I KNEW I was having a bad day in the Phoenix Park 10-mile race last Saturday when, a couple of miles from the finish, I was passed by a very small child. He was accelerating up a slight incline at the time and I couldn’t live with his injection of pace. So, humiliating as it was, I let him go.
It was no consolation that he wasn’t actually running. He was only about 10 months old, after all. My real rival was his father, who was simultaneously outpacing me while pushing a buggy – albeit one of those sporty three-wheel models that combine aerodynamic efficiency with passenger comfort – one-handed. And yet it was the baby who seemed to mock me.
This is not the first time I’ve seen a buggy-pusher in a road race. It’s a growing part of the sport, and mark my words, it’ll be in the Olympics yet. But it was the first time such a combination had overtaken me and it came as a shock. Even so, I took it on the chin, as just another of the humiliations an off-day can inflict. When you’re not going well, you have to accept it. The important thing is not to stop, no matter how great the temptation.
In fact, I had already stopped twice by then. First for a quick Gerard Depardieu, as it’s now known. On another day this could have waited, but when you’re suffering already, any unnecessary added layer of discomfort can be the straw that breaks you. And so it was later, when my sweat-soaked T-shirt started to oppress me and I stopped again, long enough to throw it away.
As a statement of intent, however, I tore the race number off first and resumed running, clutching the piece of paper in my fist. With this, a feeling of mild heroism arose and, as often happens at such moments, I thought I heard the theme from
Chariots of Fire
. That was when the buggy passed me, whereupon the music faded.
Still, I made it to the finish, and the race announcer gratifyingly noticed. “There are people coming in bare-chested,” he said, “but they’re still carrying their numbers to show they entered.” Indeed, crossing the line, I held the piece of paper aloft, like it was my athlete’s licence, and tried to ignore the suspicion that, running-wise, my number was up in more ways than one.
Then it was into the chute of glory, where all the pain is rewarded with a goody-bag and water and a free banana and flyers advertising other upcoming opportunities for suffering. And there too was my nemesis, looking relaxed in his buggy, and none the worse for a 10-mile spin. “What time did he do?” I asked his father, thinking myself witty. “It’s a she,” the man corrected me, gently. Talk about rubbing it in.
THE PHOENIX PARK experience reminded me of another, sadder, family tableau I came across recently in the course of my – obviously inadequate – training schedule. It was two weeks ago in Paris, where I’d just run a few laps of the Jardin du Luxembourg. Now I was stretching near the main gate, when a man and boy walking along the footpath nearby caught my eye.
They were headed for the Metro. But the man was very drunk, so it was a slow process. The boy – his son presumably – had to coax him along, sometimes urging, sometimes smiling indulgently at his father’s struggles, while all the time keeping a safe distance lest one of the old man’s intermittent growls turn into a wallop.
He was a sweet-faced child of about 10, but I guessed this wasn’t the first time he’d had to fetch his father, whose face betrayed years of hard drinking. And because you don’t see much obvious drunkenness in Paris – the man was from south-east Europe, I think – this inversion of the proper parent-child relationship was all the more poignant.
Anyway, after much cajoling, the boy finally got them both as far as the top of the Metro entrance. Here, however, his father recoiled from the prospect facing him, like it was the descent into Hades itself.
Pathetically, his son even showed him how to do it, performing an impression of a drunk leaning on the stair-rail while descending (and still keeping a safe distance). But after two steps, the man refused to go further and slumped down. Whereupon the boy, his smile vanishing, sat down too, looking suddenly weary.
I was in danger of overstretching at this stage, while pretending not to watch. And dripping with sweat, I would not normally have imposed myself on company. But neither of the parties was likely to object. So introducing myself first to the responsible half of the partnership “C’est votre père?” – I addressed the man as politely as I could: “Puis-je vous aider, Monsieur?” He grabbed my arm like it was a lifebuoy and, maybe spurred by shame, jumped up and bound down the stairs beside me in seconds flat. At the bottom, he thanked me profusely. The boy thanked me too, smiling again. On which happy note I left them, feeling a small glow of virtue.
It didn’t last long. After all, I knew, helping them down one set of stairs wasn’t much use. Heading for the showers, I took to wondering how many more flights of steps there were to the platform, and whether they had a ticket or would have to jump the barrier, and how many steps there were at the other of the line, and how far and often that poor kid would have to carry his father in life before, if ever, they both made it home.