Run the tangents

On finding the through line when life throws you a curve

Photo by Jean-Philippe Delberghe on Unsplash

“Is running the new writing?”

A writer friend asked me this recently. It’s a fair question. My Instagram is lousy with running stories. Sweaty, pouty, self-satisfied. Decked out in polyester tees and half tights, flipping a V to camera, a graphic overlay documenting the time and distance of the run. Then came the medal-draped London Marathon photos.

Grinning, elated, exhausted: I wouldn’t recognise myself either.

When I published my first novel in 2018 to little acclaim, I didn’t take it well. The heartbreak that followed pushed me from depression into breakdown. I moved out of London, drifted into other lines of work, rode the tangents. I was a handyman for a while. Then a carpenter. I became a passionate smoker. I didn’t write for a long time.

Then I met my wife, hit pause on the downward spiral. Got married, had a kid. I walked a ton, started eating well, lost the breakdown weight. It turns out when you stop destroying yourself (destruction is a creative act) you need a project.

So I started writing again.

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In 2023 I began serialising a novel on Substack, sending new chapters three times a month. It was going well until it wasn’t. Stress, work, dadding. After 7 months of a 12 month project, I took a break. A month turned into three. Then death dropped by.

I asked my biological dad, who was a serial commenter and liker of my posts, not to talk to me about the book while I was writing it. No comments please. No likes. I need total concentration (I’m a serious artist). Save your praise for when I’m finished!

He died in November 2023.

He was an ardent fan of my work. But he followed my dumb stupid rules. He would have loved it and I refused to let him tell me. I haven’t opened the manuscript since.

2023 was also the year I started running (not coincidentally this was also the year I turned 40), and once I put down the novel, running became the new writing.

Running has been the project ever since. The love-hate relationship, the source of anxiety, font of endorphins and arbiter of mood, transposed from keyboard to road.

If I was doing well with running I was doing well with everything. A good stride felt like poetry. If I was injured, or had a bad workout, it was a stain on the week.

I got fitter, faster. I learned about nutrition. I researched running shoes. Tried on and returned dozens. Bought too many, sold a few on eBay. Bought some more.

I consumed running media: YouTube. Instagram. Books. Documentaries. I read training guides and started posting shoe reviews on Reddit. I became very annoying to be married to (ok, I was annoying before this, but now I’m annoying about running).

I did my first organised half marathon, a trail run in Sherwood Forest, in July 2023, in a touch over 2 hours. A month later I improved that time by 10 minutes in a training run. I was hooked.

So far, so midlife crisis.

But as apocalypses of personality go, getting into running is relatively low stakes. I’m a lot fitter than I used to be, for one. And it’s not like I got into triathlon, you know? I’m fine being average at one sport, thanks very much.

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I ran London Marathon a week ago, my first attempt at the distance. Dad ran the second London Marathon, back in 1982. He would have been thrilled for me. He would have come to spectate. He would have liked and commented. I’d have let him.

I’m 42 now. It’s been 18-months since he died. I’m working up the courage to reopen that manuscript. In the mean time the curves keep coming: Work. Life. Dadding. Maybe it’s time for a new creative project (destruction is off the menu).

I’m too old to start a TikTok and don’t have the energy to be a YouTuber. I’m a white man, so I could start a podcast, but I don’t have any friends (I’m a writer). I write. So that’s what I’m going to do: write about running. Maybe there’s finally room for both.

tangents is my space to publish essays on running, share thoughts on shoes, gear and running culture, interview interesting people in the running space, document training and races, and go off on whatever tangents I desire.

I’m going to send it out a couple of times a month. It’ll be free to read.

In running terms, it’ll be an easy pace with a gentle cadence (in other words I won’t overwhelm your inbox).

In writing terms, it’ll be the same well-crafted, emotion-driven storytelling found in my other work, but with a few more blisters, and a touch more lycra.

I’m still figuring things out, still navigating the bends, finding the through line. Running the tangents.

Only now I’m doing it with a GPS watch and brightly-coloured shoes.

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Writing about running is the new writing.

Run with me a while.