After my run this morning, I sat in Glasshouse, enjoying a brunch of shakshuka and strong coffee. For the 30 minutes or so that I was there, I watched a clapped-out wasp repeatedly trying to scale the window beside me, only to flop back down to ground level — before immediately starting the ascent anew. For those with a particular interest in wasp welfare, I should mention that I tried several times to open the window to give the little chap a helping hand in reaching the fresh air he craved, but I was eventually advised by the watchful waitress that the window was screwed shut. Unlike my wife, I’m not a keen handler of creepy-crawlies, and flightless wasps … …
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It’s been an odd few days. Wednesday’s hike around East Dean and the Seven Sisters was splendid but it knocked the stuffing out of me. I was still sensing the retreating ripples of stiffness this morning, four days later, but a sunny Sunday morning was too irresistible, so I pulled on one of my Almeria shirts and headed out. Glad I did. A warm weekend means a busy seafront, and would normally be a time to avoid. But my physio had instructed me to “have a proper run” over the weekend, and this was my chance. As it turned out, leaving home a few minutes before 10am was just early enough to enjoy plenty of company while missing the worst … …
Another couple of weeks on from the calf injury, and I’m still on that uncertain frontier between a life of grinning, carefree athletic endeavour and an existence of grey, listless stagnation. But I do at last seem to be facing the right way, and perhaps even edging across the border in the right direction. To test the troublesome right calf, in the last few days I’ve managed to include some tentative plodding in the brisk walks I’ve been on. On Saturday I managed five two-minute bursts of controlled jogging, and earlier this week, on a chilly, overcast seafront, it was six. In between these vigorous eruptions I’ve been striding purposefully for two or three minutes. So far so good. Perhaps … …
Nearly four weeks since my calf pinged while out on a carefree seafront jog, and the light at the end of the tunnel is still only a faint flicker. Last week began with me thinking I’m all sorted now, and ready for a relaunch. So on the Tuesday, I opted to explore the Cuckoo Trail, a local path converted from a disused railway line, a victim of the Beeching Axe, and now part of the Sustrans cycle network. After a half mile of determined striding I exploded into the gentlest of jogs, and a bit further on, a more purposeful run-type movement. All was going swimmingly. This is the life, I thought. Which, naturally, was the point at … …
Injury doesn’t come bundled with many benefits but one of the few is that it’s forced me to look at other forms of exercise, all of which should prove useful for getting back to steady running. Using some recently acquired dumbbells and a kettlebell, I’ve embarked on some rudimentary strength training though it’s annoyingly hard. As is the merciless seat of my Concept2 rowing machine, or erg, as it’s sometimes mysteriously called. It’s surprising, and gratifying, how quickly one can get back into rowing. It’s good to make use of the equipment though as it’s an unconcealably large object that doesn’t justify my ownership if unused. I have to keep the beast upstairs in a bedroom as it’s the … …
Wednesday Today, without a care in the world, I set off on a sunny seafront jog that would lengthen my runs further. Yesterday it was 2 x 10 minutes. Today I was pushing that to 12 and 8-minutes. The 12 went well. I walked for three minutes and set off on the 8. Just over halfway through, it happened. The ping.A sudden sharp pain in my right calf. I pulled up immediately and sat on a bench dedicated to someone who liked to sit there gazing at the view. I too felt all at sea. How can this have happened without warning? But then I recalled what I wrote just seven days ago: “The final 2-minute stretch was supposed to … …
Two quite contrasting days to report. Yesterday, the running day, was another bleak and bitingly blustery chug along the empty seafront. Cheerless and forlorn, it seemed like a quite unnecessary voluntary torment while I was out there. But the dutiful deed got done, and afterwards, as always, I was pleased I’d stuck to the plan. Talking of plans, the estimable Tom Roper mentioned on the group Facebook page that his personal fitness guru had recommended moving from 5K to10K by increasing long runs by 500K every three weeks. There’s mileage, as it were, in this idea. I’d already been mulling over the fact that both the 5K and 10K plans I have in my spreadsheet deal only in minutes of … …
This step back into winter is just not funny any more. Should long, baking hot summer days ever become fashionable again here, I’m sure the cooling breeze off the Channel will be a good thing but in wintry times, these same maritime gusts mean another layer of pain, and I heartily disapprove of them. While the more sensible folk of Eastbourne were wrapped up like Michelin men, the blank-faced joggers were chugging along in their own icy little worlds, wondering what the hell they thought they were thinking of when they opted to set off from their centrally heated homes. That’s how it felt to me, anyway. But I got through it — my 5-minute and two 8-minute runs, each … …
A long and busy day for a retiree, starting with a trip to the seafront for Week 5 Day 2 of the programme. A time will come when I run down to the sea, but that time hasn’t yet arrived. Although the English Channel is visible from the upper storeys of my residence, it’s just too far to bother getting there on foot at the moment. Google Maps reckons it’s a 30 minute walk but I’m sure there are faster routes, employing the warren of alleyways and shortcuts which I’m currently unaware of, but which I’m sure must exist. So I drove down and parked on a residential road by the front, then strode off for a 5-minute warm-up walk … …
Week 5 starts with a departure from the C25K script. The stipulated R5m, W3m, R6m, W3m, R5m was what I managed on Sunday, two days ago, and two days earlier than scheduled. I could have repeated it but craved some sense of making progress so I wrote my own prescription of R3m, W2m, R5m, W2m, R7m, W3m, R3m, W3m, R2m, amounting to a whopping 20 minutes of purposeful, confident, sinewy, seagull-scattering galloping down the Promenade. Or so my turbulent imagination would like to have it. The truth was less alarming and less disruptive to all creatures of the seafront, both human and avian. Apart from the ever-wary dope smokers, all remained unperturbed, even insouciant, as I briefly flickered through their … …