Jamie Dobson

Simon, in response to your comment.

In 140 Characters
4 th rdo shw we hve a ftre tuesdy tries & i sd lts do a hlf-mrthn, I sd ny cnt cn rn a hlf-mrthn ts a pce of pss. Nw we r trng & tryng 2 gt ft & rn am*dam mrthn in oct.

Radio Show
Simon, as you know already, the English Breakfast Radio show was started by Andy Meredith and a rag-tag bunch of volunteers some five years ago. I am not 100% sure what his goals were, but to me the show was always about connecting the expatriated community to the Dutch one and vice versa. A pet hate of mine is moaning ex-pats, and in fact Mike Berry, of the Friday show, has a nice feature called ‘Angry Ex-Pat’, which is a satirical take on moaning foreigners. The show is, then, at the very least, a way for optimistic ex-pats to counter balance all the moaning fucks. A noble goal, I hope you’d agree.

The show grew from one broadcast on Friday to a show each morning. Recently, it started broadcasting in The Hague as well as in Amsterdam. And this year we started broadcasting during Friday’s drive-time (17-19). For the last year, I’ve been helping out on the Tuesday morning show. The Tuesday crew have a feature, ‘Tuesday Tries’, where one of the hosts has to do something like speed dating or get a pipe put in their bottom. Mark had the idea that we could run the dam-2-dam, a 16km annual race between Amsterdam and Zaandam. That was going be our Tuesday Try. Mark organised a Dutch trainer, who came onto the show, and off we went. Unfortunately, it turned out I’d double booked myself and am on holiday that week. So, not wanting to renegade on the deal, I said I’d run the half-marathon.

The Training Story So Far
The training, to begin with, was simple enough. We had to run, three times a week, for 20 minutes, followed by a 1 minute rest, followed by another 20 minutes. On a Tuesday, straight after the show, we do gym work, to strengthen and stretch our muscles and tendons.

Although I’ve done a bit of moaning – and I dare say it was justified, I have spent a lot of time in pain or with toxins flowing through my body – we’ve slowly made progress. The second week was 25-1-25 + gym work. The third week, last week, was 30-1-30, in which time we covered about 11km, which has a marked improvement on the first week. My mate, Willem, you know him from touch, said something like this, ‘boet, you’ve got to do one long run a week’. With this in mind, Mark and I decided to take the train out to Schiphol and run back. Unfortunately, he’s pulled a muscle in his arse, and I had to do it yesterday on my own. I couldn’t believe how long it took me to get away from the airport… it was just there, constantly. I’d ran for 30-60 minutes just to get around the perimeter. For the last 50 minutes, I was just making sure I put one foot in front of the other. I stopped briefly to stretch, but I did it, chopping 16kms, about 10 miles, in 1hr 50.

The Two Hour Goal
In the beginning, I just wanted to get round the race, that would have been an achievement. But, as we’ve moved on, and we are seeing what we might be capable of, I’d really like to do the race in under 2 hours. I’ve spoken to my father twice about the race. The first time I heard him draw breath, which means he’s stopped listening and is awaiting a break in my voice in order to air what’s in his brain. He said, ‘you can’t run, you run like a giraffe’. The second time we spoke, he said, ‘I did it when I was 40, without training’. He did it, he thinks, in 1:59. Obviously, I am not having the 40 year old version of my father beating the 34 year old version of me. No way Jose (Gonzalez).

Yesterday was a landmark because I wanted to know if could keep going for about 2 hours. Now my training will be simple, to keep going for 2 but covering more distance as I get towards the 22km mark.

Why?
When my brother was at school he climbed up the curtains during registration, I don’t know why. The teacher asked him to get down. The next time she looked up from the register he was up there again, hanging from the top rail. It’s a famous story, that teacher told it all the time. It seemed to me, when we did things wrong, the teachers would ask, why did you do that? And I think our answer, maybe implicitly, was, why not?

I think Mark and I are quite experiential, I think we just wanted to see if we could do it, to see how our bodies would respond.

Why Blog?
As a writer, I have, over the last few years, come to despise blogs. They are the most restrictive form of writing I can imagine, and they make me think that being a journalist is the shittest job on the planet.

As a writer, there is something deeply satisfying about crafting a piece of text, essay, or novel. Keeping a lid on your creative tin is like masturbating – you get to come when you want. The problem with blogs is that they blow the creative load too early. Writers tend to forget what they’ve written and shared – which is why I think writer’s workshops are to be avoided, too – and so blogging is a stupid practice if you are a serious writer. (The biggest mistake I made, as a fledgling writer, was to share my projects with other people.)

Secondly, blogs are usually badly written. They do not give a writer a chance to showcase their talent. What people care about, people, relations, etc, cannot be explored deeply in a blog. For those who try – I’ve tried – the result is clumbsy and hurtful. We write fiction in order to protect others but also ourselves. Blogs lend themselves to a cathartic release, but that’s the most indulgent form of writing, and that’s the reason why diaries are private. And so, that’s the pickle: the juiciest stuff is the stuff we can’t talk about.

However, with all that said, this running thing, with the radio, is already in the public domain. Therefore, this blog is a way to accompany the show, is a way for those who are interested in our progress to keep up. I suppose it’s scientific too, a place for us to record times, progress, pictures, etc.