Running in search of memories
On an easy run in Northampton, I catch sight of a moment in time
It’s now over a week since my half marathon exploits in Bideford and I’m still tired. It’s the longer recovery time that you start to notice as you age, more than anything else. Back in my youth I could race hard on a Saturday, and then race hard again on a Sunday - often feeling even better the second day.
Talking of those hazy, halcyon days, I was back in my hometown this weekend, and long-time readers will know that I love nothing more than heading out on a nostalgia run along the old routes. I first started running when I was about nine years old, so I’ve been traversing the parks, trails and roads of Northampton for a long time now. Often a particular bump in the road, or a sharp bend, will suddenly throw up a laser-sharp memory, or a hazy feeling of surging up that short hill, or the feeling of racing along, stride for stride with my teammates, wordlessly cranking up the pace, quietly surprising ourselves at how much faster we could go. Sometimes it can be just a smell that hits me, and suddenly I’m thrown 35 years back in time.
On Sunday I was perhaps looking out for the memories too intently. I could get the fuzzy edges of them as I ran along the Nene Way, the A45 dual carriageway hissing loudly just out of sight. But they remained elusively faint, just out of sight like the road. I had a sense that I had run this way before, a long time ago. But little else.
Perhaps the passage of time between those youthful runs and today was just too great. Perhaps, now into my 50s, I was starting to forget. I tried to peer back through time, but it was like watching a film with the sound off.
Then, I was almost home, running through the park next to my parents’ house, when suddenly the final dip down from one hill, and then up the other, came into sharp focus. It was a breezy day, sometime around 1990. The Northamptonshire county cross country championships. I remembered running across that field there at the start; the grass seemed too long, the ground too soft, it was hard to get going. The memory of the first of two big laps is lost, but coming down into this dip, to start the second lap, I remember my legs churning, the trees blurring, side by side at the front of the race with Ciaran Maguire, one of the twins from Daventry.
We almost stumbled as we changed from downhill sprint to uphill churn. It had been noisy a few moments ago, as we passed near the start and finish area, but here it was just the wind. And my racing heart. Ciaran started edging away from me up the steep hill. My god, my lungs were burning. I’d come second in the county champs before, but I’d never won. I could feel it slipping away again.
A man appeared, waving his arms, urging Ciaran on. It was Ciaran’s dad.
“Come on, push,” he shouted to his son. And then, looking back at me, just behind, he yelled to Ciaran: “He’s tiring. You’ve got this.”
