A WEEK ago tonight, I was rooting through a dusty old cupboard at home.
"Found them!" I said at length. The exclamation mark was genuine: I was happy to see them.
A pair of running shoes - box-fresh, blinding white, never worn. Bought in 2009, part of a get-fit campaign that lasted roughly as long as it took me to take the shoes home and put them in the back of the cupboard.
They would still be unworn had it not been for the sight of all these Commonwealth Games athletes making the difficult look easy. Plus, there was a news story about short bursts of intensive exercise could transform our lives. The story was aimed at the over-60s, but the basic principle seemed sound enough.
Shoes, running socks, shorts, sweatshirt. If nothing else, I looked the part.
I did a few dimly-remembered warm-up exercises that set off a small but worrying chain of creaking and snapping noises, then set off on a run. My first in 20 years.
"Fine evening," I called out cheerily to a neighbour walking his dog. I jogged through a car-park then onto a grassy path. Fifty, 60, 70 yards. One hundred.
Somewhere around the 200-yard mark I hit what we endurance athletes refer to as 'the wall'. I had to stop. My heart was beating as fast as a fire raiser's. There was an unignorable pain in my shins. And I had the beginning of a stitch in my side.
I knew I wasn't fit but I didn't think I was that unfit. I tried again, further along. Thirty yards, and no further. I walked through a quiet stretch of woodland where no-one could see me run a few yards and grind to a queasy halt.
Eventually, I made my way up a steep, narrow, tree-lined back-road. Seven cars came up the road behind me. For reasons I can't fully explain even now, I started running when I heard them, so that the drivers would turn to their passengers and say, "Good on that old guy, running on a steep road like this". As soon as they were out of sight, I was on my knees.
I took a short-cut home and passed the neighbour and his dog again. They exchanged a glance that said, "Thirty minutes? Bloke's not much of a jogger".
At home I peeled off the shoes - slightly scuffed, by now - and threw them into the back of the cupboard. They'll stay there until the 2018 Commonwealth Games, or the next news story about exercise, whichever comes first. I know which one my money is on.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article