Eighteen years ago, after I'd finished my A levels, I was worried that I was fat and had decided to do some regular running to get rid of my horrendous obese stomach.
I imagine at the time I was under 12 stone and looking at photos of myself from that time I see a lean and handsome young man, a picture that is seriously out of line with my self-image at the time.
What a bloody idiot I was.
I used to run around Cheddar resevoir with my friend Brian Bancroft (I don't think Geoff Quigley ever came along, but he might have done). I was pretty good at running back then. I have a memory of once running round the rezzy twice in about 32 minutes. That's probably about right. It would be around 4 miles. And I was actually pretty fit back then, though I didn't realise it. And I never got hangovers. Well, not in the way I have come to understand now I am old.
I stayed with my parents last night, who were understandably proud to have come to the gig and seen their son discussing anal sex and ejaculating over people's faces in front of their friends and neighbours. I decided to see how I matched up to the 18 year old me (it's a recurring competition I am having this year) and went to run round the resevoir. I may be two stone heavier and my hair may be greying, but I've been training for a while now, and was pretty confident I'd be up to speed.
Brian Bancroft is now a dedicated health care professional who looks after the disadvantaged in Derby, so I didn't call to pick him up on the way.
In the old days I think we didn't start running til we got to the resevoir, but I thought I'd give the old me (by which I mean the young me) a chance, so I ran the mile from my parents' house.
The path round the resevoir itself seemed very familiar and I remembered all the gates and the towers and the sheep crap very fondly. A few lads fishing barracked me sarcastically as I passed them and an old lady walking a dog said hello. People in the country are friendly.
Just as it had 18 years ago my pace picked up as I passed the people milling around the yachting club. I completed my first lap in a disappointing 22 minutes. I seem to remember doing it in 14 quite regularly, but then I had had Brian Bancroft as a pacemaker (though he was quite a poor one as he was usually lagging behind me).
I didn't feel up to picking up the pace on the second lap. Again the fishermen sarcastically cheered me on and I waved as if I was Paula Radcliffe (or some good male runner. I'm not saying I waved like a woman with a lolloping head). I passed the woman and her dog again. Ha. I'd almost done an entire lap and they'd only managed a quarter. I was going way faster than them. Even if I wasn't beating the young me, I was thrashing the old woman, who was making no attempt to even walk quickly. As hollow victories go, it was a fucking triumph.
"You're doing well," she said encouragingly. Though neither of us could pretend that there wasn't a hint of sarcasm and mickey taking in her voice. Even so I tried to pretend there wasn't and thanked her.
As I ran I looked around at the beautiful Mendip hills, shrouded in low cloud and the fields stretching off into the distance. This had been a great place to grow up. An oasis of peace, where the worst thing that a group of seventeen year olds were going to do when they caught you alone by an isolated stretch of water was to mildly take the piss.
The eighteen year old me had been lucky in many ways that he hadn't appreciated. Not that he hadn't been right to be anxious to get away and see the real world (well go into the real world and then fail to really notice any of iot, because he couldn't afford a guide book).
The rest of the run was fairly uneventful, apart from an incident where three dogs started chasing after each other and got shouted at by their owners. As I was on the home straight, I passed the old lady again. She'd done another quarter and I'd managed a bit less than three quarters (she was catching me up). "Nearly there!" she joked.
Well not if I was doing three laps I wasn't. Somehow she had worked out that I wouldn't be.
I got round twice in around 48 minutes.
The eighteen year old me would have probably lapped me.
Then again the eighteen year old me was a virgin who spent most of his time trying to learn Monty Python records off by heart and who made thirty pounds a week picking mushrooms. And who couldn't even drive.
So I think I'm still the real winner here.
In a competition between me and myself.
Maybe "winner" is a slight overstatement.
