I learned to drive when I was about 13 at the front of our
family house in Kirk Michael. At the same age I entered my first out of school athletics
event (other than country sports) covering 8 miles in the TT Relay
Walk. Reflecting on my 42 years of
competition whilst on holiday recently I realised just how much my driving during
those years had mirrored my athletics.
Father's company car (Triumph 1300) gets some extra mileage from a 15 year old driver
I passed my driving test within three months of my 16th
birthday (you could and still can learn to drive at 16 in the Isle of Man) and
I am not proud of some of the reckless things I did behind the wheel of my
parent’s car soon after. I was also reckless in sport entering long distance events and
walking 39.5 miles when I was 17 and worse, damaging my back doing unsupervised
weightlifting at school.
During my student days I always assumed that a car would be available
to me when I returned home (I could buy a car later) and without any long term
plans as an athlete I entered which ever races I felt like always assuming that I would plan and train when I chose to.
The family Hillman Superminx is used to used as a taxi with a 19 year old driver at the TT relay walk
I bought my first car in 1979 and it looked much better on
the outside than it was under the bonnet. What looked to a high performance car
drained my bank account with repair bills and with a mortgage to pay the
following year the car soon went. I just
about turned my body into a high performing athlete for a year or two before
the rust under the surface emerged as the intensive training exposed the back
injury incurred at school.
"Go faster" headlights on the only car I have ever owned (Vauxhall Chevette) driven by my friends during the 1980 Peel to Douglas Walk
So, only four years after I started serious training and bought a car I had retired and was hitching lifts. I met my wife (who had a car) and we vowed that we would manage with one between us. As the training miles shrunk (mainly running around Nobles Park) the car driving was also restricted with child seats being added.
By the time we bought a new car, the mileage was low as I
was working in Douglas and my training miles were also at their lowest as I
worked silly hours in the office and did silly things on committees when out of
the office. My running mileage faded even further.
There was a rare divergence between car and body in 1995 when I decided to run a one
off marathon at London and although the car was going fine my body gave up.
Marathons are addictive and I have been trying to get one right ever since.
In 1999 we finally got a second car. For a long time the car
was only being used two or three times a week which is why it lasted so long. I was just recovering from a stress fracture
and so my running was also low again and this extended my running career.
Both cars are in Marie's name - our first new one (Vauxhall Astra) lasted 11 years. The second hand Clio appeared in 1999 and has outlasted the driver!
By 2007 the first bits of rust were showing on the car just
as my breathing began to fade and I developed exercise induced asthma. Soon
after I started using the car every day when I began working in the south of
the island. Soon after I started running every day in a “make or break effort”
to overcome my breathing problems.
Every year I ignored the signs that said the car couldn’t
last for ever. Training daily for the first
time for 25 years brought my best age related running performances and for a time
the pains were ignored. My body made more and more strange noises and clicks
and grinding became the norm but like the car it rarely failed completely.
The car has started to misfire but the body has given up
first.
The weekend after the “No Rest for the Wicked” series I got
a sharp pain around my hips. Instead of taking myself off the road or at least
pulling into a garage I continued on my way to the Amsterdam and London
Marathons. The twinges I have been getting in my knee for the last four years were
coming hourly instead of daily.
When I went on holiday I was in pain from knee and hips after
driving for more than 45 minutes. Like most runners I thought it couldn’t be
the cause of my knee and hip pains because I was fine when I was training it
was only afterwards that the pain came.
Sometimes you remember that a car has a reverse gear too. I
took a few steps back, After running every day since the London Marathon and
only missing 10 days in 17 months, I saw the light.
There is to be no Amsterdam Marathon; there is to be no
London Marathon; there will be no more long runs. Although I have been getting
medical advice it’s me who has to decide that the time has come to move off the
road. I’ve been off it for 15 days now. I’m
not looking for or expecting fixes.
Borderline - a new Toyota Avensis on the English/Scottish border in 2003. Its still on the road despite a near write off a couple of years ago.
Only a few carefully run cars go right around the clock;
only a few carefully run bodies manage to go longer than 40 years.
There are off course a few classic cars that are taken out of the garage to make occasional
short runs. That is my aim from now.
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