Tempted by the lure of the sea
My daughter has me surfing and I bloody love it. But what about running?
I live by the sea and every year I say I want to get better at surfing - and then every year I manage to go surfing about twice, spending about an hour each time hoisting myself up on to my board and then tumbling headfirst straight back into the water.
Surfing isn’t easy, as anyone who has tried it will testify. But my daughter Lila is living proof of just what you can achieve if you put your mind to it.
She hopefully won’t mind when I say that she is not a natural athlete - she doesn’t like running and let’s just say she isn’t one of those people who can casually throw down a cartwheel or vault over a gate. Yet she has tenacity.
A couple of years ago she got a surfboard for Christmas, and for the first three or four sessions with her new board she didn’t get up once. I’d watch her in the water, hauling herself up and immediately slipping right off. Again and again and again. I was giving up on her behalf. Maybe surfing just isn’t her thing, I thought. Maybe some people can’t do it, no matter how hard they try. Maybe she’s just not physically able.
She’d come out of the freezing water, looking grumpy after an hour without getting up once, and say: “Can we go again tomorrow?” I was confused. Why would you do that to yourself? Was she blind to her own limitations?
Well, fast-forward to now, and who’s that young woman cruising across the waves, crouched down like a ninja on that very same surfboard? Yes, it’s Lila. She is bloody brilliant at it now. Hats off to her.
She has inspired us all, and now we’re all out in the water, leaping up, and, you know what, if you keep at it, eventually you find yourself standing up, flying along like lord of the ocean, the sea rushing by under your feet. As any surfer will testify, it’s a wonderful feeling.
It’s also good core fitness, I tell my running self who’s looking across sideways and feeling a little jealous. What about me? it says. “This is all for you,” I say. “This is just cross training, building up core strength, upper body strength, all for running.”
On Friday, the surf report was epic. Big, clean waves. The sea at this time of year is also warm (well, compared to the rest of the year). Lila, who is off to university in London next week - far from any waves - pleaded with me to go surfing with her after she finished work. So I strapped the boards to the car, picked her and Marietta up and we headed to the beach.
The waves were indeed epic and we had one of our best surfing sessions ever. Glowing with the buzz of it, we got dressed and ate our pasties as the sun sank from the sky in a slow burst of glowing fuchsia. By the time we got back to the car it was dark.
“Can we go again in the morning?” asked Lila, who had looked at the surf report and had seen that the waves were going to be great again. But Marietta and I were both happily exhausted and looking forward to a hot shower and bed. The thought of coming back in the morning seemed crazy.
“What time in the morning?” I asked her.
“Low tide is at 7.30am. So we’d need to be here by then,” she said.
Boy oh boy. It was a 30-minute drive from our house. With all the prep etc, it meant getting home at about 10pm, and then getting up at 6am to come straight back. Marietta was out, but I couldn’t help feel impressed, inspired even, by Lila’s relentless drive to surf. My running self chipped in with the solution. I needed to get a run in anyway, so why not run along the coast path while Lila surfed. That way I could support her, and also support my feeling-slightly-neglected inner runner.
…
We arrived at the beach at around 7.30am on a beautiful late-summer morning. Amazingly, a few surfers were already packing up and heading off after catching the dawn break. The carpark was teeming with new surfers arriving. The excitement was palpable. “What’s the surf like?” “We’re going to have some fun out there this morning."
I felt a bit boring in my running gear, limbering up for a run, and part of me wished I’d brought my wetsuit. I actually had my board still in the car from the night before. It was probably warm enough to surf without a wetsuit …
My runner self gave me a long, hard look. After all we’ve been through, you can’t be ditching me now? No, of course not. I waved Lila off and then set off on my run, up the first climb. What a morning! The oil blue sea to one side, the yellow morning sun ahead, the world just waking up.
Everywhere people were playing. Sailing boats were out, people were swimming, surfing, playing golf, walking dogs. Running. Running didn’t seem quite as playful somehow, and I have to admit that a part of me thought that maybe it would be more fun in the sea. Why was I running? The question popped up again, for the millionth time. Sure, running had a freedom about it - most of the year surfing isn’t as idyllic as this, and it involves car rides and wetsuits and all that. A run you can do any time. But why was I running now?
In part, I was committed. I was on a journey. You can’t suddenly jump ship because of a passing fancy. I had races coming up. I wanted to be ready, fit and strong come race day. Running took tenacity, just like surfing. If Lila hadn’t gone through those cold days when she fell off every time, she wouldn’t be cruising along now. If I didn’t run on these days when it felt easier to do something else, come race day I wouldn’t be cruising. We pick our thing and we need to stay with it if we’re going to really progress.
Ten miles later, as I rolled back down the final descent, I had that familiar post-run feeling of warm satisfaction. I was glad I’d gone running. Surfing was great, a wild ride at times, but it wasn’t my thing. I had my thing.
I arrived on the beach just as Lila was getting out of the sea. I dipped in the waves, which felt blissfully cool after my hot run, and then we got a coffee before heading home. It was still only 10:30am and we’d both done our thing. Buzzing from it all, we cranked up the tunes and both felt as happy as Larry the whole way home.
Meanwhile …
I’m following a few things from a distance, and I thought I’d share them with you. Of course, in a parallel existence I’d be in New York right now, about to start Day 13 of the Self-Transcendence 3100 [3100.srichinmoyraces.org].
It’s a big field of 14 runners this year, but so far, looking at the results, most of them are below the pace needed to reach 3,100 miles within the 52-day cut off. It’s mad to think that through all the things I’ve been doing these last two weeks, and for weeks to come, these poor souls will be struggling around that block.
I particularly feel for Susan Marshall, whom I interviewed on my podcast. She’s barely covering 40 miles a day at the moment - 20 miles a day short of the cutoff target. I suspect she will be beating herself up and telling herself that she just hasn’t learned to be in the moment, and pushing herself on, torturing herself.
I really am glad - well, most of me is - that I’m not there.
Then - talking of torturing yourself - there is Hardest Geezer dot com. This guy’s run across Africa has become an internet sensation, and will no doubt one day be an amazing book and probably a film - he has been robbed twice, kidnapped and taken off to a remote village in the Congo, had numerous health scares, crashed his van, while all the time being delightfully British and chirpy and geezer-like.
He seems to be taking about twice as long as he planned, but getting a ton of support from companies eager to get some of his viral kudos deflected their way. But I still worry that something is not quite right. I worry for his mental health. I worry that his crew are going to give up on him - I mean, don’t they have homes to go to? He is looking more and more strained, but still insisting the game is on.
If you want to follow along, he’s on Instagram here and YouTube here.