'Twas the night before Christmas
And all through the house
Not a creature was stirring
Not even a m...
...Just a minute, that's not true, not in my case, because late on Christmas Eve I was indeed stirring - I was stirring my cranberries (and that's not a euphemism), hoping they would somehow, with the aid of brown sugar and orange juice, turn into cranberry sauce. And to their credit, they did.
It's been a funny old Christmas. I have to say it was rather conditioned from the word go by my antics on the night of the 23rd, when I met some friends from work for what was going to be a couple of beers to celebrate the start of the holidays. Instead I found myself staggering home at 2:15 a.m. after being on the receiving end of the best part of a dozen bottles of Mahou. Worse still, as became horribly clear when I woke up at about 5, feeling vile, I had been persuaded to smoke various cigarettes.
This, clearly, is not the sort of behaviour likely to land you a good time in your chosen spring marathon. In the short term, it was also going to ruin my Christmas, as the hangover was cruel and dirty. In the morning I somehow got out and did the last bit of shopping necessary for Christmas, and then went back to bed. By late lunchtime, mercifully, I felt well enough to get up and start with the preparations for my Christmas dinner the following day.
So it was that I woke up early on Christmas morning in good spirits, stuffed the turkey and got it ready to put in the oven, and went out for my now-traditional Christmas Day Run.
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| They were right, you dick |
In previous years I had done this wearing a Father Christmas hat, but to be honest, every time I encountered someone as I tore round the city centre, far from wishing me a Merry Christmas, they just looked at me as if I was a bit of a dick. Which I suppose is fair enough, but I wasn't going to repeat the experience this year. Instead I went out bare-headed, and actually it was so mild I didn't bother with gloves either - in fact I was dressed as I would have been had it been a summer's day. Amazing. Anyway I bagged 5.5 miles round the city, with the last couple at a fairly decent clip (6:45mm / 4:10/km), principally because the clock was ticking and I had to get that turkey in the oven.
After a jolly acceptable recovery snack, the morning passed most agreeably with music and a nice bottle of Cava to help along the peeling and chopping of vegetables.
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| Fuel recovery is an essential part of any runner's trainng, luckily |
I even had time to sit down and watch National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (again).
In the end the time came and everything was ready. The turkey, the pigs in blankets, the stuffing, the roast potatoes, the sprouts, the red cabbage, the roasted, caramelised shallots, the gravy...a pity, then, that I had totally lost interest in the whole affair by this point. Oh, I went through the motions: I set everything out nicely, I lit the candles and I served myself a good plateful of everything...
I've always loved Christmas, and spent it in the company of friends and family who were generally always just as excited about it as I was. It's not without its melancholy aspect, as inevitably you remember loved ones who are no longer with us, but equally you rejoice in the promise of the future, as you see (well, I do) your nephews grow up, just as thrilled with Christmas as you have always been.
So to go from that, to getting to 50 and finding yourself alone at this most sociable and heartwarmingly friendly time of year is a very humbling experience, to say the very least.
Curiously, though, once I'd got everything washed up and tidied away and I'd gone to sit in my lounge I began to see things in a different light. I have reached this low point in my life, it's true, but it's also the start of a new era for me, replete with enormous possibilities. And I intend to take them and start to live life to the full again.
Of course, any runners reading this will have grasped the metaphors, but in any case I went out on another unseasonably warm and sunny morning early this week, and found that my lungs had forgiven me my indiscretions, my knee felt ok and I just felt fantastic in general. I did 7 miles which included 8 x 450m at 6-minute mile pace (3:45/km), and came away knowing I could have pushed it a lot harder.
I must just accept the situation I am now in. As soon as I have fully come to terms with it then who knows what I may be capable of in the future? And here I don't just mean in terms of running - although that too - but also in terms of finding peace, happiness and new inspiration. I fully believe that if I just let go and allow myself to live life, then only good things can come of it.
New Year's Eve for the Spanish means watching the King's Christmas Message on television, having a big family dinner of seafood chowder, langoustines and lamb, and then at midnight, eating a grape for every chime of the bells in La Puerta del Sol in Madrid. For the younger generation it then means going out dressed up to the nines and not coming home until gone 10 or 11 o'clock. My PB in this regard was 3:45 p.m., achieved some years ago. That was not big, and it was most certainly not clever...
But 31st December in Spain is also synonymous with the San Silvestre, a race which takes place in practically every village, town and city in the country. They are of varying length, but are typically around 5-6 kms, starting at about 6.00 p.m. There are 30-odd of these events in Asturias alone. So, I will be doing the one in Oviedo, which is 5.5 kms long and goes round the streets of the centre, under the spectacular Christmas lights and with enormous crowds along the route.
Following the race, I will go home, prepare myself a nice dinner, eat the grapes at midnight and then drink a toast to 2016 and the future, a future which if we just want it badly enough and allow it to come to pass, can surely be as magical as any we've ever dreamt about.
Have a great New Year's Eve, everyone, and I wish you all a very Happy New Year!!
Everything Will Flow
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