Have I found a cure? (Come Wipeout With Me)

I remember reading somewhere that if you do anything consistently for two weeks it becomes a habit. I am now well into my fourth week of non-running (mainly to let some knee tendonitis heal but also to give my whole body a rest after a heavy mileage year). Well, non running has gone beyond habit. I think that due to a metaphorical diet of cold turkey, I might be cured. I’m not talking about my knee tendonitis being cured; I think I’m cured of running!

All last year I had been a 40-a-week man (miles that is) and often more than double that if I went on a bender. Now it’s down to zero. Logic would suggest that I have freed up a lot of time. So, what have I been doing instead of running? The answer is that I’m not exactly sure.

I have managed to get a few jobs done around the house, some of which have been waiting for two years or more (I hate D.I.Y.). But I can’t say I’ve done much. I have seen a bit more telly than during my previous life as a runner, but again not a great deal.

What I have discovered about TV is that it is mostly rubbish. There are a hundred channels of pap. But back to cold turkey, one program I have seen a few times is Come Dine With Me. You may know the one – hapless would-be dinner party hosts take turns to try and poison each other and generally bicker in the hope of winning a thousand pounds.

I have worked out a simple strategy to win or lose Come Dine With Me. To lose all you need to do is serve a bad pie made with squirrel. Alas this has already been done and the host responsible did indeed come last.

To win is simple mathematics. As all the hosts (there are four of them) score each other in secret out of a maximum of ten points, simply score everyone else a zero irrespective of how good they are. This means all your competitors will only get points from two other people, whereas you will gain points from three. Success is guaranteed; as long as your hosting is no worse than average and none of the other hosts have also had this genius idea. But I have no intention of ever being on Come Dine With Me, so that is all by the by.

However, after intense pressure from the kids I did reach the audition stages of Total Wipeout. Had I got through I probably wouldn’t have done well. My fitness and agility may be above average, but being a (now ex) ultrarunner I think the course would have been 30 miles too short. And I would have had to have run. Which I don’t do anymore because I’m cured!

Sorry, what were we talking about? Oh yes, what has happened to all the extra time I should have? I was initially convinced that my life as a runner had all been a dream, but then I looked in the wardrobe and saw all the T-shirts and medals earned from the races I must have run. And on top of the wardrobe stood all the other paraphernalia associated with hours and miles on trails and hills – backpacks, head torches, half empty tubs of electrolyte drinks and the like. Further evidence is the foul stench emanating from the back of the garage, which turned out to be oozing from a sizable, fermenting pile of well-used running shoes. And not least, how come I am sitting here typing about my life as a runner to you my real and virtual Bug friends?

So perhaps it was all true. Maybe I did used to run. I can only think that running existed in a parallel universe. There’s certainly no time for it in my current hectic lifestyle.

Anyway, now that I’m cured I might just go out for a little jog this weekend just to see if my knee is better (I don’t think it is). In fact, in my diary I have a rendezvous with Bug member NaturalBritain in the Peak District on Saturday afternoon. I don’t know how that came about – parallel universe again. I’ll ask him to tell me all about running as I’m quite curious about it. I think I’ll get to see him, as long as I’ve finished clearing out my sock drawer and there are no more back episodes of Jeremy Kyle I need to watch.