been as simple as just resting. In truth, it’s been the most difficult time of my life and I’ve had to adjust from being someone who genuinely felt a bit invincible to being someone who has had to face up to just how vulnerable he actually is. It’s not a process I’ve liked and not one I really want to accept, which means that while I head back to work very soon, I’ll have to continue to work hard at my fitness and any mental blocks that might just be lingering.
For now though, returning to work will bring a sense of normality, but definitely not an end to my recovery or any sense of being healed. If you see me at work and ask how I am, I’ll more than likely say ‘good’ or ‘better’. What I mean to say but can’t, is that I feel sh*t scared, utterly terrified, panic stricken at the thought of doing any of this again, as well as riddled with guilt because of what I feel like I’ve put family and friends through. But, to paraphrase the tweet that inspired this, I’ll continue exercising, falling down, fearing, going deep into pain and fighting my way back.
This is a poem I wrote about the early stages of my recovery from having pacemaker fitted. It happened in November – as you might know, if you read regularly – and especially in that first month or so, it was pretty much all I thought about. Still, three months on, it dominates my days.
It’s a simple enough poem, about the kinds of things I would find myself doing in those early days. Things like avoiding using my left hand side or getting used to the sight of another scar on my chest and just staring at it for long periods of time.
I didn’t see many people during that time; the fatigue and the pain and discomfort just made me want to hide away, but I did get a lot of messages from concerned friends. And when they’d ask me how I was I’d just tell them I was ‘getting there’ because I didn’t know what else to say and didn’t think they’d really want chapter and verse about how I really felt. It was also the kind of thing I told myself when I was feeling low or poorly – I must be getting there. Hence, the poem, written during any one of a huge number of sleepless nights, downstairs while every else in the house slept soundly above.
Getting There
Check your watch, swiping left three times,
lie awake, listening as your heart pounds,
strong but more vulnerable than ever now, you feel.
Trace the lumps in your scar all along its length,
then follow the shape of a matchbox jutting out under your skin
and stare endlessly at these ugly changes in the bathroom mirror,
making sure that when you reach for something
it's on your right, never left.
This is the routine now.
Follow it like a child learning dance steps until it becomes second nature,
losing yourself for God knows how long
in a train of thought that feels like it might never switch off
and then remind yourself of them
and however bad you feel, tell anyone who asks
that you're getting there.
So, since it all happened I’ve never been more aware of my heartbeat. At least nowadays it feels regular, unlike before. And then there’s the scar; a new one to go next to the one I’ve had for over 40 years now from open heart surgery. This new one is only about 3 inches long and at times looks fairly neat and tidy. However, sometimes it turns purple and has lumps in it due to the wires that come out of my pacemaker. Attractive, no?
On top of that there’s the actual pacemaker, which juts out of my chest – not literally – and is fairly visible under the skin. A friend recently explained that his grandad had one – which made me feel great, as you might imagine – and that it looked like someone had put a matchbox under his skin. So, that’s where that line came from.
The last part of the poem and the ‘them’ refers to my family. They’ve had to nurse me through this time, my wife and daughter especially. They were there when I passed out the first time as a result of palpitations and then it was my wife who took me to Accident and Emergency on the afternoon that I was admitted to hospital and her and my daughter who visited during the week I spent on the ward. It was especially difficult to watch how worried my daughter was; too young for all of this. So, when I would feel down about my health I always knew that I couldn’t let them see it and I had to just find a little bit more strength in order to get through the day.
As always, I hope you enjoyed reading the poem. Feel free to let me know what you thought in the comments.
Let me start by pointing out that in no way am I any kind of expert on running. So I’m not claiming that what I write about in this blog is any kind of guarantee of success. There is no way on Earth that reading this blog is going to make you some kind of Olympian! However, as someone who’s ran on and off – more on than off, but a little stop start now and again – for most of his 49 years, I can certainly say that I speak from experience.
Running is something I’ve always loved. It was something that I started at school and success at junior school sports days whetted my appetite. I discovered very early on that I was in possession of a good turn of pace and despite my size, was capable of beating more or less anyone I raced. For a while at least. A heart problem put pay to that and once I recovered I found that I wasn’t the ‘athlete’* I’d once been.
*The term athlete is being used with quite an amount of creative license here by the way. I was a quick kid but that was about the size of it!
With my childhood heart problem taken care of I started running again, albeit not as well as before. But I really wanted to raise money for the heart unit where I’d had my operation and so, to cut a long story short, I started running more regularly and more seriously. I started to do sponsored fun runs and from there graduated to doing the Great North Run, a half marathon, raising money as I went. After that, I just kept on running either for fun or more competitively for clubs. In my time I’ve completed a number of half marathons, but mostly just ran for fun. That said, that’s a lot of running! And in the last few years, following more heart problems, I’ve started running much more regularly. It’s amazing what a health scare can do for you! So you never know, there might just be a bit of common sense in the tips that I can offer! So here we go…
Preparation, preparation, preparation! I can’t lie; there are far too many times that I go out having not prepared properly. If it’s an evening run I tend to make the excuse that I’ve been on my feet all day at work, so I’ll be fully warmed up anyway. But it’s never true and the proof is never more evident in those first couple of miles when I can’t get into my running or afterwards when everything seizes up! So, it’s a little bit of a case of doing what I say and not necessarily what I do here. Take time to warm up. Stretch thoroughly and perhaps even go as far as some running on the spot beforehand. Your body will thank you for it later! Stretching isn’t the only thing you can do though. I always make sure that I’ve had a blast on my inhaler – I’m asthmatic – as I don’t want to be too out of breath too soon. I’ve also started eating a handful of pine nuts and cashews before I head out, just in the hope of a bit of an energy burst. Pine nuts are good in terms of being heart healthy and contain things like iron and magnesium, which can boost energy. Don’t eat so many that you end up running with indigestion, but I always find they help me along the way. Cashew nuts contain healthy fats and again are heart healthy. I can’t claim to be an expert on all things dietary, but even if it’s as a placebo, I find that handfuls of things like this help me out.
The final thing that I make sure I do is to have a few jelly sweets in a pocket, ready for a quick sugar rush when I feel I might be flagging just a little bit too much. My personal choice are Mike and Ike’s, a nicely sugary coated import from America, available in B&Ms brilliant and strange American Confectionary section. Other jelly based confectionary, American or otherwise, is available. All over the place.
2. Clothing. Unless you’re into naked running, clothing is a vital part of your armour as a runner. Some would say it’s essential. From a personal point of view, having never tried naked running, I’d always go with clothing; no one repeat no one, needs to see me and my middle aged body charging down the road, in the nip as they say.
Silliness aside, good quality running gear is important. But there are levels here. I’m not someone who feels the need to splash ridiculous amounts of cash on what I’m sweating into, but I do want to feel comfortable and at least look the part without it being a case of ‘all the gear, no idea’.
The most important thing – in my humble opinion – is to get a good quality pair of trainers that you’re comfortable in. I used to run in Nike flats, but found that their very thin nature meant that they wore out relatively quickly. So eventually I went for a reasonably priced pair of New Balance 680 v6, which feature a nicely cushioned sole. Game changer! Suddenly I was running faster, going further and more importantly at my age, not suffering with aches and pains for days after. You could say that I’m a convert to cushioning. I’ve since bought a new pair of New Balance, but my 680s are hanging on in there and I’m out running in them regularly. I’ve found that some good quality running socks feel a lot better too.
In terms if what else I wear, I prefer 2in1 shorts, with an inner cycling short lining. I’m all for keeping those hamstrings warm! What I would also advise with running shorts is that you buy something with some kind of pocket. That way, anything light that you need to take can be stored away. My pockets always have a few jelly sweets and I find my door key handy for getting back into the house!
I’d also advise buying specialist running tops. I’m a t-shirt man myself. My build just doesn’t lend itself to vests and no one needs the sight of any more of my body! What I would say is that you should have something bright or even high viz, just for your own safety. It’s surprising how people many just don’t see you coming, so be as visible as possible, especially on more murky days or evenings. With this in mind, I was pleased when my wife bought me a couple of light up bands that I can wear around my upper arms in winter. If it gets too late and the light is cutting in, I just flick a switch and they light up, leaving me to focus on my running rather than whether or not I might get knocked over! They’re lightweight and comfortable too, which is ideal for people like me who hate running with anything annoying attached to me. You can see the kind of thing I mean below, although there are lots of variants on this particular accessory.
3.No excuses. Until the last 18 months or so I’ve always been brilliant at coming up with excuses as to why I shouldn’t go out for a run. And excuses as to why I should come in early from a run. Drizzle, too windy (weather, not me), a niggling and sometimes not real injury, not enough time, too close to lunch, not enough sleep, not in the right frame of mind, too windy (me this time), too sunny…I’ve gone through phases where anything I could tell myself would be enough to stay where I was and not head out for a run.
Don’t do it. Those endorphins won’t release themselves. However tired you think you feel, however bad your day at work was, get out for that run. Keep up the momentum. You’ll feel better for it. You’ll be pleased with yourself. You’ll have improved your fitness, just a little bit. But if you let that excuse keep you in then you’ll find another one the next time and even when you get back out again, you’ll excuse yourself some more, another time.
Once I stopped making excuses and just getting out there, I got fitter, stronger and faster. It’s taken me a long, long time, but nowadays the weather and the niggles don’t get in the way and I’m absolutely loving my running.
4.Plan a route (kind of). Personally, I don’t like to plan a very detailed route, but I like an idea of where I’m going, vaguely which set of streets I’ll be running along and more to the point, where I turn for home. I keep it vague for one reason: if I want to add a chunk of running in, I can and that means that I can feel good about myself once I get home. If I know that where I’m headed will take me say for 5km but I’m feeling good, then I might add a few extra streets in and before I know it I’ve covered an extra kilometre or two. And I can’t pretend that it doesn’t make me feel a whole lot better. Maybe it’s just a me thing, but I’d definitely recommend it. I suppose in a way it means I get to explore little bits of town, rather than just running another circuit of somewhere and I find my way a bit more interesting. Sometimes it’s good to keep my mind distracted from how my legs are doing and heading down a couple of new streets does just that!
5. Recovery. Over the last 18 months I’ve learnt that once I get back in after a run, my next hour or so is really important. I always used to make sure that I had a drink of water, but it was never anywhere near enough. And I’d never stretch.
Nowadays everything has changed. When I remember, I put a bottle of water into the freezer before I head out for my run. I’ll neck that as soon as I get in and then refill and drink slowly for a while. I might even refill again after that. I also make sure I eat a banana as soon as I get in. I might even have more cashews or pine nuts. If I have any pain I have a massage roller ball that I put in the freezer and then massage with when I get home and it works wonders! And I make sure I stretch again. This is usually done while lying or sitting down, touching my toes or painfully pulling my feet back behind my back. Before, I might well have just flopped down in a chair and watched television, then wondered why my muscles just stiffened up half an hour later. I’d wake up next morning and find it difficult to walk, such was the stiffness in my legs and back. And then lockdown happened.
During lockdown I read a lot of things about running and exercise. I also did online workouts and learnt the value of warming down and recovery from this. I can’t recommend it enough. The stretching helps to loosen and lengthen the muscles again and the fruit and snacking helps throw vitamins back into the body, which can only help. The water replaces fluid that you’ve lost while also refreshing you, obviously. It seems obvious now and why I totally ignored recovery for so many years is beyond me, but I would absolutely recommend that you take far better care of yourself after you’ve ran. You’ll feel so much better for it.
I hope these tips – some more obvious than others – will come in handy for you. Like I said before, I’m no expert, but I’ve found that these things have helped my running immeasurably. I’m faster and stronger, but more to the point, I enjoy my running much more than ever.
As usual, feel free to let me know what you think by leaving a comment. Oh, and happy running!
Middle Age Fanclub 