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| In the long run, it's all about having fun |
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| Club runners come from all walks of life |
Day 209
The long Sunday run, it was decided, would take us as far as the Tower of London, where we would take the last opportunity to see the 800,000-odd ceramic poopies, planted in the grounds, each flower representing one of the fallen in 1914-1918 war.
The run was 11miles, there and back from Greenwich Park, at an easy 9-minute mile pace, so plenty of chat.
Our company consisted of a barely employed writer and editor, an architect, a doctor, a psychiatrist, an arts promoter, a fund manager or somesuch...I don't know what the others do, but sometimes we also have a painter and decorator and a shop worker with us. All walks of life, many different nationalities, a wide range of ages, some of us are rich, some are poor, some have children, some do not. All of us love running.
Yesterday Kathrine Switzer referred to running as the great leveller, because when you're all dressed in running gear and working up a sweat, no-one is thinking about how rich and successful their companion is, how fortunate or unfortunate. That is the message we need to get across when we're trying to spread the word about how good running makes you feel. Kate (a doctor working in the field of women's contraceptive health in Woolwich) and I talked about 261 Fearless and its aim to reach out to disempowered women. However, it is so hard to try to promote physical activity to those who most need it. An irritatingly bouncy, fit, sporty type telling you to go out for a run when you're depressed, stressed, impoverished, beleaguered, comfort eating and smoking but hating yourself because you're overweight and breathless after walking half a mile – well, you'd tell them to f*** off, wouldn't you? So how do you try to get the message across without alienating people? It will need to be handled with delicacy and imagination. Enthusiasm is not enough.
Pause for thought, if not silence:
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