Charles Mingus - Cumbia & Jazz Fusion

The first time I ran a marathon, I did everything wrong. Of course. Everybody does.

I went out too fast, smashing through the first 10k, largely to overcome the massive panic attack I was having. I completely underestimated the amount of nutrition I would need and didn’t start taking on fuel until I was hungry, which is way too late.

Come the 30k mark I was cooked. My glycogen levels were in my boots, I could hardly put one foot in front of the other. I was, as they say, ‘bonking’. If you’ve never experienced this, it’s hard to describe just how fucking awful you feel. I had taken my headphones with me, so decided to play myself the list of pick-me-up music I had made for just this occasion.

Somehow, Charles Mingus’s Cumbia & Jazz Fusion had found its way on to the list. It’s nearly 28 minutes long. It wasn’t what I needed at all. What I should have done was get my phone out and flip forward, but my brain had lost all sensible decision-making capacity, so I struggled through. It was a long 28 minutes.

I haven’t felt able to listen to it again until this morning. I still find Cumbia & Jazz Fusion a bit re-traumatising, to be honest. However, Music for “Todo Modo” is great.

This was written as a film soundtrack, but was left on the cutting room floor. The sleeve notes gloss over this and don’t mention that it was described as a “dump” of previously discarded material, preferring to say it was because of the director’s deadline problems.

I’ve run quite a few marathons and ultra-marathons since, and don’t even bother taking my headphones with me. I just make sure I have a plan and try to stick to it. If it still all goes to shit, which it occasionally does - because sometimes, man, it just ain’t your day - I suck it up and try to make the best of it. There’s probably a lesson for life there.

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