Things are trying to get back to normal. The old normal. The post-mid-September normal.
The new enemy has been the skies. Most runners like a bit of rough in the weather department. Rain is to running what vinegar is to chips: greater than the sum of the parts. We can even embrace the stage or two beyond mere rain, but there’s a limit to this pain-pleasure principle. Snow is usually good, but ice is pushing things just a little. Too much of a good thing.
Here in Berkshire, the festive cascade began the day after the last entry. I’d been out for a dogged, and very cold, 4 miles. Within minutes of reclaiming the warmth, and emerging from the shower, I glanced through the window and was startled by the sight of dense snowfall. Without any wind, it seemed weirdly benign. This wasn’t a hostile blizzard, but some sort of performance, or decoration. Easy to think this way when you’re behind glass, with the central heating turned up. Much less comfortable for the commuting millions. My county, and Hampshire, were reduced to barely twitching shadows of the modern world, brought low by just 3 or 4 inches of snow. Hardly extreme conditions, but enough to catch us out and cripple us. One of M’s bedraggled workmates gave up trying to get home to Bristol, and sought shelter with us for the night. More than 2,000 vehicles were trapped overnight on the Basingstoke ring road. It was taking 6 hours to crawl your way out of Reading town centre. In a car. Sounds like the other sort of crawling might have been quicker. The road through our village was filled with a long stream of stationery vehicles, many eventually abandoned. The pubs throbbed with the spirit of the Blitz, as travellers planned their escape from the wintry siege.
I had the chance to survey the chaos next day, when I managed a sprightly-enough plod around the block for 4 snowy miles. But now, the charming powdery snow of the day before had started to turn into compacted ice in places. The recently-bought off-road Asics Trabucos were put through their paces again, and seemed to pass muster. The frozen paths offered up a couple of involuntary pirouettes, but nothing that an instinctive flurry of flailing arms couldn’t deal with. My ego, and arse, remained unbruised. Despite the 4 juddering miles, the warning was clear. This wasn’t a time for road running, and with no realistic chance of getting to the gym, I postponed my athletic comeback yet again, retreating instead to the pub to plan my post-Christmas strategy.
M was ill over the holiday. Combined with the parlous state of the roads, we were forced to change our plans. Instead of driving down to Wiltshire on Christmas Eve, to stop over with her brother and family, we collected some local supplies and dug ourselves a cosy snow hole. Mercifully, this meant no turkey this year. Instead, as the icy wind whistled metaphorically through the leafless vines, I toasted my nuts on the open fire, roasted a loin of pork, and sought comfort in the wine rack. The time had come to crack open the first of my stash of Chateau Cissac 2006. Wisely, I’ve made sure most of the Bordeaux 2005s I bought en primeur are still in storage, leaving me only some cheaper and younger stuff for the occasional hint of the pleasures coming down the track. So it’s now one down, 35 to go of the Cissac, which was more forward than I’d feared. It will never be great wine, being just a little under-strength in the fruit division, but it will be a good one, and once it had assimilated itself with an hour or two of convivial festive air, revealed itself as an already very drinkable young claret.
I pigged out on Christmas Day. Like some urban conurbation, where once big towns with their own identities are merged by the sprawl of unplanned suburbs, Christmas Day ceases to be compartmentalised into set-piece meals, attached to different bits of the day. Instead we have some amorphous gloop of fuzzy courses, linked by a conveyor belt of chocolate and crisps and nuts and mince pies.
No surprise then to find myself 7 pounds heavier on Boxing Day than I had been a fortnight earlier. Time to act.
The following day, I made it to the gym for the 10 o’clock spinning class. This was an hour-long, post-gorge ‘special’. It was intended to hurt, and it did. Sixteen of us set off on the descent into masochistic hell, but only fifteen reached the destination. One hang-dog guy drooped off after half an hour, defeated.
By now, I’d learnt that the following day’s 6-mile cross-country race at Cliveden had been cancelled. The email explained that the estate had suffered “heavy snowfall and extensive ice”, and wouldn’t allow the race to go ahead. Exasperating, but at least there was enough time to plan an alternative jaunt. We ended up with an unscheduled overnight stop at the out-laws in Sussex, where I had the chance of another plod along the Worth Way, a 7 mile trail between Three Bridges, Crawley, and East Grinstead. One of the rare, unpredicted benefits of the notorious Beeching Axe in 1963, the path alongside the long-abandoned railway line is now largely a secluded, verdant trail, friendly to runners, dog-walkers, and assorted ground-staring thinkers.
It’s also a path favoured by the widely-revered Seafront Plodder in his rare bursts of running enthusiasm, and I rather hoped, and feared, I might encounter the great man. My wild imagination could see him clearly enough, his fearsome visage distorted by athletic effort, steam streaming from his nostrils, like some crazed mythological monster, crashing through the undergrowth in search of a decent breakfast. But the affable beast never materialised.
Still in the Sussex groove, I wondered whether Sweder was afoot this morning. His own much-written-about paths are 20 miles south of here, and greatly more dramatic. Those ceaseless adventures on the high trails of the South Downs can sound fearsome, yet it’s hard not to be envious. That said, I could have done much worse for myself in West Berks. We don’t have much in the way of hills, but there’s something about the tranquility of a rural canal towpath, and the network of leafy bridlepaths and farm tracks, and the ancient deer park, that I’d hate to lose. It’s all about finding the best in what you have.
Talking of different terrain, on Friday, New Year’s Day, I have a 10K race in central London — a very long way from the isolated, high peaks of the South Downs, though arguably, the route, through the stately splendour of Hyde Park, alongside the Serpentine, isn’t quite so far removed from the familiar forest footpaths of Berkshire.
After my patchy December, I was looking for a confidence booster on the Worth Way run, but it didn’t quite deliver. I managed 9 miles, a good enough distance, but it was fitful and unconvincing. The first 2 or 3 were strong and confident, but after taking a wrong turning, and having to back-track through a housing estate, I seemed to lose the initiative. From that point onwards, I was leaden-legged, as though I’d suddenly remembered my strenuous spinning session of the day before. I was able to keep chugging along without stopping, but it was a slow and uninspiring adventure. I can’t blame the weather this time — it was as perfect a winter’s day as could be hoped for: cold, but with strong sunshine. And the path, as mentioned, was mostly quaint and peaceful. On my ipod, a peculiar mixture of Kraftwerk, the Choir of King’s College, and an audiobook of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, kept me bemused for well over an hour and a half. I will have better runs than this.
A day later, at lunchtime today, and back in West Berks, I was out once more, this time in nasty, stiff, cold rain, for my standard 4 mile-ish jog around the block. The small country lanes I use were flooded and still icy, and I had to watch carefully as each foot was planted. So no auto-pilot mode today, and with ankle-deep puddles to negotiate, and cold wet feet almost the whole way, this wasn’t the run I’d hoped for either. The sky was grey and dismal, and the heavy, splashy rain didn’t help to lighten the tone.
That sounds far gloomier than I feel at the moment. It’s true that I’m struggling to get out of this December dip I created for myself, and have lost a big patch of hard-won ground, but I’ve been doing this long enough to know that it can, and will, all change again very quickly. I can’t pretend to feel confident about doing well in Friday’s 10K, but it’s a great way to spend the first day of what I strongly believe will be a great running year. I’m in a much better position than this time last year. The weight is about the same, but it was on Boxing Day 2008 that I yanked my calf muscle for the first of three times in quick succession. It meant a long break, and a cautious, anxious winter and spring. Touch wood, there’s not been a repeat, even though the longer runs, like yesterday’s 9 miler do always jangle a few tendons in that area, just to keep me awake to the possibility.
