Features and blogging

There may be some mention of running on my Insta feed from time to time. Not because I’m super-sporty, quite the opposite. I bunked off PE at school, forged perfect sick notes (for prices click here), spent my 20s and 30s joining-then-leaving various fitness clubs.

In Singapore, I took advice from a friend in our condo gym and went from half-hearted treadmill sessions to tarmac running, much to the amazement of my sporty husband (and anyone else who knew me). I had found my sport but that’s not to say I adored it. Still don’t.

It’s like running through treacle most of the time. Podcasts and music help, I find it impossible to run without something in my ears, and I have a running playlist. One tune popped into my ears just now, while battling a stormy morning after no sleep, a side-effect of this busy festive season.

The song became a running tune for me in Summer of 2017 when we had moved back to the UK. A best friend was ill, much further along the path than anyone first thought, to a point where The Elephant could no longer be avoided. We met when she felt up to it, set up a friendship group to share updates, lived with our breaking hearts in our mouths through late summer and into autumn.

The person for whom it mattered most preferred not to think of her own situation, a technique also adopted by my late mother. It’s a not-uncommon approach and one to be respected, which we did. When this tune popped into my head and reminded me of The Elephant, I decided not to send my friend the link. The lyrics were too close to the mark, but the simple fact was I just couldn’t share it.

Coldplay is a band over which the world is split, like Marmite - you either love the soaring ballads or hate the queasy listening. Our friend was a fan from the start, and the band reminded everyone of her. She and her husband saw them live. She attributed a song to our friendship. Most poignantly, her children chose a favourite track to remember her by at her send-off.

Well, during the Summer of Her, one such song was all over the place, painting pictures of her wherever I went, in the car, in shops, all over my running playlist. I had signed joined our local Park Run at my keep-fit-fanatic husband’s advice. Five grisly kilometres every Saturday come rain or shine over woody terrain, with a huge hill in the middle – twice. For my first one, during that ghastly uphill limp, Mr Fairy ran backwards beside me shouting ‘you can do it’, as that tune played in my ears. Just past the 4.5-minute mark the violins come in and you feel like you’re in Chariots of Fire. Every time I got to the top without a pause, couldn’t see for tears, couldn’t breathe, but did it.

Favourite songs are often overplayed and this one is no different. But it will always sit deep in my bones, and always gets me up the hills, pulling me along on cold grey runs. I may pat my pockets for tissues but it’s my power tune.

More than a year has gone by since our friend went through passport control to Over There. It doesn’t really matter that she never knew about the song, because isn’t it just the simple recollection of her that keeps us all motoring on?
It was dark. Now it’s sunrise.