Paul Comerford

May 2025

The spring Greek heat is intense as I stagger up the hairpins, through the Aleppo Pine forest. The smell of resin is concentrated under the hot sky. Crickets chirrup and grasshoppers fiddle in the bosky groves. A single cicada tunes up with a “zizzzzeeeeee” from its invisible perch. I’m at a high point in Raches after climbing from Patitiri for two long miles. My thighs are not feeling bad, my breathing recovers quickly. I’ve finally adjusted to the heavy mileage and the coming 100k suddenly feels less daunting. Alónnisos is the perfect place to tune my training. At the top of the hairpins I pause. A Sardinian Warbler scolds me from the bushes. The heat beats in my ears, and I feel whole once more. The smile that comes is from somewhere deep. It comes from my inner springtime.

From Raches I can relax a bit and run freely, turning into the pine forest along a track, undulating but easier. Then, down a narrow footpath, through an olive grove, into the deep woods. The path is rocky and root-entangled, so going down it at more than a shuffle, occasional jog and walk, would end up in a fall. My footfalls are muted by a layer of old pine needles. Before long I pop out at Agii Anárgiri where I can stop the watch and enjoy my visit. Here, two little churches peer over high cliffs which tower above the blue Aegean. There is no one else here. That cautious, downhill mile has brought me to one of the prettiest places on the island. Erhard’s Wall Lizards seem to be everywhere – the males greener, and both sexes larger than those elsewhere. It is a place of peace.

Looking across to Skopelos, the view shimmers. It is very hot. Yet, at long last, I’m confident in my strength. I miss speed. Not the sub-6 minute mile pace of my younger days, but the sub-10 cruising speed of the more recent, older me. Those previous versions of me are still inside, but the machinery has aged; tuning and maintenance is a fine art when applied to a vintage machine. For now, I have the strength and endurance I need. Speed will come later.

I set off back along the rocky path – stumble, trip, shuffle. Then out onto an undulating dirt track where I can relax into a faster pace. The red dust flies around my ankles as I start to feel better – my confidence is back. 11:22. A big climb up the Tsoukalia road to the top, then down towards Patitiri. The heat is draining, but I run quicker on the metalled road. 10:40 for the fifth mile, then down the hairpin into town, past the end of the Donkey Track, through the buildings (hardly any traffic), past Archepelagos, my favourite taverna, and along the harbour’s edge. The final mile takes 10:19. My average pace is a healthy 11:27 – not bad for such a hilly, hot and dusty run.  

Later, I saw my Garmin Connect App was showing something new. My Training Status had turned magenta – I was peaking! It confirmed what I already felt. The doubts I had in April were silenced. All I needed to do was manage the next month and I’d have a good chance of finally running my first 100k, the Race to the King, in June. I’d gambled with a relatively short buildup and, though not quick, I’d established a solid base of endurance. I would not be hung up on speed. I knew I could complete 100k… 

… Yet, new travails arrived whilst under the blue Aegean sky, and before the end of May, I’d withdrawn my race entry.

Running into Darkness

As I write, it is February 2026. I’m well on the way to 1900 days of a running streak. Yes, I’m still running every day. I have done for more than 5 years. Even if I only manage a mile, it means I’ve been out there, no matter what. Running is my barometer. It shows me how I truly am. If I’m very down, my run will always make me feel better. That, in itself, shows I still have plenty in reserve, even if I sometimes feel I cannot endure what life throws at me. Without running, I may have fallen so far, that I might never have recovered. That daily act of putting one foot in front of the other, for at least a mile, is primal. From this I can regain my strength and face anything.

I lost one of my twin sons in 2024. I’ve written about that extensively in previous blogs. I realise we all grieve differently. Adding to this, there are other variances that come to bear. Losing a parent is awful. Yet, there is a natural continuity in the timeline of such painful events. Losing a child is so different. Even after two years, I cannot process losing my son, Glenn. It is so personal that nobody else can relieve the pain. I’ve learned that common clichés are untrue. Time does not heal. It cannot. Rather, one becomes strong enough to carry such sorrow. If not, you can fall a final time. I have discovered that sometimes grief arrives and is my companion for the day. I can do nothing to change that, so I let it walk with me, until it decides to go. I accept this as normal. It doesn’t define me, but it is part of who I am. I hope I’m kinder, wiser, yet firmer in my resolve to live a full life. I thought I’d endured enough, but life became unforgiving again in 2025.

In late May we lost the most venerable, senior member of the family. A kind, wise loving patriarch we all loved absolutely. Immediately our lives changed and any plans erased from the calendar. The 100k was gone. It had become unimportant. Then, to my great shock, in June my first wife, Lynne, died after a long illness. My surviving son, Iain, had lost his twin brother and mother in just 15 months. Life seemed so grotesquely unfair. All I could do was continue my supporting role. I had to. I’m the old silverback of the family, now. At such times of bereavement, families rally and close ranks, help the ones who need it and share the burden of grief.

How does one get through? Cry, feel sad and lost. Howl at the moon, if you must. It’s all ways of coping and relieving the pressure. I did all of it. One thing I stepped back from was self-pity. Once self-pity gets hold, the drive to keep living flickers. Self-pity is a cliff edge below which is only darkness. You make yourself the only victim amongst others who hurt just as much. It becomes self isolating, and worst of all, self perpetuating. The only way to endure is to keep moving forward. If you cannot help yourself, find strength in helping others. Talk to friends. Stay busy, even if you have no motivation to do so. In the end you will get momentum back. That forward movement keeps you ahead of my metaphorical Reaper Man.

I am a runner. It is my escape from the madness. I am also a writer. In the last seven months I’ve found it hard to focus on prose and content. Yet, Racing the Reaper Man has always been my way of encouraging forward momentum. I am not an elite athlete. I’m nothing but a normal chap. I’m also getting older at an astonishing rate of knots. So, once the initial impacts of the last couple years had eased, I felt able to complete the blog posts I’d drafted out in 2025 and left in limbo. This one is an amalgam of those unused sketches.  Thus, by keeping busy in what one enjoys, one can proceed onwards. With momentum, one moves from darkness into a new day.

Embracing my 70^th Year

I was born on 1956. Bloody hell. That means, by the end of September, I’ll be 70-years old. I have to blink at that as I write. As I can blink at that, it also means I’m still alive. Reaching the start of 2026 has been a symbolic rebirth for me. For some, New Year’s Day can be shrugged off. Dry January can be scorned as a gimmick. However, I find I need that ephemeral frontier between the years to step into a place where, psychologically and physiologically, it feels like a new start. And, with so much pain punctuating my life from 2021, my 70^th year, proper, looks like a chance to move in clear air.

Upon reflection, I had started 2025 in good shape after shaking off a long-term, chronic injury. I hauled myself into 100k shape, but had to let that elusive distance go for another year. Through all the months of support, love and repair, of learning to carry grief without falling, I kept running a minimum of a mile a day. My intention was to increase my training mileage in December, through early spring, and to run the Springtide 50k again in late March 2026. After that, peaking for a summer 50k and make my long awaited 100k debut after my birthday. A sound, longterm goal. All looked well. Then, 2025 decided it wasn’t finished with me.

In October, kneeling whilst fannying around in the lounge, twisting and generally doing nothing too active, I buggered my left knee. I gave it no thought. As I stood up I got a twinge. It was a gentle be-buggering. A day later it hurt more. I kept running, but it was sore, especially when standing from a sitting position. Straight to Ricky, my physio. Yes, I’d inflamed my knee. After a bit of treatment, I left with some exercises and a ‘not too many miles’ instruction. It got a bit better.

Then, in December, after a trail 6½ miler, it got uncomfortable and twangy again, and decided to swell a bit. Back to Ricky in the first week of January. Now, Ricky is very good, I trust him implicitly, and he is also very kind. Instead of calling me a twat, he used his 3D models to show me what the problem was. I left with more exercises and the knowledge that I had to do something sensible, for once.

This latest setback became a monster in my head. In consequence, that elusive 100k is in danger of becoming a mental block. A nemesis. An impossible barrier. There is no doubt that I’ve started to overthink the bloody thing. I needed to get back to basics. Thus, I’ve had a stern word with myself, and readjusted my plans for the lead up to my 70^th birthday. I’ve abandoned the spring 50k and decided I must get this knee properly healed. So, I’ll run a road mile a day in my well cushioned Hokas, and religiously do my knee exercises. I did start an icing and compression regime, but found it was exacerbating the injury. So, I reduced the level of compression and used a heat pack. The upshot – by early February the knee was very close to being fully recovered.  And that’s where I am. I will not start any build up until my knee is fully restored, and stronger. That may be as late as March. I can do lots of core work instead. I’ve started looking for a July or August 50k.

I keep copious running records. My Running Logs stretch back to 1982, to the very day I started. In the most recent few, I’ve kept a count of calories, booze units etc., too. I’m honest with myself. I noticed I’d grabbed for the single malts far too regularly over the last two years. It shows an almost unconscious step to using booze to cope. And that’s what I’ve done. That one habit is not a good one to leave unaddressed, as it can engender reliance, then worse, allow self-pity a route in. You see, my son died of alcoholism. The shock of seeing where I was going felt like a betrayal of any lesson I should have learnt. I realised I needed to embrace Dry January. I’m starting to consider a longer period of abstemiousness. Now, here I am in February, with the pressure of heavy training removed, and totally sober every day. The net result is I’ve regained my energy. The sluggish start to the day has gradually evaporated. And I’m sleeping again. The nightmares have gone. I am determined my knee will be stronger once it’s fully repaired.

Laughter is Sunlight

As I keep up my run through life, I seldom mope about the past. I look at it through a type of rearview mirror. I’m fairly lucky as I quickly forget unhappy times. I can do that as I make sure I learn from them. I carry the lesson, not the pain. I also find humour in most everything. It’s the way my mind developed. I’m glad it did. Starting afresh without humour would be like befouling one’s underpants, then changing one’s shirt.

Laughter is the best drug. Comedy is a parody of life. Comedy is a mirror for us to see how ridiculous we can be. It is not literal. I’m of the mind that it should not be censored. There is no hate in any true comedy, just a big mirror. An example is the fart. It is always funny. Even if I’ve had disasters whilst running, with the fart, the tale is hilarious forever after. There is a borderland where unfunny people are cruel and resort to mockery to enhance their bigotry and standing with fellow arseholes. That is not comedy. Laughing to such nastiness shows fascist tendencies. Anything else is down to choice. Never cancel, just ignore.

It is February 2026. I have caught up with myself. That is where I’ll leave this blog. I’ve moved beyond darkness into the sunlight of a promising 2026. Sleep and no booze has transformed me. My mojo is back. I’m getting things done. My daily mile is quicker than before. My knee is getting better by the day. My 70^th birthday has hove into view and it no longer worries me. As a V70 I can write a new chapter in my running life. Let’s see how 2026 goes.

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