Thurs 4 March 2004

Fat people are about to be made illegal, apparently.

Or surcharged. Instead of VAT, we'll have FAT. The fuller figure will be squeezed till the hips squeak.

Passports will be redundant, and instead, immigration officials will be issued with body-fat calipers.

I have to put a brave face on this one. Maybe it's the fillip I need to go that extra mile. To shed, finally, those last few remaining... 30 pounds.

With every race comes a weight target. Silverstone is 204 lbs; Bath, the week after, 200. For the Copenhagen marathon in mid-May, my final target weight of 182. That's where I was when I stopped smoking in 1996.

None of these targets are ever reached of course, but such is the nature of the game.

It hasn't been a great week for it. On Sunday evening, on my urgent walk to the pub, I managed to stub my toe with such ferocity that only a gallon of strong ale could console me.

Monday and Tuesday, the toe was black and purple, and throbbed like... like an armed throbber. Yesterday it started to ease off, and this morning I chanced a run.

Spring has returned. This morning at seven, the world was bright and mild and welcoming, and running was a treat. Almost.

Those 6 pints of Guinness last night, and the midnight chilliburger and large fries, and the 5 hours of fitful sleep, didn't add up to great preparation. I could feel the residue of this Bohemian cocktail inching up my gullet as I jogged the 3½ miles. It never quite made it.

The energy pay-off was distributed through the day: more energy and enthusiasm today than the rest of the week put-together. The more I run, the more I see that, at my end of the athletic spectrum, running isn't actually that much about running at all. Running is just the externalised manifestation of something else. The real thing.

And what is this real thing? Ask me again in a while. Every time I run I get a bit nearer to it.

Perhaps the secret is that you never quite get to it.

Fri 5 March 2004

The schedule said 6 miles, my purple toe said 4 miles. Always listen to the purple toe in these situations.

Tomorrow it's a rest day before the first race of the year: the Silverstone Half.

Sun 7 March 2004

When I mentioned to a work colleague that we were planning to transport 90 people to Silverstone for a race, her eyes shot to the ceiling. "It'll be like herding cats", she said.

Maybe that's a general truth, but not in this case. One of the main reasons that I like running is that I like runners, and yesterday just reminded me why.

Just about everything was on time. We turned up on time. The coaches turned up on time. The bagels and the bananas were ready on time at the Sainsbury's Local, just round the corner from the meeting point. Best of all, our fellow runners turned up on time. With one exception. So the first coach left on time, while the second waited for 20 minutes for <name-and shame> Jennifer</name-and shame>, who never showed, and didn't call us.

This week I've had an uneasy relationship with my right hand big toe. Today we were friends again. Not because it stopped troubling me, but because it gave me the options I needed.

If I wanted not to run at all, it was there as the reason. If I fancied running a few miles before giving up, likewise. If I managed to saunter to a finish, I could project myself as a flimsy hero by dragging out some old cliché like "I didn't think I'd make it to the start line, never mind the finish, so I was actually pretty pleased."

Excellent. Perhaps the toe has a valuable evolutionary significance after all.

We made the tough decision to leave without <name-and shame> Jennifer</name-and shame>, who never showed, and didn't call us, and set off down the M40. Here I remembered that we had two videos of the 2002 London marathon with us -- and that I'd forgotten to set one playing in the first coach. Tsk. Very poor customer service. But we managed to persuade the grumpy driver to put ours on, and as the rain and hail attacked the coach, sat back and got all tearful again as St Paula of Bedford did her head-jerking best for our motivation levels.

Our coach arrived at Silverstone about 50 minutes before the race, so we had plenty of time to sit in the warm, watching the freezing rain dribble down the panoramic windows. By this time I'd been out for a quick stroll, and found my toe was throbbing again. Should I risk running?

With ten minutes to go, we arrived at the Paddock (as the announcer called it), or the fish and chips precinct, as I called it. Surely it would be mad to run? The announcements were getting ever-more frenetic, urging any stragglers to get to the start without delay.

With five minutes left, I decided definitely not to run. Then I had a brief jog and found the toe in remission. What to do?

"Just twooooooooooooo minutes to go now....", boomed the PA system. You could just see the announcer's palms dripping with hot sweat.

Oh bugger it. I pulled off my tracksuit top and thrust it at M. The bottoms weren't quite so co-operative, and for a surreal moment I found myself hopping towards the Silverstone start line. As the mournful hooter sounded, I was running alongside the jogging crowds in the opposite direction, looking for a gap in the fence where I could join them. I found one.

I still haven't cracked the hydration problem. Last year I drank too much on the morning of the race, felt bloated, and had to stop off twice during the race to release the excess. This year, I went too far the other way, and took virtually no fluid on board before the race. Result? Premature dehydration.

But I still felt strong for the first 5 or 6 miles. My target pace was 10:30 which I was able to stick closely to without any difficulty. Miles 5-9 were harder, but I hung onto the pace. By mile 10, I could feel my toe waking up. "Hold on mate", I could hear it cry, "I agreed to give you a break, but this is taking the piss..."

It wasn't agony but it was uncomfortable, and at mile 11 I stopped for a couple of minutes to give it a rest. The final 3 miles were stop-start, until I eventually got home in about 2:24.

I didn't think I'd make it to the start line, never mind the finish, so I was actually pretty pleased.

The event was more enjoyable than last year. There seemed to be more spectators round the course this time, and more music. I hope they learned some lessons from last year, because this has the potential to be a really good event. Their big problem is improving the mid-race experience.

The first and last 3 miles, being on the circuit itself, have enough interest to keep spirits up. And anyway, the first and last 3 miles of any half marathon are always disproportionately tolerable simply because they are the first and last 3 miles. The starter and the pudding. It's that long slog in the middle -- the meat of the race -- that's the toughest, least digestible bit.

Silverstone doesn't go out of its way to make it any more palatable, though there are one or two startling moments that just about make it worthwhile. Here and there in this extended middle section, the serpentine track allows you to see runners way ahead of you in one direction, and way behind in the other. As far as the eye can see, a writhing snake of people running.

Someone on the Runners' World forum described it as opening his eyes to the futility of running. I know what he means, but I'm making the effort to climb to the more positive viewpoint, and marvel at the way it reveals, with one 180º sweep of the head, the full range of our running community. What looks like treadmill-futility to one person is, for me, a rich source of inspiration. He's not necessarily wrong; I'm not necessarily right.

Not a huge amount to report from the race itself. Shortly after the start, I saw a woman holding up a sign saying "We must keep Igor alive". Was this Igor's wife? Or the owner of the local cinema advertising the latest horror B-movie?

After 2 miles, I heard a couple of young girls talking as they overtook me. "Ridiculous to think we were told to stick to 12 minute miles", said one, "when 10 minute miles turn out to be so easy." Hmmm. I overtook them after 5 miles. They were walking. One was limping heavily.

I arrived back at the coaches just in time to see the first one set off. I feel guilty about not having had too much contact with the first coach. But this was the fast one, and I reckon that people who can run a half in under two hours are the sort of lunatic fringe of the sport in any case, so perhaps I was wise to keep my distance. Rather unpredictable types, I suspect.

And I wasn't even the last one back. It was so good to sit on the warm coach, chomping fresh bagels and bananas, watching the drizzle again, knowing that I'd ticked off the first half marathon of the year. We were even able to rescue a bunch of pretty distraught people who'd missed their coach back to Milton Keynes, to connect with their London train. "Don't worry about it", we could say, "come with us. We're all runners here."

Sometimes this running stuff makes you miserable, and other times it makes you happy.

Today? Today it made me happy.

Tues 9 March 2004

It's official:

Andy Commentary. It has a ring to it.

The emotional fallout from Sunday continues. I can't get over how decent these people are. We've now had 45 emails of thanks, out of 78 passengers. Everyone with a different story to tell. Quite staggering really. It's touched us. Really touched us.

We'll do it again.

Wed 10 March 2004

And so to Bath.

It's easy to forget, when planning future races, just how much emotional fuel gets burnt around an event. During the peak times - spring and autumn - it's tempting to enter two or three races in quick succession, always underestimating the time it takes to repair yourself, to refuel, and to refocus. After last spring's congested calendar, I did promise myself not to enter two races on successive weekends, but here I am, on my way to the Bath Half just a week after Silverstone, and onto the 15 mile Cranleigh race the weekend after that.

Bath, for the benefit of the non-Brits here, is a small but architecturally glorious city, a few miles south-west of Bristol. It's a stopping-off point on the standard American tourist circuit, along with London, Stratford, Oxford, Luton and Edinburgh.

I'll stand aside here to let Nigel Platt deliver the fleshed-out historical survey of Bath, but in essence it's famous for its Roman baths (hence the name, geddit?), and for the cascading tiers of opulent Regency crescents. It was the Ibiza of the Jane Austen generation, and they left their elegant architectural footprints all over the show. And if they weren't attractions enough, once a year, in March, the city hosts a half marathon for 4000 runners. Its doors open for entries at 9am one Monday morning in September, and are forced shut again by the volume of applications a day or two later.

The race gives me yet another chance to meet up with Nigel, whose disembodied presence has accompanied me from one end of the running universe to the other. Chicago, Newcastle, er... We've spoken on the phone in these places, but never met. And Pete (Griff from the forum) will be there too. He might even treat himself to a RunningCommentary masterclass by tagging along in my wake for the first mile or so.

But hang on, here's an email from the fellow in which he claims to be running... to be running 7-minute-something-miles. I see. Perhaps I should sprinkle my gifts among more deserving cases.

My quads ached on Monday, and I thought it best to give them another day off yesterday, but this morning, around 7am I had to get out for a leisurely recovery run. Cool but sunny. It felt damn good.

PS Only joking about Luton...

Fri 12 March 2004

It's been a tenacious winter. Wednesday's warm, sunlit run had become, this morning, a bleak, snow-encrusted slog. It went from this:

to this:

Both were hugely enjoyable. As can be seen, I was trying out my new camera, so neither run was very fast. More pictures from this morning's run can be found here.

These two outings were thought-provoking, as my later notes show. But I'm just too sleepy at the moment to write them up.

Perhaps they'll leak out over the next day or two.

Sat 13 March 2004

Sometimes you feel like it and sometimes you don't. Tomorrow there's a half marathon to do, but I seem strangely unconcerned about it. It's as though I haven't got round to mentioning it to myself yet. I'll have to start panicking soon, or I'll be in trouble.

I've also discovered that the motorway is closed in the morning, so I have to dive into rural Berkshire and Wiltshire for a while, in the hope of resurfacing somewhere down Avon way.

I'm rendezvousing with Griff for the last few miles of the journey to Bath, and may even start the race with him, though I'm going to urge him to go on ahead as soon as he gets his eye in.

No run today.

Sun 14 March 2004 - the Bath Half Marathon

B-boom... B-boom... B-boom...

Two or three miles into the Bath Half Marathon, I began to hear my heart pounding. Perhaps I was warming to the race at last, or perhaps I was just... warming at last. Or was I about to die...?

B-boom... B-boom... B-boom...

The sound was even louder now, and eventually I realised it wasn't my heart that was beating at all, but the heart of the race. Or less poetically, it was the rhythmic thump of the gleeful, Stomp-like percussion band, strategically located at the base of the one unpleasant hill on the course. The joyful faces of the kids and the middle-aged ladies making this noise must have produced an instinctive, broad grin on my own. And not just once, but twice. They were still there on the second circuit, an hour after the first, and the inspirational pulse was just as loud and as strong and as tight. The faces were still happy, though some were now as streaked with black sweat, and as exhausted-looking, as mine must have appeared to them. And that's why I call them the heart of the race. They could be heard for miles. (Or did I just imagine that?)

B-boom... B-boom... B-boom...

They weren't the only inspiration I came across today. At mile 10 I found myself panting alongside Glynn, who mentioned that he'd started running 12 months ago, and so far had lost 70 pounds. Silverstone, last week, was his first race, and he was heading for next month's London Marathon. I told him that I'd made the marathon leap in 2002, after a similarly short run-up. "Please", he said, "please tell me it will be worth it."

I left him hanging for a few seconds. "Don't worry", I told him. "It will be worth more than you can even imagine at the moment".

There are times in a marathon preparation when these must seem like weaselly words indeed. Imagine how Glynn must have felt today, lining up at the start of the race, as the wind whipped the freezing torrents of rain along Great Pulteney Street. It spared no one. We whimpered and wept and cursed the heavens. And then we cursed the organisers.

The eleventh hour, the Gods had pronounced. And verily, we assembled at the said eleventh hour as the great tempest raged. We danced and cavorted and embraced each other for warmth, begging for the start. And then the bastards decreed that we had to wait another fifteen bloody minutes.

Oh for a sling and a weighty pebble to fling at the keeper of the temple. Or the temple of the keeper. I was past caring.

Eventually, what seemed like some hours after my body had shut down, and passed me into a suspended, vegetative state, some kind of weary hooter sounded in a far distant corner of Bath, and the great multitudes shambled and shuffled forth, weeping and scattering rose petals at the feet of their oppressor, as he cheerfully introduced the latest Westlife single.

I was with Peter (Griff from the forum) for about the first five miles. He should have been scampering, gazelle-like, through the field, but felt obliged to trot along at the back with me. Eventually, he was liberated by my bladder. I nipped behind some 1960s office block to urinate, and he took the opportunity to scarper. (Interesting lexicological note: "scarper" is cockney-rhyming slang. Scarper = Scapa Flow. "Scapa Flow" rhymes with "go". Hence to "scarper" is to "go". Foreigners won't know what the hell I'm talking about. Nor will non-foreigners, I suspect.)

I'd arrived at Pete's house just before nine o'clock, after winning my duel with the motorway. It's a rather bizarre coincidence that he lives in a house just a few hundred yards from where M and I lived when I was training for the London Marathon in 2002, and he now runs exactly the same rustic tracks and lanes where I learned my own plodcraft. One day, there'll be a blue plaque on Engine Common Lane - if the ceremonial party can get past that bloody great Saint Bernard who terrorises the lane just past the riding school.

Bath, as mentioned in an earlier despatch, is full of architectural glory, but the half marathon runner would never know it if she hadn't strolled past the Tourist Office on the way to the ordeal of the starting pen. This isn't to say that the race doesn't pass some interesting buildings - but the talking point is why we approved such ghastly developments in the sixties; or how come Environmental Health haven't shut down that grubby Chinese over there? Still, if I ever move to Bath AND purchase a Morris Minor, I now know where to go to have it fixed.

The city has had some interesting international recognition. Apparently even Saddam Hussein was a Bathist, I heard on the radio recently.

Promises are rashly made in this game. Just last week, after reading the complaints about Reading and Silverstone, I vowed to stop whinging about race organisers. I'm going to make an exception for Bath. The people who organise this race deserve shooting. And that's a perfectly safe and non-inflammatory statement because on the evidence of today, NO ONE organises this race. Which was the problem. I'll restrict my detailed complaints to the red-hot letter I'll be composing tomorrow. Grrrrrrrrrrrrr.

We bumped into the legendary Nigel Platt after the race. So. So Nigel really does exist after all, though I'm not entirely convinced that he runs the races he says he does. As we talked after the race, I recalled the phone call he made to me after the Chicago marathon. Over the crackly phoneline, he claimed to be at O'Hare Airport, Chicago, on his way to some geological emergency in Texas - or something like that. So how come I heard the Archers Omnibus signature tune in the background? And he called me just before the Great North Run in Newcastle to wish me luck, and to say that he would try to find me after the race. But wasn't that the local Crawley traffic news I could hear on the radio behind him? (Needless to say, he never made our rendezvous.)

And today. Yes, he was there. (Or someone who claimed to be him was there.) But he looked remarkably fresh and composed for someone who reckoned he'd just run for 13 miles. Perhaps it was the strong aroma of lavender water that raised my suspicions. Or it could have been the silk cravat to which his running number was pinned at a jaunty angle? Or the freshly-torn ticket-stub for the Bath Odeon protruding from the breast pocket of his blazer? And could someone have really run a half marathon in those highly polished deerskin Oxford brogues?

Bath Finish 2004

Despite the wretched drenching and the patchy organisation of this event, the kindness and support we were shown was truly heartening as always, as were the individual examples of courage and commitment I came across. The crowds were good-natured and supportive. I wish more people would do this simple thing: thank and applaud the supporters. Why not give them some acknowledgement? At the 8 mile mark, which came right at the top of a steep incline, there were about 20 people enthusiastically clapping all the runners. As I came up to that point, all I did was raise my arms in mock-triumph, and they went appreciatively ape. All I was doing was acknowledging their existence, and saying thanks. Kids in particular love some interaction with the runners. A high-five, a clap, even a smile - it thrills them. We grumble when crowd support is poor, but we don't acknowledge it when it's good.

It was good to meet up with Pete at long last, too. He's had his own troubles recently but has come through them pretty well. Whether you're running a half marathon or a relationship, the game plan sometimes goes wrong. Marriages are themselves long-distance (some might say 'endurance') events. Running or living, the road beneath our feet is human nature itself, but it's a tough old fabric. He's kept going through some tough stretches, and has now got his rewards. Good for him.

To run a race is to run your life, and to run your life is to run a race. Almost every event I enter is an intensely emotional and cathartic experience. Running a race sometimes makes me weep. Is it really just me? Always towards the end. It must be something to do with physical weakening and the skewed perspectives that arise from that. A paradox. The erosion of the 'normal' psychological vision, and its replacement with a kind of raw spirit with nowhere to go. Sometimes it's just overwhelming, and a sort of harrowing elation emerges. This is more than just "tears of happiness". It's something more profound than that -- a kind of joy that you've been allowed to see something, mixed with a sorrow at the knowledge that it must be withdrawn again, once normality returns tomorrow.

Without emotion, running has no purpose - and I couldn't bear that. From an external viewpoint, I'm hopeless at this activity -- but it liberates me. It's why I do it. It's why I want everyone to do it.

In the last mile today, just as I was slowing to a crawl, a sound reached me from across the rooftops, and turned me into twice the person I'd been just a few moments earlier.

B-boom... B-boom... B-boom...

It was all I needed to remind me why we do this, and that thought, in turn, was all I needed to take a deep breath and kick for home.

Thurs 18 March 2004

Some interesting messages in the forum recently, mentioning the impact of races on a training schedule. I can understand the sentiments. Even a tortoise like me, who strains every slow twitch fibre to avoid expending too much effort, gets wiped out by these events. The excitements of the last two weekends have exhausted me. I went for a laid-back run early on Tuesday, but was hamstrung by pain up the back of my thighs, and have had to take a couple of days off to make sure I'm recovered properly.

"Taking a couple of days off" inevitably involves beer and fast food, which sets me back further. After running Silverstone and Reading on successive weekends last year, I resolved to avoid entering back-to-back races like this, and now I remember why.

This weekend, the schedule calls for 15 miles, so I've entered the Cranleigh 15 mile race -- but I'm not certain I'll make it. Perhaps I should have a leisurely trot along the canal instead, and rediscover my appetite.

I've been musing a lot on the topic of improvement recently. Does it matter that I'm no faster this year? Why not just slip into a groove, I thought, where I can enjoy running without unnecessary pressure and stress? It's an easy position to take. Just a bit too easy, perhaps. Wouldn't it be like giving up? To reinforce this, I've been thinking just how good it is to have goals, and how satisfying it would be to reach those goals that I always had, or at least wanted to have. To get through a half marathon in under two hours. A marathon in under four and a half. A 10K in under 55 minutes.

These are pretty modest benchmarks for most runners, and my current thinking is that I should aim to hit them too, though it won't happen this year.

Sun 21 March 2004

My running week has been a disaster. Since last Sunday's half marathon, I've had two brief early morning runs of 3½ miles each. And that's it.

Through the week, I clung onto the excuse that I was exhausted from the last two weekends, knowing that the Cranleigh 15 miler today, or the long canal run I thought I might do yesterday in its place, would let me off the hook. But I've done neither of those things. So be it.

Yesterday, I borrowed a friend's season ticket to go and see Reading deservedly lose 2-0 at home to Sunderland. The Madejski Stadium is a fine venue, and it succeeds on the same yardstick that is apparently used to judge all modern buildings with tiers of seats:- can someone as fat as me squeeze past a sprawling, comatose drunk without waking him up?

I've watched my own team in a number of these echoey beauties: the Madejski (the MadStad as it's called in Reading), Sunderland's embarrassingly-named 'Stadium of Light', the Reebok at Bolton, Huddersfield's McAlpine and the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff. They all look great, and the facilities are superb but need to be packed to the rafters with hysterical drunks to have any atmosphere c.f. my experience at Brentford a few weeks ago, where we the men's toilets were ankle-deep in chilled urine.

The weekend wasn't entirely wasted. Some of it was spent starting a redesign of this website.

Onwards and upwards.

Tues 23 March 2004

A grand morning for an early run. Bright and vibrant even at 6:15, and the wildlife beginning to venture into the newly-sprung Spring at last.

I was fed up with that last, listless week, but it seems Hal Higdon is right about the need for rest and recovery. This morning I was awake and eager again, and felt comfortable running my first sub-ten minute miles for a while.

While running, I suddenly recalled that I have a marathon coming up in May. I've been worryingly unworried about this. I don't seem to be ticking days off the calendar, or calculating the diminishing percentage of the training schedule left to work through. I should be entering the toughest month now, but I haven't given it much thought. I suppose I should be planning some of those torturously long weekend runs.

Gulp....

Thurs 25 March 2004

Crikey, my arse hurts -- but the only indiscretion I'm confessing to is three tough early morning runs in the last three days. Yesterday's effort was the author of today's discomfort -- a routine, short plod that turned into a 9 miler (with extra hills please...).

I set out yesterday to run four or five miles along the canal, but I plodded myself into some kind of trance that trundled me not back along the A4 as planned, but across it, and down a quiet wooded lane that winds for a few miles through a tract of forest before looping back to the village. OK, I admit it - there was no hypnosis involved. Just an aversion to plodding for 2 miles back along the manic A4 at the epicentre of the rush hour. These people are driving to work in Reading -- they'll be desperate, I kept telling myself. And even though my boss might have something to say about it, I decided to follow my better instincts and head for those whispering hills.

It was slow and painful, but it was 9 miles.

This morning's four were even more uncomfortable. My lower back and hamstrings ached, and even sitting down has been a painful experience today.

Sat 27 March 2004

A listless, gloomy day. Am I ill? Or just mildly hungover?

I found myself in the company of three thousand unkempt warriors from Luton this afternoon. This is rarely an uplifting experience. We should have beaten them too, but they equalised with 15 minutes left. One of those games that must have been exciting for a neutral, but to be a participant (even a passive participant, as it were) was hellish.

This evening we made it to Lost In Translation at long last. What a very good film this is. It was a message from Nigel Platt on the forum that reminded me that we said we'd see it on the way back from London. And so we called into a desolate, neon palace of a multiplex off the M4 between Bracknell and Reading, and caught the late show.

I've just been reading some of the crits on the fabled Internet Movie Database, and have been interested (though not surprised) by the mixed reaction to the film. Some people call it a masterpiece, others call it pretentious twaddle (or they would if they weren't Americans - but it's what they mean).

As Nigel notes, some people are under the impression that nothing much happens in the film. "Nothing happens" is the usual bleat of the philistine, who can't be happy unless there are plenty of tits on display, or a ready supply of plastic limbs flying from one side of the screen to the other. It's true that Lost In Translation seems to offer a bleak portrait of isolation in a strange environment, but a recurring phenomenon in my life is that what others find depressing, I find moving and uplifting. Maybe I really am an optimist. And I find it easy to see detail where others see blankness. What is static and bleak to some, is often, to me, a fascinating mass of interdependent movement and interdependent lives.

I find this in running too. I can't honestly say that I've never had a boring run, but they are rare. Even my standard, local 3½ miler is full of fascination, regardless of how often I do it.

Which, at the moment, isn't often enough.

Mon 29 March 2004

Oh dear. I've not been too well recently. At least I think I haven't. I've been exhausted. Too exhausted to do a long run yesterday (though I did force myself out for a brief loosener in the early evening). This is two consecutive weekends without a longie. Oh God, my universe is imploding, and everything I ever held dear has vanished in the blink of an eye. All my dreams are dust. Every yearning, reaching......

Aw shaddup. It's true, my plans have taken an unexpected kick in the goolies recently, but I'm a calm fellow, and I'll not be deflected or disheartened. Depression demands too much energy, so I'm taking the lazy option, and sticking to happiness. Yes, Copenhagen is just six weeks away now, and my plans are in crisis. Ha ha! Fortunately I love nothing more than a decent crisis. Crises are the grains of salt that add so much flavour to the, erm, frites of my life. (Yeah OK, don't give me a hard time on that one. It happens to us all occasionally.)

Anyway, bugger it, I'm off to Denmark whatever happens. I'm running the marathon in six weeks, so let's get back to business.

Wed 31 March 2004

Busy times, busy times.

I've been getting my running in again this week, but don't seem to have enough time to write about it. Yesterday in particular was a stupendous morning for running. Bright sunshine, even warmish. One of those mornings that whoop at you, and remind you why you do this stuff. Four fantastic miles.

And this evening, at long last. At long last. I've been talking about it for months. For years, even. Tonight I finally made it along to the local running club to have a sociable potter round the track and get a feel for this new adventure. And there's more.

Apart from joining a running club, another new year resolution was to marshal at a race. A casual chat with one of the committee this evening has sorted that one out too. Looks like I'll be helping out at the London Marathon this year. Tower of London, Mile 22. This is an interesting place to be. I can catch the front runners at Tower Bridge as they come across at Mile 12, then slip back over the road to Mile 22 to pick them up again as they approach the end. Mile 22, eh? There'll be a lot of distress on show at that point.

The downside is that, being the end of the race, it's going to be a very long day. There will still be plenty of people coming through at 3 and 4 in the afternoon, I'm sure. Such slow-coaches wouldn't meet with everyone's approval, but I'm looking forward to giving them the welcome I think they deserve. Should be an eye-opener, and will set me up for my own rendezvous with satan in Copenhagen, three weeks later.

And so we come to the end of an eventful month. Two races. Some great running moments and some horrible, barren periods. Hard to believe that the Silverstone bus adventure was this month -- just 24 days ago. It seems like twice that period.

April will be difficult. There's a lot of work to do, plenty of pain to feel and to see, and a ton of adventures waiting to be plucked from the running tree.

Can't wait.

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