The Aloneness of the Long Distance Runner

GUEST POST BLOG by Matthew Lidis

You all remember my 600th post by special guest Matthew Lidis which has been viewed 961 times since its publication and over 1000 times by the time this one goes to press. Well my old writing buddy from Salford International University has gone and done it again. This time, he has achieved something pretty remarkable, hang on, I'll let him tell you about it himself. 

"In August 2004 I started running. I was living with my dad as I recuperated from a particularly nasty bout of depression. One night, from nowhere, I decided to put on a pair of battered indie Golas, seemingly the most suitable footwear I had for the task in hand, and ran round the block. It took me about three minutes. On my return I was drenched in a thick, cold sweat and my lungs were burning - the result of a long, fruitful and happy relationship with skunk weed and Embassy Number One. After necking a pint of water and flaking out on my single bed, my breathing and heart rate eventually returned to normal. And I felt, eventually, fantastic. Something had disappeared, something had clicked, something made sense. Within an hour I was raring to get out there again just so I could feel that rush and buzz that had faded far too quickly. The fog I had been swimming around in for the three or four years before had not lifted, but it was suddenly easier to navigate.

Over the coming weeks I could be seen pounding the streets of BL1 in my entirely unsuitable footwear and a broad array of ageing Britpop t-shirts. My distances slowly increased and I noticed my mind travelling to places it had never been before. I would come home from my temp job at a car finance firm eager to get out there on the pavement, just so I could see what revelations my legs would feed to my brain that night. It became clear that excercise was having as much a positive effect on my mental well-being as my physical health - a benefit the PE teachers failed to mention as they berated my teenage rejection of rope climbing and horse vaulting.

I made my way down to London that November and, by then, I had upped my mileage to around four per night. Running had become part of my daily routine, so much so that my new housemates would notice when I had not been for my daily fix. I had become addicted. New doors swing open the first time you take any drug. Avenues painted in never-before seen colours are yours to explore. Running was no different. I was chasing that sensation of release I felt after that first run, just like every junkie does. Without my daily hit I would become irritable and angry, which would melt away after a mile or two in exactly the same way as draining a couple of pints or a few tokes on a spliff.

Fast forward a few more years and, following the death of my mum and a particularly nasty break up, I had learned to cope by means of the all too rare combination of running and drinking. One justifying the other. By the time I was 30 I was happily running eight miles a day, followed by a good few beers or a bottle of wine or two. The carbs from the drink fuelling my running and the running allowing me to feel no guilt about drinking. As my miles/units crept up my thoughts inevitably turned to the challenges these bring. Could I manage a whole bottle of whisky in one go and could I run a marathon? The answer to the former, despite the disturbing events at a house party in Stoke Newington, was a resounding yes. A life goal achieved. I applied for the London marathon soon after. I didn’t get on an ended up running the Blackpool marathon instead. Which was great. I got a good time (3:40) But there was this niggling need to run the one I wanted to. Nine years of rejection magazines later, I finally got on. I was fat, but I was nearly two years sober.

I trained and trained, lost a stone and a half and paid £137 for a night in the Tottenham Premier Inn. As I made my way to Blackheath with 41000 other runners, I felt anxious. People shoved past me to get on the train, nobody talked. A nervous throng and the feint smell of Vaseline. Where was the #spiritoflondon? It was right there, the same as I’d ever known it. Brutal, unforgiving -  like the heat. I dragged myself round the course on the cusp of heatstroke the whole way. I remember very little about trotting through London in 24 degree heat other than the deafening noise of the crowd began to irritate me when I was focusing all my energy on simply not collapsing.

I feel a sense of emptiness as I write this on the swinging Virgin train home, sad that the legendary London marathon was not all I was expecting, although what I was expecting to enjoy about running along with the population of Skelmersdale, I am unsure. I do feel a sense of achievement and I do feel empathy for the other battered runners I see on this train, struggling to waddle up to the toilets. But, most of all, I feel a craving for the silence of pounding an open, empty road early on a Sunday morning. For if this fourteen year relationship with running has taught me anything it is that that my race is with myself and it is one I am happy to run alone."