Fri 2 Jan 2004

YO HO HO, and a Happy New....

[deep sigh]

No. I can't be arsed either. Sorry.

I've had enough of being wished, and wishing, all sorts of delightful things. Let's rip down those dinky little winking lights; the pseudo-magical paraphernalia of seasonal beneficence. Yes, goddamit, I love you all, but I'm just... I'm just bored to death having to tell you, and having to listen to you telling me.

I'm also horribly bored with my illness. It was sorta interesting for a while. All that wacky phlegm, and those awesome Baskerville-like coughs. But these questionable entertainments have been amusing me for about ten days now, and I'm done. I've read the book, watched the show, stamped my way through a few encores... and I've had enough.

Please. Let me go home, curl up in my own routine and sleep it all off. Tomorrow I can rise, run, feel happy and healthy and optimistic again, and actually make some reliable plans.

Plans? Let's talk about plans. My plan is-was-is-was to run a marathon on the last weekend of April. Two weeks of training have now been missed, so it seems almost sensible to think about moving this flagellatory weekend back a bit.

I should be saying all sortsa significant, profound things at the beginning of the year, but all I'm really thinking about is the viscous goo in my lungs that makes me sound like a kazoo each time I breathe.

But as well-meaning types always say of teams at the wrong end of the league: When you're at the bottom, the only way is up.

Hmmm. Have they never heard of relegation...?

Sun 4 Jan 2004

Decision time. I've had to write off two complete training weeks, and I'm still not ready to run, so I've decided to go for the Copenhagen Marathon on May 16th, three weeks after the original target day. That gives me one more week of recovery and easing back, before the start of the 18 weeks.

Why Copenhagen? Well, why not? It's at the right time, it's a place we've not been to before, the race has a good reputation, and flights are cheap. That's it, job done. Copenhagen 2004, here we come.

It feels better to have a definite race now. For the last few weeks I've been aiming for the end of April, but keeping my options open about which event to go for. There's something to be said for not rushing into a decision, but equally, it can give your intentions too soft an edge, and be a bit too comfortable to get things done.

A week ago I said that each week of training should highlight some useful lesson. Well, I've done no training this week at all, but reckon that today's decision points to this: setting firm objectives gives you a stronger sense of purpose, and increases motivation.

Doesn't stop me being a crap runner of course, but it seems I'm now a more purposeful crap runner...

Tues 6 Jan 2004

Email to the Office of the Lord Chamberlain, Det Gule Palæ, Amaliegade 18, DK - 1256 Copenhagen (Hofmarskallatet@kongehuset.dk):

Dear Sirs

We are travelling to Copenhagen from the UK for the marathon on May 16, 2004.

We are arriving on Friday 14 May, but understand that the royal wedding is on Thursday 13th. We wondered if it might be possible to move the joyful event back 24 hours please? In this way, we would be able to attend the ceremony and pay our respects.

I hope this will not cause too much inconvenience to the happy couple.

Thanking you in advance.

Respectfully yours

Andrew

*****

That should do the trick. It's quite heartening to note how many creative diplomatic initiatives one produces after a glass or two of decent port.

Sun 11 Jan 2004

Dear Andrew,

There will be no problem for you to join the festive days in Copenhagen, because the royal wedding will actually take place on May 14, and not May 13.

Best regards

Annegrethe Høffner
H.K.H. Kronprinsens Hof
Chr. VIII's Palæ
Tlf. 33 40 24 43

I'm sure the wedding was scheduled for the Thursday, so I suspect Annegrethe is being a little disingenuous here. Let's just say I think they've been very decent about this.

Today's a great day. It's the day I finally felt well enough to get out there and have a run. Did I say I felt well? This tenacious cold seems finally to have given up the ghost, leaving me with just the hangover and lack of sleep. For some reason (probably not unconnected with the source of the hangover), at 1:30 this morning I hit on the great idea of watching Shawshank Redemption once again. It's an uncontrollable urge I have two or three times a year. When I finally got to bed, at about 4 am, the second last thing on my mind was the idea of a run a few hours later.

At around 9 this morning, I found myself drinking 3 pints of orange squash, and peering through the kitchen window at a sort of biblical tempest. The downpour was impressive enough, but it was the gale rattling the windows that convinced me I should be out there, trotting round the streets with virtually no clothes on.

Not immediately though. Last night's beer had me hovering on the very margins of insanity for a while, but once I finally made it through, around noon, I found myself with the long-forgotten problem of hunting for not very much to wear. Surprisingly, the sun had come out by this time, making it pretty much perfect running weather. Cool but bright.

The medicine was painful. I could barely get faster than an 11 minutes per mile pace. And I didn't really try to. All I wanted to do was get some wind into my sails, and reacquaint myself with the outside world. About a mile in, I got a bad stitch which made me stop. But I tried out a technique I read about recently: strong exhalations through pursed lips, as though I was blowing out the candles on a birthday cake. I was shocked to find it worked, and within a minute or so I was plodding through the puddles once more.

I decided not to push my luck, and kept the run to my normal 3.5 miler through the lanes and past the lake.

It feels good to be back on the roads again - and just in time. My rescheduled marathon means that the 18 week training begins two days from now. I've given some thought to which schedule to follow. Had I been running regularly over the past 4 or 5 weeks, I'd have stuck with the plan to do the Hal Higdon Intermediate. But I need to regain some fitness and work up to those long runs, so I've decided to stick with the tried-and-tested Novice schedule, but ramp it up a bit when I'm feeling fitter.

This week's lesson: again, it's kind of hard to have marathon training insights in a week when I've not done any running, so I'll just create this electronic post-it note with a reminder to myself: Your training schedule is as interesting to others as their's is to you.

Gulp. Better shut up.

Mon 12 Jan 2004

My eyes crashed open this morning to the realisation that today is the start of something big: my 18-week marathon training plan. I was trembling with something that I hope was excitement. If it was delirium tremens, I'm stuffed.

But then I remembered. I admire Hal Higdon for many things, but his decision to make the first day of his marathon training schedule a rest day, must put him up there with Nelson Mandela and Mother Teresa. We salute you, Hal.

I was so keen to do something however, that I got home this evening and spent a vigorous half hour on the exercise bike. It didn't get me very far. But it's a start. Tomorrow morning early, I plan to get out there for an opening 3 or 4 miler. The schedule isn't very taxing to start: 3 x 3 miles during the week, and 6 miles at the weekend. By next week I should have discarded all this Clark Kent apparel, and be well on my way to Copenhagen.

Hurrah!

Tues 13 Jan 2004

Just a mile or two into my first training day, and I'd already decided what my thought for the week should be: running is a secret garden.

Oh yeah? What does that mean then?

Before I get there, I should apologise to people who may have been following this running blog for a while, because I have a feeling I've talked about this one before. Possibly more than once. But I'd forgotten it, and this morning, somewhere round 6am on an unlit, puddled lane in Berkshire, I remembered it again.

I remembered it because a sharp wind was blowing hard through my teeshirt, the rain had begun to tip down, and I'd just crashed through a deep, unseen puddle that filled my trainers with cold, mucky water. I remembered it because shortly after this, I passed a man walking his dog who gazed at me in shock and wonder and fear, like he'd been confronted by some diabolical apparition. I remembered it because none of these things mattered any longer. Running is misunderstood because it's judged and discussed and derided and admired in one universe, while taking place in another.

Every running morning in winter, I open the back door, poke my head into the cold, black world, and wish I was dead. Ten minutes later, the criteria I'd used to summon my demise no longer exist. I've left them far behind in some inferior world: a place where this rain and this wind and that puddle are nasty enemies. In the running world, they are simply textures and incidental music and souvenirs.

There's no reason why apparition-man and his dog should know this. Apart from Saturday nights in the Red Lion, he probably never ventures beyond what hippies used to call his own head-space. He assumes that this wretched pre-dawn jogger is part of the same world he's in; the one where you need to wrap yourself in vest and shirt1 and shirt2 and jumper and overcoat and scarf and woolly hat and gloves and umbrella. Well, instead of the javelin-like stare, he should be wondering why his dog isn't similarly attired. He thinks the dog is on his side too, but a runner knows the truth. Now, I have about as much interest in dogs as dogs have in algebra, but even I can see that this one was pining for a sprint through the puddles. Wasn't he?

Woof woof...

Where's this leading? It's leading here >>>> A ponder on the subject of motivation...

Runners who bemoan those phases when they lack the appetite for it are missing some useful truths. The weather's too cold or too hot or too wet or too windy, they say. Often, they're encouraged with something like: "Just get out there and run. Remember, it's never as bad as it looks."

The bad news is that usually it is as grim as it looks, and often even worse. The good news is that it's just a temporary state, a necessary evil, like the hassle of the airport before we go off on holiday.

When I go out for a run, I'm really just heading for somewhere else. I'm on my way to find a sort of secret universe, like those hidden gardens that thrilled us as kids, beyond whose walls lies a more personal, more cerebral and less troubled world. It can still be tough there, and it may even be still raining, but there's some kind of magic at work that is able to conjure inspiration and bliss from a freezing rain-storm.

When you feel anxiety or dread about running in adverse weather, think about it this way. Five or ten minutes in, and you'll begin to smell that perfumed opening. The rain and the cold and the dark are just a fragile shell around something unique and fabulous. Get out there and bust through it.

Wed 14 Jan 2004

A pessimist, someone explained to me the other day, is just an optimist in possession of the full facts. There's something pleasingly self-referential about such a gloomy viewpoint. Anyway, those words came back to me this morning, when I got back from my run to find I'd done my 3½ miles in record time. This in turn produced another record: the smiliest breakfast since Arthur Miller poured his post-nuptial cornflakes in the summer of 1956. (Talking of records, a press release from the British Library Association recently mentioned that the book most often stolen from library shelves is, naturally, the Guinness Book of Records. Another self-referential gem.)

My optimistic slice of home-made ciabatta and honey didn't last long. Neither the bread nor the optimism. Once I'd taken "possession of the full facts", I realised that my new Garmin Forerunner gadget had stopped prematurely, about half a mile from home. Even now, it continues to stare back at me, unblinkingly. It was another rain-soaked run, but moisture is supposed to be like, er, water off a duck's back, as it were, to the Garmin. Indeed when I read the spec in the manual on the day I bought it, it led to me musing on yet another difference between the male and female of the species:

"Waterproof to the depth of one metre for 30 minutes", it says. It struck me when I read these words that a woman would think: "That's a reassuring feature", while a man would immediately start looking for a deep tub and a stopwatch to see what would happen if the gadget was immersed for only 29½ minutes. But I digress.

Can it really be the rain that's done this to my new GPS? Or was it the fumbling and arbitrary button-pushing in the darkness? And has it been murdered, or did it die of natural causes? Is it dead at all? Or merely unconscious? I won't know this till the battery gives out in about 5 hours from now, when I can try recharging it. In the meantime, I'm in the mood for launching a faintly testy email over the horizon.

Excuse me.

Thurs 15 Jan 2004

Dead. My new Garmin Forerunner gadget. It recharged successfully but won't switch on. Cause of death? I suspect suicide. All these little chaps must dream of a career on the wrist of Paula Radcliffe or Paul Tergat. And instead this one got me. It chose extinction.

This news may seem sad and bad, but running makes us cheerful and optimistic, and keener to search for the bright side, remember? So I'm absolutely thrilled by this development. Assuming the shop replaces the thing, and they say they will, it means I have the pleasure of ripping open more packaging and starting again. It means an excuse to pop up to Tottenham Court Road at lunchtime tomorrow, with all those associated delights (Charing Cross Road bookshops, Italian delis, and that massive Jessops in New Oxford Street). I must dash off a thank you letter to Garmin in a moment.

Another early 3½ miles this morning. Not a lot to report. A sign in the window of one of the seven village pubs is appealing for "FLEXIBLE STAFF" which, after my Pilates class on Tuesday night, could be just the job for me. In fact the sign actually said it was looking for "FLEXIABLE" people which may mean something else entirely.

The run went pretty well. Darkness and ice patches are always a winning combination, don't you think? The main intention this week is to try to regain a bit of fitness after the long lay-off. I've done the same run four times this week now, and each one has been less slow than the previous one, with today's nearly a minute a mile less plodacious than the one last weekend, so I can enjoy my rest day tomorrow without guilt.

I'm tempted to spend the evening getting profoundly drunk, but it may be wiser to postpone this vital spiritual replenishment until Saturday evening, after the big match against Brighton. The sensible scenario has me doing my long weekend run on Saturday morning rather than Sunday, followed by an 18 hour trail of depraved hedonism stretching from Central London to West Berkshire.

[Sound of hands being vigorously rubbed together.]

Sat 17 Jan 2004

I woke with so much enthusiasm that I sort of leapt upwards, bashing my head on the ceiling and falling back with such force that the bed crashed through the floor into the kitchen below, where I lay dazed and motionless for some moments. Purposeful footsteps, and the door burst open. In strode a young Joanna Lumley wearing high heels, fishnet stockings, suspenders and not a lot else. "Naughty boys", she purred, "need to be punished".

Tragically, I really did wake up at that point.

I once sold Joanna Lumley a case of vintage Champagne In fact, I've sold it to her a thousand times. Once in reality, the rest in my daydreams. But you don't want to hear about that.

Today was full of self-indulgent, guiltless pleasure. Nothing at all to do with M being away for the weekend. I was up and out for a fabulous run at 8:30, keen to use the new Garmin Forerunner that I picked up yesterday. The shop exchanged it without a fuss, which was a bit disappointing. The customer service revolution has its benefits I suppose, but I rather miss the days when you couldn't get a replacement or a refund without first rolling up your sleeves and trading a few punches with the shop manager.

The weather was just sublime today. It's easy to curse the winter, but when it wants to it can serve up running conditions that beat anything else you'll come across throughout the year. The morning was cold and frosty, but sunny with it. Ideal for saying hello to the world.

It's the first long weekend in the Hal Higdon training plan. The Novice schedule calls for 6 miles but I decided to repeat the last longish run I did a few weeks before Christmas: a shade under 7½ miles.

I chose to repeat it because I wanted to use the "virtual partner" feature on my GPS, and thought it would be a good idea to race against myself, by giving the virtual partner the time I managed previously. The idea is that you plug in a time and/or a pace and/or a distance, and after setting off you're kept up to date with how you're doing in comparison. Messages flash up: Speed Up! You're 10 feet behind. Or Slow Down! You're 150 feet ahead. They even provide a graphic, depicting two matchstick competitors to illustrate how well or badly you're doing.

Another reason I chose this particular run to compete against was that I was slow that day, and I deliberately wanted to be slow today. It would be a good way to force myself to keep a stately, steady pace which is what the 'LSD' (long slow distance) weekend runs are supposed to be all about.

And it worked a treat. I kept around 100 feet ahead of my alter ego the entire time, eventually finishing a satisfying 40 seconds ahead of him.

Him? This gadget is becoming a living creature. I confess that I've even considered giving this electronic creature a name. But what? _paula is too predictable, and anyway it isn't female. I've considered calling it _colin, for no better reason than that I work with a guy of that name who keeps himself (if no one else) entertained with remarks about "finding myself" now that I have a GPS, and hinting that I may be able to find my way to the kettle to make everyone a coffee, and... but you get the picture. A vengeful nomination. I also heard recently of someone whose cat was called Colin, and perhaps this has burned itself into my subconscious. All I know is that the name, should it happen at all, must begin with an underscore. But not a decision to be rushed.

This first week of training couldn't have been better. I've done four runs (five if you include last Sunday, a day before the programme officially began). The four should amount to 15 modest miles in this first week, but I've done 17½. I even did some cross-training on Monday.

After this morning's great run, it was off to the football to watch an ugly victory over Brighton. But a win nevertheless, followed by a gallon or so of decent ale and a Chinese takeaway. This must be as good as it gets.

Or is it? Hmmm. I wonder if Joanna Lumley is in the phonebook...?

Tues 20 Jan 2004

It had to happen. The law of averages is strict on this point. After a week of good running, I finally managed a bad one this morning. It was probably the weekend of excess that encouraged it. Plenty of beer and biscuits over the last few days have added a couple of pounds, and helped me to feel lethargic and listless when I got up for the early morning run.

It was only the usual 3½ miler, but I couldn't't even get through that without stopping for a breather.

Just one of those things.

More positively, I've booked a few Pilates sessions which will help. At least it will make my stomach muscles ache, which I tend to presume is the same thing. Hmmm.

Wed 21 Jan 2004

That's better. The same run as yesterday, but this time a full 70 seconds per mile faster, and much more comfortable. Last night's Pilates session had lubricated a few joints, and as always, I felt strangely taller and more stretched today. The trouble with Pilates is that I do it for an hour a week, and forget about it for the rest of the time. I think it's supposed to be a life-changing leap. It invites you to breathe differently and to rethink your posture, but I remember this only for that one hour slot. But still worth doing.

I got talking to a lady who runs a walking group in one of the local villages. Perhaps I'll join in. Walking is one of those things that we vowed to do when we moved here, but haven't done much. We went off for a cobweb-blasting stroll on New Year's Day but just one mile in, M detected a blister and the mission was aborted. On Sunday I walked for nearly 7 miles as my weekly cross-training session, and it reminded me just how enjoyable and healthy this can be, even though most of the benefit probably drains away in the compulsory extended pub inspections en route.

Arrangements for Copenhagen continue. I've now booked and paid for the flights and accommodation, and entered the race. It's a done deal. I'd been wondering what sort of time I should be aiming for. My two previous marathons have taken me 5:50 and 5:15 respectively. I have to go for a sub-5 hour marathon this time, but exactly what? Fate has answered my question. My race number is 450, so my target is now 4:50.

This means a pace of 11:04 a mile. That may seem slow, and indeed even I run faster than that on my standard runs. But it's the consistency that's tough for me. Almost anyone could run a mile in 11 minutes, but to do it steadily for 26 consecutive miles is the challenge. One of the many things I want to do differently and better in the training this time round, is to pay more attention to pace in my weekend long runs. I need to reduce the fluctuations, and learn how to keep it steady the whole way round.

Fri 23 Jan 2004

A rather sticky moment at work yesterday. My boss breezed in, stroking the gerbil that He keeps in the inside pocket of His plastic mac. As usual, He sat for an hour or two in silence, just gazing blankly out of the window. Eventually, He turned to me and said, in that absurdly high-pitched voice of His, some words that froze the blood in my veins. "I haven't read your website recently, Old Fruit."

Who grassed me up?

My entire life passed before my eyes (which I should mention, is more enjoyable than one is led to believe. I'd totally forgotten about that Rodney Marsh hat-trick against Blackpool in August 1969, for a start). My computer screen became a kind of whirlpool into which my entire spirit was sucked in an instant.

I heard myself croaking faintly: "That's web-life. This is real life. S-S-S-S-Sir." You could have heard a heard a pin drop... probably... if you'd removed a few carpet tiles... and if you were standing on some kind of miked-up drum... but anyway...

This website doesn't exist in the real world. It exists here, when we're in it, and it exists after the ingestion of three or four pints of Guinness. By then, reality has begun to slide away, just far enough into the kind of dream state where RunningCommentary can pretend to have some sort of meaningful relationship with the Exterior.

If He mentions this other-world existence again during office hours, well... I can see it all happen before me now. I stand up. I pull on my long overcoat. I grab the trilby stolen from Gieves and Hawkes specially for the occasion, and place it firmly on my head. I reach into my bottom drawer and pull out the silver revolver. The deed is done. Then, in a loud but calm voice: "I bid you good day, Gentlemen". I take the lift to the top floor, where I clamber through the window and, with no hesitation, throw myself onto the pavement, hundreds of screaming feet below.

*********

Another disappointing run this morning. I've been skimping on sleep all week, and today it finally caught up with me. I was still up at 6, and went out, but my heart wasn't in it, and I fired the ejector seat after 2 miles, limping back disconsolately to record just 2.76 miles.

It doesn't matter. Here's to a good 'un at the weekend. The plan is for another longish walk tomorrow, then a 7 or 8 miler on Sunday. This past fortnight has been about rehabilitation after being out of action for a few weeks. It's been a good way to get back into it, but with the marathon in 16 weeks, and a variety of races in between, I need to start getting a bit more focussed now.

It's great to see people adding their training notes to the forum. I can't speak for anyone else, but I find it motivating to hear others going through the same crises and joys as me. If anyone else wants to join in, please do. If you want your own space to keep your notes, drop me a line at andy@runningcommentary.co.uk.

Here's to a good running weekend for everyone.

Sun 25 Jan 2004

Despite the shocking contents of the Daily Telegraph letters page, kids don't seem much worse today than when I was a feral adolescent. I can't help thinking that had the 13 year old me seen the 46 year old me plodding down the street, puffing and panting, I'd have needed no encouragement to laugh, shout abuse and throw things at me. The kids round here are generally pretty inoffensive, so it was a pleasant surprise today to find myself being coarsely insulted by a bunch of pubescents as I overtook them on my way to the canal.

"I could walk faster than that!", I heard one girl sneer as I passed.

"No you couldn't, you're too fat", I called back.

A chorus of indignant shrieks and squeals arose. "Oi!" shouted one acned boy, as his chaotic hormones got the better of him. I could hear his furious footsteps coming up behind me. Hmmm. How much damage could be inflicted with a deft elbow to the face? The manoeuvre was never called upon. He was just starting on some squeaky tirade about my generous physique when I crossed a side road by the station. Cataclysmically, he never made it. The poor chap must have caught his toe on the kerb, and his speech suddenly became a strangled, panicky wail. A tense second of silence, then the unmistakable sound of a thighful of tender juvenile flesh rapidly eroding on a metre or so of rough concrete. I was tempted to smile, but thought better of it. Instead, I opened my mouth and issued an eighty-decibel cackle. A splendid start to the morning.

Today was another of those bright wintry days that could have been designed with the runner in mind. We've been lucky recently. The canal towpath can be a lovely place to run when it wants to be. On the left is a strip of forest, and just beyond, the bird-laden lakes that draw twitchers from across the region. On the other side of the canal is open fields, where you sometimes see deer bouncing around, or the occasional nonchalant fox. The canal itself is the winding silver guide through this quintessential English scene.

The training schedule called for 7 miles but today I was aiming for 8, and ended up with 8.3.

This wasn't a particularly long stretch by the standards of many runners, but after so many short midweekers, it felt like one to me. It set me thinking about the differences between the long weekend run and the bread-and-butter, 3 or 4 mile jaunts, and this in turn led into my thought for the week: that we should try to celebrate the long run instead of worrying about it.

Every standard training plan for distance running includes a weekly long run, designed to build endurance and stamina. It's easy for new runners and even the newish, like me, to develop an instant dread for this fixture. Maybe it isn't surprising, especially if you're going further than you've been before. If you're training for a first marathon, every long run can be a trip into uncharted territory. Non-runners tend to think of the race itself as the only challenge, but no, the entire marathon journey is a long mountain range of challenges, each peak tougher to climb than the previous one.

They end up becoming more than challenges. We fixate, we obsess. They become the enemy. That's the way we approach the long runs when we're new to the game. It makes us feel better. The idea of sacrifice and achievement and self-heroism seems to be part of the marathon mythology for new runners, and something I went through myself. But as time goes on, you slowly learn both to enjoy the sense of achievement that comes from a long run, and to appreciate the real material benefits of the run itself. We finally get through the cappuccino froth and into the coffee.

We may not get much faster, but confidence grows, and the long run seems to change its role as we grow more assured. We now know that we can make the distance, and gradually it ceases to become the week's punishment, or even the week's major task for which all those piddly midweek runs are merely preparation. The long run becomes the reward for ticking off those short training jaunts, and it reminds us that this is where the real pleasure of running is found. Perhaps I'd feel differently if I had to do my long runs through industrial estates and retail parks and city centres, but to be able to head off into the countryside for a couple of hours to run and to breathe and to think and to admire nature, is a thrill and a privilege.

Mon 26 Jan 2004

It's like the threat of an imminent attack from some dreaded, unseen enemy. For days now we've been warned about the arctic weather on the way this week. The much-feared 'cold snap'. Up to 6 inches of snow, they say, and temperatures down to minus 14 Celsius.

Monday is supposed to be a rest day, but the siege mentality encouraged by the weather forecasts has finally got to me, and (to stretch the metaphor unreasonably) I decided to rush out and stock up with baked beans before the doors are nailed shut against the icy winds and the snow. Yes, I broke a long-time habit and went out for a run this morning. Who knows? It might be weeks before I get another chance...

The very cold stuff is due tomorrow, but even this morning wanoticeablyly chillier than yesterday. It meant I had a chance to parade my new Concurve gilet, though the world was disappointingly blasé about it. I turn up at the party in all my finery, but I'm the only one there. Yes, for perhaps the first time ever, I saw no one at all during my 3.5 miles this morning. A car moved, so there was probably someone in it, but I had no face-to-face contact at all.

Perhaps Mondays are always like this.

Tues 27 Jan 2004

Nothing happened.

Wed 28 Jan 2004

Blame Lord Hutton and a large pickled onion.

Thames Trains couldn't be trusted to deliver me to London today so I worked from home. The snow never came, though we did have hail, thunder and lightning in an exciting 3 minute spell in mid-afternoon. The run was over by then, though an even earlier outing may have been a better idea, while the sunshine was strong. Instead I had a robust, gusty wind and an air temperature of one degree above freezing.

Five windy, disconsolate, canal miles clocked up. I began in a good mood, but that wintry assault blunted my keenness just a bit. Unusually, I took a radio with me, and my spirit became flatter and flatter the deeper I sank into the Hutton Report analysis. Everyone knew that the noble lord was going to boot the BBC in the nuts, but we took it for granted that Campbell, Hoon and Blair would be in the same queue. But nope, they've escaped. They got away with it. The murderous villains have vanished, leaving the trembling getaway driver to take the rap. An infamous day for justice.

About three miles into the run I suddenly stopped. There was something not quite right with my stomach. As usual, I hadn't eaten before the run but on my way out I'd spied the massive jar of pickled onions that I devised before Christmas from the massive crop we had last year. It would have been disrespectful not to eat one, so one was eaten, and damn fine it was too. But I could now feel it bouncing around inside me, like a squash ball pinging around an empty box. I didn't feel sick, or worse, but was just strangely aware of its presence.

Despite what seemed like the tortoise-like progress of the last couple of miles, I still got home inside my target marathon pace, so I ended up happy enough.

I have to make decisions soon about what races to do in the next three months. Apart from Copenhagen on May 16, the only definite race I'm entered for is the Bath Half on March 14. Two weeks before that is the Bramley 10 which I'd thought of doing, but it's the weekend in between that's problematical: the weekend of the Reading and Silverstone Halfs.

Normally I'd like to have done Reading, my local big race, but Silverstone calls. I was talking to a couple of running friends in December, comparing stories about last year's Silverstone event. The public transport facilities were dire. I gave a lift to a couple of guys from Oxford; they collected five strangers between them to take up there. We talked about laying on a coach to the event this time. A service for runners by runners. And that's what we've done: www.runningbus.co.uk. A minor drawback is that it looks like neither of them might be able to help out on the day, but so be it.

The big question is whether I should run the race again myself. Ordinarily I would, but sandwiched between Bramley and Bath, it's asking a lot. Maybe I should forget Bramley, and make Silverstone a gentle training run? And then there's the little matter of the Brighton Half which comes the week before Bramley. Could I manage a half marathon 3½ weeks from now?

A lot depends on those pickled onions. I must either persuade M to hide them well enough, or I need to sit down one day and eat the entire jar to remove the temptation once and for all. It could be a permanent answer to my predeliction for the delicacies. An entire 3 litre jar? It would be a permanent answer to pretty much everything, I suspect.

Thurs 29 Jan 2004

Snow, snow, quick quick snow...

How startling to wake up and find the world suddenly white. I expected it to reduce my lunchtime run to a nervous plod but remarkably, I did my usual 3½ miles at an average 10:01 mile pace which for me is quick. The quickest training run for seven months.

It was a bizarre outcome: it didn't seem any faster than normal. If anything, the opposite, as I was constantly dodging the patches of slippery snow and ice, and the slush. I'm beginning to enjoy the company of _colin, the 'virtual partner' hiding in my Garmin Forerunner. I set up a race against him where I'd have to do 11 minute miles to pip him at the post, thinking that this was a reasonable time for the conditions. But from the off I was 100, 200 feet ahead, and in the last stretch, had a massive 0.13 mile lead. What a good tool this is. The Timex is well worth having too, but I just prefer the compactness of the Forerunner and the range of features (though it has no heart rate monitor, like its rival).

Looks like I'll soon be joining a running club: I promised myself this a month or two ago, but only once I'd got back down to 10 minute miles and had lost 10 pounds in weight. Both of those targets have just about been reached now. The next problem will be which one to join. It's a toss-up between staying late at work and joining up with the Serpentine Running Club (the Serpies) in Hyde Park, or leaving work early to get back to Reading for the big Road Runners club. Both meet on Wednesday and neither is ideal.

A third option is the much smaller local club which meets up on Tuesday and Thursday for a five mile run. I like that idea, even though they won't have a lot of facilities. More developments soon.

Sat 31 Jan 2004

Not a comfortable plod along the canal this morning. A hangover, even a moderate one like today's, is a burden. It wasn't as cold as earlier in the week, but the strong wind was, literally, staggering. It gave me another chance to parade my new gilet along the village high street. It's a fetching goldy-grey colour, and combined with my bright yellow teeshirt, navy shorts and white Chicago Marathon baseball cap, I felt rather well turned out. It's not often one feels positively smart while running but today I could pretend that I was modelling a new range of sportswear for Gieves & Hawkes.

I trotted along the canal for 2½ miles, then turned round and came back. A total of 5.2 miles. The wind meant the towpath was deserted, apart from a couple of miserable anglers and a waddling swan or two. My brief, according to Hal Higdon, was to run 45 seconds slower than marathon pace. This should have been much easier than it turned out to be, and it was only an unexpectedly fast final mile, after shaking off my thick head, that brought me in on time.

I've stayed clear of alcohol today, so here's to a good start to the new month tomorrow.

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