Oh yes! I did have one. When I was a university student at Leicester I was actually a member of the athletics team. It started while still at school where I discovered that doing cross-country running was an avenue out of playing rugby. By the time I was settled in at Leicester I discovered that the middle distances suited me best. Eventually it emerged that the event in which the team most needed my services was the 400 m. hurdles. I suspect that a significant reason for this was not my exceptional talent at this race but the fact that nobody else would (or perhaps could) do it. It is, in fact, pretty gruelling,* and requires that the runner maintains an absolutely regular stride between the hurdles. It was probably an accident of genetics that I had legs of exactly the right length to do this. Anyway, I did get to tour the south German universities with the Leicester team, entered for this event.
Why am I mentioning this now? The reason is that it occurred to me today that a significant part of my attitude to life was probably settled and internalised as a part of my training for the 400 m. hurdles. The most important thing is to judge the distance correctly to the next hurdle, so that it is possible to clear it without breaking stride …. one hurdle after another. In many respects that has come to epitomise my attitude to life. I am aware that there is a whole race ahead of me, but what matters most of all is the next “hurdle”. If I clear that, and land on the correct leg, then I’m in with a chance to clear the next one.
This last week has seen the clearance of two events that together constituted the “hurdle” in question. I had to get my work in to the Bradford Open, and preferably accepted for exhibition, and I had to make the trip to Newcastle. Right! I’ve done that. What next? Suddenly the mountain-walking trip to Skye with my Edinburgh friends has become an immediate concern. OK: I did have the foresight to make a little training walk last week, but I actually depart in a week’s time. I had better begin to get my head around that. It is not only a question of making sure that I’m fit enough, I also need to begin to focus on questions such as what art equipment it could be worth taking with me. Are there things I can do of an artistic nature that are going to complement and fit into the activity of other members of the group, and not simply interfere with that? I will have a day to spend in Scotland before we set out. How might I most usefully spend that: the Edinburgh galleries, or something else?
Today, however, my wife insisted that we start planning in detail for our family holiday in October. (October? That’s at least two hurdles away!) She’s absolutely right, of course, and we did sit down together at the computer and look at train timetables and hotel availability, and have ended up with the basic structure of things fixed into place. I have to admit, even so, that to some extent it went against my temperament. The exercise had another valuable consequence, in that it reminded me that the introductory outing of my Italian exhibition is also in October, and whether I like it or not I will be in trouble if I leave it too long before getting stuck into some aspects of the preparation for that.
There are some aspects of life in which the legacy of my athletic career serves me quite well. On the other hand, perhaps there are occasions when it doesn’t pay to remain too fixed on the problem of clearing the next hurdle.
* I do wish that this wretched spell-checker would stop attempting to impose American spellings on my perfectly acceptable British English! Let’s face it, what is the language called?