In the swim
Jeremy Clarke
This summer I bought a book called The Royal Marines Commando Total Fitness Programme by Robin Eggar. In it, Mr Eggar promised that if I did the daily exercises I would progress from 'Couch Potato' (Level One) to Tat Civvy' to 'Nod' (Marine slang for new recruit), to 'Marine', to 'Commando' (Level Five) in just 16 weeks. I read the book closely twice, bought a new pair of trainers, a set of weights and a rucksack, and resolved to carry out his instructions to the letter.
For the first week I tried to familiarise myself with the circuit-training exercises, which had to be accomplished six times a week. As well as the usual Press Ups, Sit Ups and Squat Thrusts, there was an exercise called The Bastard. It involved doing a star jump from a squatting position and shouting 'Bastard!' at the star jump's apogee. I made Bastards my speciality during that first week. I did them in the hall and frightened visitors with them. And I looked forward to trying the more complex Full Bastard in Level Three, and, if I got that far, The Full Bastard with Clap in Level Five.
Unfortunately, in Week Two I took up smoking again after 12 years. A big cigar at a bullfight, a couple of joints, and that was that — I was back on 20 Lambert and Butlers a day. By Week Three my Bastards tally was half what it had been in Week One. And by Week Four, preferring to smoke rather than eat or breathe, I'd given up the training programme altogether.
I lost a stone in under two months. My legs, never very strong, became weaker than ever. My posture collapsed. Even my eyesight deteriorated, I felt ill and old. Instead of being able to swim two lengths of the local swimming baths underwater, no trouble at all, I could manage only half a length. Then I found I was getting out of breath just getting changed in the cubicle and stopped going swimming altogether.
It was a complete debacle. But, my goodness, how I enjoyed smoking. Smoking made me feel calmer, wiser, braver. And the knowledge that I was doubling my chances of getting heart disease or lung cancer wasn't frightening, it was sexy. I loved that little bite at the back of the throat. I loved offering my packet to other smokers, who invariably turned out to be far better company than the non-smokers and fitness fanatics with whom I'd associated previously. I loved the standing up and hieing counted as an anti-social element. (I was escorted out of Bristol airport by a security man after lighting up near the departure gate and nearly thrown off a train by a conductor for leaning out of the window and smoking. The strength of feeling of both these robots was extraordinary.) And I loved taking those ten-minute timeouts just to smoke and stand and stare, before returning, a little light-headedly, to work.
But after about 5,000 cigarettes, I started to miss the swimming. I used to go three times a week, lane swimming, hat and goggles, pounding up and down for at least an hour at a time with all the other sad blokes who swim because they aren't getting enough. It came down to a decision, I sadly realised, between smoking and my beloved swimming. Doing both was out of the question. The cigarettes would never stay alight for one thing. And if I chose smoking, I'd probably never have the energy to laneswim ever again.
It's a wonderful world. Can't get it up? Try Viagra (please ask your chemist for Mycoxaflopin). Glum? Here, have some Prozac. Want to give up smoking? The range of nicotine replacement therapy products behind the counter in Boots is astonishing. There are patches, lozenges, inhalers, sticks of chewing gum, suppositories too, probably, if you ask for them. Gone are the days when you had to use patience and will-power to achieve anything.
I started with the patches. They are flesh-coloured, about the size of an old half-crown. I stuck them to my face as a reminder to myself and others that I was giving up smoking. But after a few days I was wearing the patches and smoking as well and my heart was in a permanent state of tachycardia.
I did the chewing gum next, but abandoned it after meeting a very nice PR lady who was still chewing the stuff two years after giving up. Then I tried the lozenges. You put one in your mouth every hour, or two hours if you can hold out, for six weeks, then you cut down to one every four hours and so on. I spent a small fortune on enough lozenges to last me six weeks, and to my great surprise gave up both the fags and the lozenges in just six days.
I'm already back up to three sets of 20 Full Bastards a day, one of which I do, to the delight of children, in the changing room before entering the pool.
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