TO RUN

The comeback has begun - slowly

Forty eight minutes!

That’s how long it took me to run my first 5k Park Run following heart surgery.

Surgery was a success. Mitral valve fixed. Hole in heart plugged. And because I was lucky enough to have key hole surgery - or minimally invasive -  I was, ever the optimist, expecting to be running again within a few days of having all the wires and tubes pulled out of me.

Except that didn’t happen. I’ll be blunt: I felt like shit.

Swimming could wait, cycling could wait, going to the gym too. But running, and I’m far from a great or even good runner, couldn’t. The great open-air therapy of running along tracks and trails, usually with my dog Dudley at my side, was something I was desperate to get back to.

“Patience.”I heard that word often in those first few days, weeks and months after surgery. Patience is something I do not possess. Impulsive, prone to reckless and irrational decisions, yes. Got those nailed, amongst a host of other traits I could have done without.

“Patience… you’ve just had major heart surgery. You had your heart opened up, stitched back together and there were cameras and robotic arms rummaging about within your chest cavity,” said wife, mother, sister, doctor - or words similar to that anyway.

Throw in some atrial fibrillation; the fact my heart was racing fast, and would for some time, as it tried to recalibrate to actually working as it should and not as a leaky, old sponge, splurging blood in all sorts of directions - I guess I was going to feel a bit ropy.

Despite warnings I went for a secret run at the local cricket pitch within a week of leaving hospital. It was more a shuffle. My chest hurt, my ribs ached, my lungs rasped. I collapsed in a heap behind some dustbins. Cue metaphors about feeling rubbish. I knew then this was going to be a long haul back to fitness.

Why run?

I was a small, wheezy, sneezy, sniffling, highly allergic child. Quite often the words: “Can someone stop him bloody sneezing!” Would ring out in our house, from my father, who was not blessed with much patience about his sniffling son - or much else to be honest.

I would wake wheezing. Then the sneezes would start. I could sneeze up to a 100 times in succession. My nose agitated by the cat, but mostly the dysfunctional heating system in our house that blew mild, dusty air from a couple of vents in the wall and floor.

Things only got worse in the spring when I seemed to be allergic to anything that grew, alongside  anything with fur. I was taken to hospital for an allergy test. Lots of marks were made on my forearm and a small tippet consisting of an array of different elements were placed on my skin. The idea being that a small rash would appear to show what I was allergic to.

When my entire forearm turned red and blotchy and swelled up, the nurse gave my parents a look, raised her eyebrows and suggested we move the Antartica. I imagine I would have been allergic to penguins.

I was the kid at school, although desperate to be involved in all sports, who would have to sit out on the sidelines. Or if I did start, would soon be on the sidelines, sucking on a Ventolin inhaler or be with a teacher as she pinched my nose and shoved tissues up my nostril from my frequent and bloody nose bleeds.

Yes - that was another issue. My nose would start bleeding for no apparent reason. Sometimes during a sneezing fit, resulting in our house looking like the scene of a mass murder, as blood splattered up walls and across floors as I bled, spluttered, sneezed and wheezed.

Perhaps you can see why my dad was rather agitated.

That particular ailment was solved by a hot poker being shoved up my nose which cauterised a couple of weak nasal veins and thankfully put a stop to them. I recall being sent to school straight after with great wodges of cotton wool up each nostril and taped in by masking tape. That was a particularly long day in a 1980s comprehensive school, but it was also a time when you’d only get a day off sick if you lost a limb.

Thou shall not rest!

So my father took me to see Dr Rockley. Dr Rockley had fought in the war, and was a medic in the British army. Dr Rockley asked me to take off my top to examine me and the first thing he said: “This boy is skin and bone he needs bulking up!” For this he prescribed malt extract, which I ingested in great tablespoons every day for the next two years. It was fowl. I was still skinny.

Dr Rockley was not one for pandering to illness and ailments and small wheezy children. So he suggested a different approach. Rather than cotton wool and protect my lungs he suggested a rigorous exercise regime. “We’re going to make this lungs stronger - not weaker’” I recall him saying to my father.

On top of this he prescribed a series of injections. To this day I have no idea what I was injected with, but we took home a box of large syringes that we kept in the fridge. Once a week one of these syringes was plunged into my arm.

This was the 80s - things were different.

Run wheezy, run!

So armed with a new set of inhalers, puncture wounds in my upper arm, this small, skinny, wheezy boy started running.

I would run and wheeze. But I kept running. And - aside from the days when I turned blue and was rushed to hospital - things started getting better. I mean, what doesn’t kill you…

After school I would pop on my tracksuit and plimsoles and head out into the housing estate and just run. I worked out routes all around the estate, got to know every alleyway, road and pathway. Often I would simply run the same loop, over and over and over again, like a wheezy hamster on its wheel. Sometimes my mother would come out as I ran under the orange glow of the street lights, telling me to come in for my tea. Never my dad. I think he preferred it if I wasn’t in the house.

“Just one more lap mum!”

Over time I used the inhaler less. We got rid of the cat. We put a new central heating system in our home. Asthma began to ease; I was not only taking part in school PE lessons, I was winning events. I got in the school football team, went to the district sports days - things were looking up.

But it was the running I loved. And not just running, but running on my own. The constant momentum, the rhythm of feet hitting the ground, the feeling of my lungs clearing and fitness building. As the miles built up, my lungs became stronger and eventually the wheezy, sniffly kid was winning cross country races at school and across the county.

Since then, running has been a constant companion. The days when I don’t run, simply don’t go as well. I’m not as happy. Not as content. There are times when long-suffering wife will say: “I really think you need to go out for a run.” She sees the darkness and irritability that begins to creep over me when I’ve not had my daily dose.

A mostly fortunate life has allowed me to run all over the world. Not just events, but simply going out for a run wherever I happen to be. Trainers, shorts and a top (and a Ventolin inhaler) - that’s the joy. That’s all you need. I’ve run through stinking hot jungles in Thailand, mountain passes in New Zealand, Italy, National Parks in America and Scotland. I’ve run across the Golden Gate Bridge, all the bridges of central London. I’ve run chunks of the Appalachian Trail, through the White Mountains of New Hampshire, city trails from New York, Katmandu, Sydney and Paris to Belgrade, Los Angeles, Perth, Barcelona, Washington DC, Venice and Amsterdam.

Cold, wet, grey and happy

But mostly it’s cold, wet days in Suffolk where it feels perfect. Muddy fields. Boggy tracks. Leaping over swollen streams, grey, menacing clouds almost touchable above. The joy of simply running. Trainers clogged with mud. One foot in front of the other. Dudley at my side. Lungs straining against the damp air, calves screaming at the indignity, knowing that there are far greater comforts in my ancient home by the fire.

But, as Adharanand Fin says in his brilliant book: The Rise of the Ultra Runners - a Journey to the Edge of Human Endurance:

“If happiness wasn’t in comfort, was it somehow to be found in being uncomfortable? Was there some need for those of us with no suffering in our lives, to find some? Because it made us appreciate our homes and our comforts more? Or did suffering a little somehow make us stronger, more fulfilled human beings?”

My ambition - with new heart - is to push harder to find new levels of being uncomfortable so that the pleasures feel more meaningful. Run further. Time is short. Find the solace and purity and calm that I only seem to find in long-distance running.

Four months have passed since heart surgery. It has only been the last few weeks where I’ve felt better, fitter, my heart is beating to a new and healthier rhythm. The distances are growing. My 5k time is down to 30 mins - another 10 mins needs to come off before I get excited, but it’s a start.