The tube that last two, three or four hours

Sea: often flat. Trail up side of the hill: always there

As far as 'one-with-nature' experiences go, there is very little that beats riding a tube on a surfboard. You're sucked into a vortex which is spiralling chaotically but is at the same time a very peaceful place to be.

And if everything goes right, after the period where you are poised in the middle of the vortex, where time stands still – which is in reality a matter of a few seconds in all but the best spots – then you emerge a changed person.

But tube-riding is a rarity for most surfers, which in turn makes it even more elusive for those who are not lucky enough to experience riding waves.

It's a good thing that surfing can fun even when there are no tubes - when the wind is onshore, the rain is pelting down and the waves are barely waist-high, a session can still be rewarding. Like the old cliché goes, a bad day on the waves is better than a good day in the office.

Sometimes, the riding of a wave can be the icing on the cake, after fighting mountains of whitewater and chop. I remember even if there were no tubes and I dug a rail on every wave - the ones that didn't close out - there was often a sense of satisfaction when walking back up the beach towards home.

Battling through the shorebreak taking one paddle forwards then five paddles back, only to sit outside waiting for a wave that never comes, staring at the horizon for a lump – these are all aspects of wave-riding that surfers love. Or at least reminisce fondly about, especially when they are living hundreds of miles from a decent beach.

Having growing up three minutes walk from the beach, I now live a long way from the sea. But I am happy to say I can still get that same satisfaction I used to get from being pounded by whitewater or managing a decent carve on a wave. I get it by running on trails for a couple of hours or more. Not training – that comes under the category of tiresome preparation – but just running.

And by definition, the sense of well-being is easier to get from running than it is from surfing. Heck, all you need to do is put on a pair of shoes and head to somewhere there aren't any people. Unless you are incredibly lucky or rich, it is next-to impossible to duck out down to the beach and score perfect uncrowded waves on a daily basis.

I have never met anybody who equates running with surfing – after all, when I was a kid, surfers were work-shy bongheads, while runners (or joggers, as they were then) were career people who huffed and puffed in their garish shoes and sport-specific tank-tops training for various races.

But just as I never entered a surfing competition, I don't have much desire to enter many races. I have done a few – I first got into running because I signed up for the London Marathon – but the idea of joining thousands of people in the hunt for a personal best is the furthest thing from my mind when I head out for a run.

I just like getting out on my own, in my own head. The deserted trails and hills are my tubes. And if I want, I can ride them every day.

Listen up: Why I Run

Here's a picture of what I see most of the time when I run - a trail. It doesn't matter where it is, or how you get to it, but what is important is that there isn't much there, except trees, a few birds and the occasional deer.

I presume that fishermen who speak either English or Polish also travel along this trail towards the pond out of shot to the right, judging by the signs telling them to eff off, but I have never seen any, day or night.

It is this lack of civilization that makes this trail so good. Because it gives me a chance to talk to myself. And answer myself, with very few interruptions.

There are a lot of cod psychoanalytical answers to why we run (it is my thinking time, it clears my mind, it defrags my brain...) but the best one I have heard yet was from Anton Krupicka, the semi-naked Colorado-based ultrarunner.

In his blog for Running Times, he hit the nail on the head (for me) and transcended the run-of-the-mill navel-gazing that runners can drift into when he said he listens to himself when he runs. Or, as he puts it lets "anything and everything and nothing bop in and out of my mind without intent". The full post is here.

Krupicka, to those who have never read his well-written blogs, has built himself a reputation as a nomadic, philosophising mountain man who happens to run long distances and, on the odd occasion, drink beer.

What's not to like?

But apart from my admiration for a drinker-runner who likes the outdoors (and who hawks a decent line in shoes), the listening bit struck a chord with me. Because there is hardly a run goes by that an idea, revelation or random thought pops into my head - and more often than not, I am able to debate it, mould it and turn it into something I can use in another part of my life. Of course there is a lot of mindless chatter, but in the slurry of brain-dumping, there is always a nugget of something useful.

And in listening to my own intra-brain babble (it gets less babbly the longer I run) I have learned to be patient with others' scattergun ideas, when in normal social (or social media) circles.

In the sort of world where people demand a platform and a captive audience - let alone one that agrees with them - in the space of a few seconds, it helps to be able to recognise and listen to the important bits.

And, getting back to that picture of the trail, if you are able to filter out the static (either literally, by surrounding yourself with a serene scene as above or psychologically, by screening out the crap) then life is a lot more calm. No matter where you go.

How to Stave off Depression in One Easy Step

When you are a doctor your power is immense. They have the means to save people's lives and to prolong them. The drugs they give out can have a profound effect on people and their well-being. And when they screw things up, they can really do damage.

When I met my wife she had been diagnosed with depression a few years before. She had been prescribed anti-depressants - Effexor, the flavour of that particular month, so to speak - and took them daily. She said if she didn't take them, the withdrawal symptoms were quite severe.

A few years into our relationship she decided not to take them anymore, but instead of going cold turkey (which she had tried before and gotten massive headaches, dark thoughts and nausea) she opted to wean herself off them.

I have vivid memories of us cutting pills into thirds and quarters in coffee shops, laughing at the time because we must have looked like desperate addicts trying to eke the goodness out of the last of our stash. But she needed to do this in order to maintain enough of a dose to stave off the withdrawal symptoms but still reduce her dose.

After a good six months, she was off them - just as evidence started coming out that Effexor were quite nasty indeed. Just Google the name and you'll come accross endless tales of spiralling into depths that most of us can't imagine.

But just because she was off the pills, it didn't mean her depression had gone away. The symptoms came and went in waves, according to how much she drank or how tired she was from work - but she did a good job of carrying on regardless.

And every time she went to the doctor for something else, they always pointed to the fact she had had depression in the past - one even brought it up when she had broken her wrist, as if the two could somehow be related.

Quack after quack tried to foist various potions onto her in order to "cure" her of depression. Tranquillisers, feel-good pills, various riffs on Effexor - she was offered them all. But instead she tried thinking her way out of it. And it worked to a certain extent.

But after our daughter was born, some symptoms came back with a vengeance, along with a chronic sense of fatigue. It wasn't just because of the broken nights' sleep, because this went on for 18 months. Again, doctors looked to the symptoms and immediately diagnosed depression - and, young lady, why not try these pills?

Admittedly one tried blood tests, but found nothing, so diagnosed ME, or chronic fatigue syndrome. Well, at least it wasn't depression.

But then she did something that helped her no end. Or rather she stopped doing something. She gave up wheat.

Not only did her energy levels rise and her digestion improve (I didn't go into details about that bit, I have to confess), but also what she termed a "fog" lifted from her head. Optimistic thoughts began to flow in.

As these good thoughts were appearing, her mind had been on the default setting of being depressed for so long, it demanded to know why she was being so damned positive.

But the fact she was thinking positive thoughts was a massive step forward - and because the fog had lifted, she was able to rationalise the 'good' thoughts as the way things are for the rest of the world.

The giving up of wheat came about because a friend of hers had suffered from ME as a teenager and she had also been told to omit it from her diet - and had seen improvements. But for it to drasically improve my wife's outlook on life in general was something she had not expected to happen.

It was such a simple thing to do - because giving up wheat isn't the biggest sacrifice in the world, by a long shot. I would say swearing off coffee, beer and chocolate would be a lot more difficult to do than steering clear of bread, pasta and cereal.

Sure, our evidence is anecdotal - my wife only knows it works for her. But as it hasn't involved a radical change in lifestyle and certainly nothing could have got any worse if she tried it, it was worth a go. As treatment regimes go, it is pretty damn low-risk.

But here's where I get a little perplexed. If the answer was so simple - and, as the internet has shown us, far from unknown - why didn't one doctor in the last 10 or 12 years suggest to my wife that perhaps instead of taking a bunch of pills which will at best numb your brain a bit and at worst make a person suicidal, she change what she eats?

It can't be because it is in their best interests to peddle the pills they have in turn been peddled by smart sales reps who give generous gifts at Christmas time. Could it?

Gives New Meaning to the Phrase Chariots of Fire

This is childish, but... hee hee hee.

I'd have thought that it was a given - no need to put it on the sign.

The Story of Fat Mike (not that one)

I used to know a man called Fat Mike. This wasn't his real name, nor did I know of anyone calling him that to his face. But his name was Mike and he was fat.

He never said much. He didn't need to. He used to walk around the place with a half-smile that suggested he knew something that you didn't. He liked pizza, computer games and wearing fishnet tank-tops. And spending money.

The most he spoke to me was when he knocked at my door on a summer's day. I hadn't seen him for around three years - he had moved towns for reasons I will divulge later. He stood on my doorstep sweating and without a "hello" he pointed at my car and asked: "Do you want to buy an engine for that? I've got one."

I told him I was OK thanks, as my car already had an engine. "Oh," he said. "Well, do you want to buy the body of a Vauxhall Viva? It doesn't have an engine though."

It is worth pointing out that this Fat Mike never sang for NOFX - nor did we even know of a band called NOFX fronted by a man named Fat Mike when our guy had the same name bestowed upon him. This was 1991 in a far flung Southern Hemisphere country, we were still getting used to the idea that Elvis had died.

Anyway, back to our Mike. He went to university, which is where I first met him, for about a term. He arrived in town with $3,500 to his name - after paying his fees - which was more than enough to get him started with a place to live. Back then a lot of students got Government grants to live on, so he was OK.

Or he would have been if he hadn't rented the 46in TV, the top-notch washing machine and dryer. Not to mention the fact he bought a Nintendo whatever-they-were-called back then, with a stack of games.

He wasn't exactly frugal with his energy consumption either. As well as having a clothes dryer, he used to use the oven to deal with his wet clothes. And when he wasn't drying stuff with it, it was kept open to heat the house.

His room-mate - who commented that Mike displayed the territorial instincts of a wolf by leaving underwear in every single room except his - once found a couple of pairs of kecks under the grill. When he asked why, Mike apparently replied: "I need them today and they are wet." His room-mate moved out soon after.

As the oven was used as an express clothes dryer, you'd be right in thinking not a lot of cooking went on in it. In fact aside from the fridge, nothing in the kitchen saw any use whatsoever. But the local pizza delivery soon knew Mike on a first-name basis.

I have been told that within weeks of Mike moving into his apartment, pizza boxes littered the room - to the point where he put one down on the floor so as to get himself a drink, only to lose it among the detritus when he stepped back into the lounge.

I know this because another man I knew - let's call him Shane - went round to his house three days later, found the uneaten pizza still in its box and polished it off.

Predictably, after this high living, he landed himself in a spot of debt. In fact he ended up in hock to the tune of around $7,000 after one term. That's over $10,000 spent in less than three months. It may not sound very excessive to many now, but back then many students lived for an entire year on $7,000.

So Mike did what any self-respecting young man would do: he moved back with his mother, in a small town about two hours' drive from where the university was. But just because he was under Mum's roof didn't mean the debts disappeared.

They followed him, because when he signed up for his apartment, he had left a forwarding address. He hadn't planned on skipping out on bills; it just turned out that way.

So he did what he felt was necessary: he looked around his mother's house for something to sell. And he did find one object, in a small downstairs room. In fact it was in the smallest downstairs room.

Yes, that's right, he sold his own mother's toilet. I am unsure as to who he sold it to or how much he got for it, but sell it he did. And to this day, despite many enquiries, I do not know what his mother's reaction was when she found a space where the bowl and cistern should have been in the downstairs bog.

I hope for him she was understanding. Because he was living by the (not-so) age-old adage: If life gives you shit, sell your mother's toilet.

Simple is Best? Most of the Time it is True

There's a saying popular in Japan that 'simple is best'. The saying itself is pretty self-explanatory and can be extrapolated thus: if you over-complicate things, you may find yourself in trouble.

The thing that got me thinking about this was yesterday I went for my first-ever run barefoot. I don't mean wearing those gorilla-feet things, I mean with no shoes. It was only a short one and off-road, so as not to attract too many weird glances in the decidedly normal town I live in.

And guess what? I survived it. No busted knees or punctured feet – in fact afterwards I felt pretty good. I might even do it again. Maybe there is something in this whole barefoot running movement. 

Running for about 45 minutes on my barefeet got me thinking about other sports – and the fact that in themselves they aren't all that complicated. It is just people on the periphery that make them complex. Take football, or soccer, for instance.

I went to a press conference the other day featuring the recently reinstated England captain, John Terry. The reasons for his demotion and subsequent reinstatement have been well-documented, but if you are unfamiliar with the story, then this is a good link.

As captain of England and Chelsea, his club, Terry is in charge of 10 other players, who are paid vast sums of money to kick a ball past 11 more men who are paid just as much. Simple.

In fact the game is so simple that people are forced to look beyond the actual game to come up with something interesting about it. Such as the fact the England captain has done the nasty with a team mate's ex-girlfriend.

Or another player is so annoyed with his manager that he leaks to the press a (true) story of him working his way through the female portion of staff at the club.

Or the notion that a rival club "hates" another and therefore will provide a backdrop worthy of a soap opera or professional wrestling tournament when they meet.

As titillating as these stories may be, they can get a little tiresome. Especially when you realise that sport is supposed to be simple.

To go off on a tangent, simple worked for the Ramones, who made a 20-year career out of three chords played with as many instruments. It works for a meal, as any steak or sushi-lover will tell you. It also works for beer, as the best brews often have just three ingredients.

And, as I found as I ran down the trail holding my shoes in my hands, it can work for sport as well. Just as long as you don't overcomplicate things.