Running Away from Home

I can’t complain about a job that takes me to places like Hawaii and India, but combining it with running has its drawbacks. Once in training for an event it must be committed to, and in combination with a job that is also mobile it seems that I can no longer get away with one carry-on bag. Trainers and running gear must be packed along with water belt, gels, running watch, iPod and rechargers. In addition to the excess baggage, the jogger in transit also has to contend with conditions that may not always be ideal, requiring adjustments in order to mitigate any propensity to embarrassment.

In Jaipur, for example, there was a 400m running track around the hotel grounds that led nowhere (indicative perhaps of India's infrastructure). Heat and dust seeped into everything as attempts at a degree of modesty were also necessary; my baggiest shorts over knee length leggings is never going to be impressive. While I’ve always admired women who can still look gorgeous at the end of a marathon (like 'glamour' model Jordan, who I happened to run the Brighton Half with a few years back … well, not so much ‘with’ as a fair distance away from her bodyguard), I always end up looking like a stumpy, soggy mop at the best of times. To go beyond the bounds of the hotel grounds meant attracting more stares and the possibility of encounter with the ever-present stray dog against which no joggers' legs stand a chance. So a running machine became my best friend, in a one room gym facing the pool and lawns on which expensive tourists sunned themselves while pervy peacocks leered in through the window. Clocking up kilometres on a running machine is about as exciting as watching an odometer click over.

At the other end of the spectrum, Honolulu, I realized I had forgotten what space feels like after years of living in London, and this particular space is filled with smells of damp loam, Pacific salt, frangipani, wet neoprene, board wax, sun screen lotion, and sweat. An ambient soundtrack of mechanical growling was provided by US Air Force cargo planes taking off and landing, in tune with growling grey skies. It was embarrassing to have to confess to an Hawai'ian that I didn't know it was the rainy season, hence the amount of sweat (nor that the volcanoes were on another island). Just as well it's a reverse time zone to the UK. Wide awake at 5am meant I may as well get up, put on my running gear and get out for a long run while it was still cool. And no need to worry about being alone at that time. The streets and main roads along the coast were full of joggers and cyclists throwing themselves up Diamond Head before sunrise.

It is a sign of Hawai'i's status as a desirable retirement home that it was a mass of brown, soft, leathery flesh that I joined. Going at a slow pace, we pottered past a memorial service on the Honolulu promenade where the homeless waited for the crowds to arrive so they could begin their day's survival. Birdlife, cardinal red and pointy-headed, accompanied the route, while my angry toe became angrier in the heat, and all the time upwards towards the crest of the old volcano that marks too much of my childhood television. I had an uncontrollable urge to yell '5-0' or 'book 'em Danno' every time I ran by a police car. I ineptly attempted to find one dollar for the entrance fee to the Park by patting my pocketless outfit, but the ranger eventually lent it to me. It's worth the climb for the view and the admiring looks of Japanese tourists who jumped out of the way as I sweated past.

The theme of hills continued in San Francisco recently. San Fran joggers must be world champions at hill running with some streets sloping up to 31.5%. Running here is an exercise in masochistic calf work out. It is also a city marked by: 

1. cheeriness as fellow joggers acknowledge the loveliness of the day; 
2. elastic distances as the ocean moves beyond actual map coordinates (it’s those hills); 
3. clouds of marijuana at eight in the morning; 
4. homeless people camping in all available parks and crevices of this high tech, digital city.

That same mix of despair and optimism marked out what is now my favourite jogging track: Venice Beach. Another early start required to beat the prescient heat of a spring day, and along the beach the crowds started to gather for a collective paean to the outdoor life of California: volleyball and basketball courts, gymnastics pitches, muscle beach gym.

I wondered at first why Venice Beach was called a freak show, but then realised I'd mistakenly jogged to Santa Monica (turning right instead of left). Heading back along the promenade there was at some point a momentary crossing of an event horizon and then tumbling head-long into wonderland dodging every conceivable form of mobility: bicycles pimped with luminous wheels, skates and skate boards of all sizes and varieties propelled by human and dog, both wearing sunglasses, hoverboards, segways, other joggers, surfers, artists, musicians and the muscle bound. Past cafés, synagogues, medicinal marijuana, sunglasses, and knickers with slogans like ‘It’s not going to spank itself’ writ large across the arse. Down to the pier where the fishers try their luck in momentary respite, and then back into it again as noise and light and all the other shards of dysmorphia propelled my legs along the sandy boardwalk. Two hours of moving bliss.

Outside the cities, there have been many assorted hills, desert and deserted roads jogged along, skirting trailer parks with invisible dogs and people in search of a life off-grid. There was an aborted attempt to have a run in the high Sierra until I spotted the helpful signs warning of mountains lions’ taste for solo joggers. Running away from home may be occasionally inconvenient, even slightly mortifying at times, but it is always inevitably a slow engagement with the life of a place.   

Glass half full

And so it begins ... the first half marathon of the season, my favourite distance, and it's all uphill for the first five miles. Apart from the anger of my toes as they turn black and throw off their nails it's going well. The sun is out. It's neither too hot nor too cold. More importantly there's no head wind. There's a good crowd but not too many; enough to be anonymous but not have people get in your way. Along the roadside there are the bangers of pans and the kids happy to high-five complete strangers as they puff by; there are the bearers of sweets and fruit whose oranges are gratefully received. I'm not sure the bananas were a great idea though ... 100s of skins on the road are a comic accident waiting to happen.

Despite the hills, this was the first time I finished a Half without any walking and there is a certain pride in getting better. I've learnt that it's all in the stride. After being beaten by two giant leprachauns in the Dublin marathon a few years back I realised that keeping the same steady pace is the way to go. I've also taken up chi running. To all those that used to laugh at my flat footed plodding apparently it really is the way to go and the rest of you have probably retired from shin splits after sprinting your way around too many courses.

After the event a fellow runner drives me to the station, explaining that the knickers in the door pocket were his daughter’s which made me feel a bit better about hitching a ride with a strange man (plus I beat him by four minutes). As we chatted he noted a familiar feeling: 'You know, when I'm about a few miles into a race I think to myself, am I actually enjoying this? I'm not sure I actually like running. But I like the feeling when I finish'. So true.

We give up Saturday and beer, late nights and a social life, and there’s never any guarantee. You could train hard for weeks and then just have one of those races where everything goes wrong from the start. It turns out to be 27 degrees. You just can't get into your stride because of the crowds. Something’s not right in the legs so every mile feels wretched, ground out till the end. Just that little bit tired or tense, or didn't eat, drink the right amount of the right stuff, then swearing 'never again'.

Why, as one fellow runner was telling me, after being hit by a car and breaking his leg in four places, did he come back and run another five marathons and has now completed over 50 Halfs? We wreck our knees, ankles, feet and hips. I shed toe nails by the dozen. I have to do planks and squats in between running days just to be able to do it (it's all in the core I finally learnt after years of physiotherapy). I hate warm ups and cool downs but I am older and wiser and love my knees despite making them run 40-60 km a week on hard road in training periods. I hope that by the time I’m in my 60s, 70s, even 80s, I will be one of those runners whose muscles just remember what they have to do.

And why? Because we all love that feeling when we finish. 

Seeing Red

It is confession time. Yesterday, I actually found myself uttering the words 'you posh hipsters', in public, directed at a resident from that part of the street that is all Victorian terrace on the outside and undergoing constant renovation within. 'Uttering' is perhaps too demure a verb to use in this instance. It was more yelling in a crazy woman kind of way at a man who, when I busted him using our bins for his overflow of waitrose leftovers, made the mistake of justifying his behaviour by saying 'I pay my taxes, I can put my garbage wherever I want'. No, sir, no you can't.

In the past when I have found people fly tipping on my doorstep I have employed all the non-violent communication and buddhistly skills I have been trained over the years to deploy. I've taken their hand, introduced myself, quietly and calmly explained the obvious situation - that if they keep putting their garbage in our bins then the bins overflow and we have rats and foxes spreading germs and half eaten babies' nappies all over our front yards - and then I have watched them smile and continue to put their garbage in our bins. Probably, I suspected, because they think it's a scummy estate and they pay their tax and can put their garbage wherever they like, or at least anywhere but in front of their own heavily mortgaged homes.

Enough is enough. It is time for outrage and justice. It is time for some name calling and yelling in the street, in front of everyone. It is time for Luther and Alice to kick some butt!

Now I know that I also shop at Waitress most of the time (actually I get it home delivered - an obvious sign of gentrification when delivery trucks with kale or blueberry paint jobs feel comfortable parking in your neighbourhood). I could possibly earn more than the man I called a posh hipster. I am petite bourgeoisie from my toe nails to my hair follicles. And I know that yelling at the man in the street will probably only increase his desire to place his garbage on our estate (and he did at least separate out his recycling and put it in the bin rather than leave it lying on top or on the ground as so many others do). But I have to also confess that for the few minutes it took to berate him for his selfishness, no matter how lacking in coherence and logical argument,  it did feel pretty good.

Ultimately though this madness is a symptom of the housing crisis that leads to middle class residents buying tiny two bedroom Victorian conversions for a sum, on average, 16 times their London salary according to the National Housing Federation; a space in which they find it impossible to store themselves, their kids, their flat screens and their garbage if they miss collection day, which perhaps leads them to say things like 'I pay my taxes and can do what I want'. It seems the only leverage they have is to piss on down the hierarchy. Private renter activists like DIGS highlight the growing resentment felt by this squeezed Middle that must spend too much on a basic necessity that has become part of an artificial market created by previous governments who now keep it propped up by transnational mobility and investment. Parts of this Middle, with few rights in the face of absent landlords and short term leases, look at the low rents and charges of social housing with an aggrieved eye and seemingly little comprehension that we're all of us, private tenants, leaseholders, freeholders and social housing, living with a precarity of ideological making. Where we put the garbage will be the least of our problems if the politics of London and nationally with regards to housing don't change.

Labouring under five stars of false pretences

www.tajhotels.com

In a short break from austerity I recently had the chance to occupy a room in Jaipur's Jai Mahal Palace for a couple of nights. Somehow though, despite appearances of conspicuous leisure, I've always found staying in a Five Star Hotel to contain an underlying current of work. This is not to say I would ever turn down the opportunity to stay in one: I have known too many bed bug infestations and snot stained walls to be so inversely snobby. But after the novelty of clean sheets and a concierge have worn off, the whole experience can become somewhat labour intensive.

First, adjustments must be made. I learnt long ago how to contort myself through a Five Star lobby so no-one would stop to ask which room I was staying in (none in my student days) as I made my way to the pool side. An air of entitlement usually does the trick. However, this then gives rise to the labour of over-compensation towards staff to make up for the actual entitlement felt by other guests: the abusive consultant, so offended because his fork had been placed in the wrong position on the table, always my favourite example.

Second, there is the feeling of dread that the cleaners think I am so posh I am incapable of folding my own pyjamas, or removing the decorative pillow from the bed in the evening lest I should break a finger nail, so they must come and do it for me as part of the 'turn down' service (the most useless piece of labour ever invented in the hospitality industry).

While I must ooze impeccable manners and the cultural capital of knowing which fork to use, remember to wear shoes, not to put my feet on the seats while wearing shoes, and try to make an effort to accessorise, staff must ooze emotional labour, being inconspicuous and attentive at the same time, constantly smiling even if they have had to commute two hours to start a 0400 a.m. shift and have a two hour commute home again, while in the meantime namasting me whenever I, or any other guest, walks by. I'm surprised anyone gets any work done so much time is taken up by false pretences.

So I'd like to suggest a more hospitable future for luxury hotels in which guests calm their expectations, place our own napkins and adjust our own chairs, turn down our own beds, don't expect anyone to bow when we walk by, and enjoy that refreshing cocktail brought to us poolside by a professional waiter who gets a fair share of the ridiculous sums of money we pay to stay there.

Landour, 1997

I am inconsequential

to the river’s roar,

the mountain’s fall,

the earth’s grumble,

the winter’s cold.

Notes to self for the New Year 2016

1. No matter what happens, do NOT assume the brace position. Given the amount of crash landings imminent on the horizon this will only lead to rigour mortis setting in. Instead follow Wonder Woman's example and engage deflector shields to ward off as many of the slings and arrows of fear and wilful ignorance as possible, and keep moving.
   
   
2. Look up. Find other people looking up. Go have coffee with them. But do NOT drink red espresso. Whoever thought of running rooibos tea through a coffee machine, adding milk and honey, should never be let into an independent coffee house ever again.
   
   
3. Go to the nail salon once a month. It is the last refuge of organic conviviality in East London.

Christmas cheer ...

Could there be any place more joyous than a Christmas market. I'm not talking about the flimsy thing they throw up on Southbank each year, but a proper, weighty German Christmas market where gluhwien, cheese, sauerkraut and sweets are produced and consumed on industrial, yet convivial, scales. Where raclette and scented candles are sold side by side with devastating impact on the olfactory neurons. Where ice skating becomes a spectator sport for the amateur acrobatics and the gravitationally challenged (I would be the one hanging onto the fibreglass penguin safety slide along with the three year olds). And where no-one even pretends to be looking at the nativity scene. Like architecture in Berlin (a melange of fascist, stalinist and hipster), any of its 60 Christmas markets offers the kitsch to the sublime.

Who then can  help but forgive Germany its trashy house taste in music, as long as it keeps churning out brie and black truffle cream cheese, at least a dozen versions of sweet and savoury strudel, and plum liqueur. All of which are best consumed in an atmosphere of roasting potatoes accentuated by fairy lights, and overseen by several angels on stilts who keep the real world at bay for at least a few hours.

Happy pagan festivities.