“Just recount in your own words, to the best of your recollection, what happened” I say. “I know it’s been a while. I won’t interrupt unless I feel a clarification for those reading might be useful.”
I offer those words to the shape on the screen and sit back. I’m sat in my office, brightly lit with the late afternoon sun. On the screen, looking intently back at me, is Ed Cod. One of the Sexy Walrus crowd, Cod has agreed, in the aftermath, to help me recount the events of the Sexy Walrus SwimRun 2021.
“Please, proceed”
—
Cod sits back in perfect unison with me. I study him. He provides a human touch, a refreshing ‘everyman’ type of mundaneness amidst the athletic excesses of the Walri.
One of the few survivors, I was delighted when he agreed to be interviewed.
—
Cod starts to recount:
– “Alex called me on that Friday night.” His voice initially cracks hoarse but gains confidence as he pushes on. ” ‘We need to Prime some swim run gear! Hand pads, tow floats, pull buoys!‘ “ Al stammered to me.”
– “What did you make of that?”
– “That’s just like Al, I thought.”
– “What is?”
– “to panic in perfect iambic pentameter.”
– “Ah. What did you do next?”
– “I replied “You should have thought of that in better time” pleased with myself for the metre.
– “No I meant for the race. How did you feel looking ahead?”
– “Well I’ve never done a swimrun before, but looking at the Walrus map, I knew that I’d run and swam all the distances listed individually at some point in my life. *Surely* I could put them all together. In one go.”
I sigh inwardly, but this is precisely the kind of normal human oblivion I want to showcase.
– “OK, Cod – by the way do you mind if I call you Cod?”
He gives a strange, strained look.
– “No one’s ever asked me that before.”
—
Cod looks calm, but his hands never stop moving. He’s holding something – I look closer and see it’s a pair of goggles. He writhes them back and forth in his grip.
In my staring I catch something utterly ‘off’ about the scene in front of me, but my mind won’t resolve it. It passes, and I press for more information.
—
– “OK Cod, take us to the start of the race. Most races they let the quick athletes start first, but that wasn’t wasn’t case here. Why?”
– “It’s a Walrus tradition I think. They like to send the slowest first, who then get pointlessly overshot within the first 5-10 minutes of a 2 to 3 hour race, by a snarling pack of actual athletes. Presumably as punishment.”
– “So you set off, everything’s going well. Where did it all go wrong?”
– “If I’m being honest” comes the aggrieved reply, “it was the shoes that got me. I’ve never swum in shoes before. And let me tell you it’s godawful, it slower than you can imagine. Unless you have a float, which everyone else did. And I didn’t. Nor did Al. So my feet were encased in a sodden mass of weighty fabric utterly useless for propulsion. If I were to pinpoint anything, it would be the shoes. Then the Clumps. Then the chafing.”
—
Cod looks haggard. I wonder how long it’s been since he’s had to process this event. I peer again intently at the screen. The thing that seemed “off” previously is back. I can’t put my finger on it. No matter. Press on. I try to focus on the positives.
—
– “But surely there were some good bits?”
The change is apparent. Ed Cod’s eyes light up, the goggles in his hands sit still. It’s then I get the interview I searched for.
Cod replies, with a renewed energy.
– “I mean you’ve gotta hand it to them. The event surely showcases the best of the Walrus crowd. Fantastically organised by Bill, George and others, diligently and pleasantly marshalled by the marshalls. And for us, the participants, say a first-timer like me, getting outside with an active crowd of madmen, challenging yourself to allocate energy to running then swimming, then running again, then swimming again…. then … well you get the idea. Not to mention diving in to a cool welcoming river and plunging away until a friendly face beckons you out. Rinse and repeat. Out on your own, and yet part of a herd. Surely, if nothing else, that captures the essence of the Walrus swimrun.”
In that moment I realise that Cod has moved through several levels of grief and arrived finally at acceptance. He seems pleased and happy to call himself a Walrus.
—
Immediately I feel something lift. I look again at the interview screen. My eyes refresh and clear, I shake my head and recognise immediately what was wrong that my brain had failed to respond to previously.
The screen was off.
I realised in that moment it had never been on.
My own reflection was staring back at me, tired beyond words, a face lined with clumps and chafing. My own voice was in my ears and I realised I’d conducted a strange self-interview mere hours after completing the SwimRun. The recognition of the enjoyment of the day, the acceptance that it had all been worth it, had sparked me out of my reverie and back into the room. Tea and some alpine milk chocolate beckoned.
I leave, while my sodden shoes hum faintly in the corner.
—
