Our Writer in Residence, Mick Jackson, has published a short memoir, ‘My Running Hell’ commissioned by the Museum as part of his residency and to tie in with the season of sport in London this summer.
Find out more about the memoir in Mick’s guest blog post and head along to Lates on Wednesday where he will be reading small excerpts
By Mick Jackson
I’m your typical middle-aged man: balding, bespectacled and with a bit of a beer-gut. There’s not a lot I can do about the first two, but I try to keep the beer-gut in check by running two or three times a week.
Running’s great – you get to patronize those friends of yours who do no exercise, plus you can get stuck into that great slab of Battenburg, safe in the knowledge that the same calories will be burnt off within seconds of pulling on your running shoes. That’s what I tell myself, anyway.
I’ve been running since my teens, when I was actually built for running and if I need the physical benefits – cardio-vascular workout, etc – more these days, then I also need the mental benefits. After an hour or so shuffling along the Downs I can feel almost human.
So when the Science Museum was scouting around for ideas for a booklet to tie in with the Summer of Sport I thought that perhaps it was time to celebrate the everyday runners who, like me, may fall a little short of Elite standards, but whose heroism is marked by the fact that they manage to crawl out of bed on a Sunday morning and head out into the rain.
The booklet will be launched at the Science Museum Lates event on Wednesday, 25th July. The event is free. The booklet’s free. It’s going to involve a balding, bespectacled middle-aged man puffing and panting on a running machine. What’s not to like?
Follow Mick on Twitter and find out what other projects he is working on throughout his residency.