I'm writing this from the comfort of my couch. Yet another snow storm has pulled a grey blanket over the sky, but Duke and I sit contentedly by the fire, watching the Olympics. This is something I have never done during my adult life.
Watching these athletes, what strikes me isn't the speed or the strength. It's the ease. That particular illusion elite sport creates - bodies doing impossible things and making them look easy. The result of many years turning the impossible to inevitable. From the couch it just looks beautiful.
My Achilles tendon is not quite as enthusiastic about this daydreaming. A tendon generally prefers a warm climate and mine spent the winters making a compelling case for relocation to the Southern hemisphere. I've spent the winters ignoring it just enough to stay sane.
The funny thing is, resting it properly - actually resting, not the athlete version of resting where you swap the long run for an aggressive session on the stepper - means I can get up and do things. Most things. Things that have nothing to do with performance or preparation. Duke and I went for a walk yesterday with no watch, no plan and got lost for a few hours. He seemed confused. Frankly, so did I.
Watching these athletes I catch myself wanting to climb back in. That's the nostalgia talking, and I've learned not to fully trust it. Memory is a romantic historian. It only files the highlights - the oxygen going straight to your legs, the deep joy of an audacious plan coming off - and quietly loses everything else.
The physio appointments that turned 35hour weeks into 50hour weeks. The mornings you got up not because you wanted to but because stopping felt worse than continuing. The extraordinary daily effort just to stay in one piece long enough to race.
I wouldn’t say I miss the suffering. I miss the meaning. Elite sport isn’t addictive because it’s painful. It’s addictive because it’s clear. You know what you’re chasing. You know where you stand. The couch doesn’t offer that. It offers comfort. Comfort is kind. But it’s vague.
The sun came out around three. My buddy Oriol Cardona won gold for Spain, and I watched him cross the line, and that was that. Duke looked up as I reached for my shoes. He knew. The tendon had opinions. We went anyway.
Back on the couch, one thing remains- it feels so much better after a run.
Jan and Duke
