In the seminal 1978 American novel, Once A Runner, we read of the protagonist college athlete, Quenton Cassidy, and his dream to run a sub-4 minute mile. In preparation both for this, and a show-down race with an international miler travelling over from New Zealand (loosely based on legendary miler John Walker), Cassidy gives up college and his girlfriend to go and live and train alone in a cabin in the woods for several months. Twice-a-day, every day, and alone, he hits the country roads and the wooded trails, clocking up to twenty-three miles a day. His cabin lies littered with running books, training diaries, empty beer bottles, and countless pairs of damp trainers. At one point, after having a conversation with the kettle and the microwave, he etches on cold glass, in reverse mirror script, 'HELP! IMPRISONED IN FEBRUARY'.
When you think about it, which I am sure you do all the time, we all face the prospect of spending this Christmas in a cabin in the woods. Isolation. Stuck in a house away from many of our dearest family members. Or worse, stuck in the house with our nearest family members, and with nowhere to go....
The Good Lady faces the grim prosect of spending the first Christmas away from her family this year, and forced to spend Christmas day with my family, who prove to be compliantly local to us. My house on Christmas will be like Fawlty Towers. It seems dignified enough at the outset, as a libation is thrust into one's hand, but spend any length of time there, and the middle class veneer melts into the bottomless pit of football commentary, Brexit demagoguery, spilt drinks, and chasing unruly family members round the house with a dog at the heels. As she reflects on what might have been, there will be tears.
For many athletes in Scotland, days over the Christmas holidays are likely to hold as much variety as a BBC News at Ten monologue during the last six months. Get up, spy on the neighbours, watch Dolly Parton's Christmas Concert, make lunch, and then spend the afternoon listening to family members exchange views on "how life has changed!" until our ears begin to bleed.
Or, may I suggest, we can run. We can prize ourselves from the sedentary, head-nodding, smile-inducing, compliment-forcing lethargy, and just get ourselves out the door and on to a country road, and grind out some miles. For those of us who have always longed to know what 100 miles a week feels like, this is your opportunity. For those of us who have always longed to know what 20 miles a week feels like, this is your opportunity.
This Christmas, there is no criss-crossing the country to see your great aunt Beartrice, and gone is the irredeemable tedium of traipsing round shopping malls. The return of competition, and the track season, is surely only round the corner, and how often do you, an athlete, whilst sitting at your virtual study seminar or your virtual work meeting, just ask yourself "I wish I had two weeks to play with to just get some miles in".
Like Quenton Cassidy, the isolation this Christmas isolates us from what can often be the distractions and excuses from taking our training to the next level. The shopping, the drinks with friends...etc. We are all stuck in our cabin in the woods this year. There is nowhere to go - but through the hills, the trails and the country roads that surround you - there is everything to achieve.
To my tens of readers, I wish you and yours a very Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year.
Michael Wright, 24 December 2020
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