Tuesday 3 January 2006

2005 ended with a 12½ mile bang, closely followed by the cork popping on a bottle of Sainsbury's Vintage Champagne. It was intended to be a toast to usher in a new year of glowing good health, even if yes, there's something mildly ironic about celebrating abstemiousness by glugging a bottle of bubbly.

And true enough, the gesture came back to bite me on the arse yesterday, when my visit to Loftus Road was enhanced, or otherwise, by visiting a few of the local inns to check that all was in order. Everything was, apart from me.

It was my first visit to Mecca for some weeks, thanks to Sky TV. It's hard to get down there in midweek, but increasingly, matches are being pushed away from Saturdays by the insatiable appetite of live television. It seems hardly worth renewing my season ticket if the true fan is going to be abused like this. It would now be cheaper to buy tickets for individual matches rather than get a season ticket and have to miss half of them. Grizzly images of a goose having laid its last golden egg, in the gutter outside Sky TV Towers comes to mind, next to all those babies thrown out with the bath water. Ultimately though, I don't think the Skylords care. When this seam has been mined to exhaustion, they'll move onto the next.

One moment of note in the game. An extraordinary save by QPR goalkeeper Simon Royce from a close-range thump by Ade Akinbiyi. One of the best bits of goalkeeping I've ever seen. A startled Akinbiyi just stood there, clapping the goalkeeper, like Eusebio and Alex Stepney in the 1968 European Cup Final. We too were astonished by the save. Play continued, but for at least a minute or more, the crowd stayed on their feet, applauding. It was involuntary, and not something I'll forget soon.

Sport is like that. Just when you're tempted to collapse beneath the weight of your own disillusionment and cynicism, something flickers again, and reignites your faith. Thank you, Royce and Akinbiyi.

Running? Just 3½ miles on the board so far. Yesterday was written off. I'd felt pretty good on Sunday, despite the 12½ miles and the Champagne, but decided to be sensible and make it a day of slothful recovery, especially as I'd already made my mileage target for the week. With tonight's cold and rainy, beer-heavy, laboured 3.5 miles, here's how it's looking:

	Mon		Tues		Wed		Thurs		Fri		Sat		Sun		Tot
	P	A	P	A	P	A	P	A	P	A	P	A	P	A	P	A
Dec 19			3	3	4		4	8.3			8	3.5	3	9	22	23.8
Dec 26		4	4		4	6.4	4			3.5	10	12.5	3		25	26.35
Jan 2			3	3.5	5		3				13		3		27
Jan 9			6		5		4		4		3		8		30
Jan 16			4		5		5				15		3		32
Jan 23			6		5		6		5				13		35
P = Planned, A = Actual

The week before Christmas is never a great time to start a weight-reduction programme, but that's what I did. And it's been as successful as you might imagine. After 2½ weeks of intensive and determined calorie-counting, I now weigh 2 pounds more than I did at the start.

Things will get better.

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Friday 6 January 2006

It's a long time since I've thought of UK politics as primarily a legislative lever for social change. Since 'studying' it at university, 25 years ago, I've learnt to regard it first and foremost as a spectator sport. Most of the players themselves would have it no other way.

I put "studying" in quotes because it wasn't easy to find the time to attend lectures and tutorials. I learnt what I needed to know about politics and the art of political manipulation not in the lecture theatres, but during a 4 day period in my first year, when I took part in an occupation of the admin block, part of a protest about.... what was it? Overseas students being charged tuition fees for the first time. It was during the first few heady months of Thatcher's premiership, and at last, we had a cause to fight once again. How incredulous we would have been to learn that 20 years hence, a Labour government would be withdrawing grants from home students, and forcing them to pay fees. The world is turned upside down.

Poor old Charles Kennedy; poor old Lib Dems. Impossible not to feel some human sympathy for Kennedy after yesterday's pubic admission that he had an alcohol problem, even if you know that it was a tactical confession rather than a genuine desire to unburden his heart, square with the electorate, and feel spiritually replenished. I don't buy into claims of 'noble behaviour' and 'courage'. No, it was expedient. And understandable. His only chance of survival in a conflict that was growing ever more nasty.

At the time of writing, we don't know how it develops, but it seems likely that he will bend under the increasing pressure from his erstwhile allies in the parliamentary party, and change his mind about standing for election. Depends how unpleasant it gets. If his very public abandonment turns truly vicious, and if his colleagues start to be portrayed in the press as bullies, not trusted advisors, then he could rebound. But either way it's a blow for the Lib Dems.

My view? It's not the boozing that's his crime, but his lack of dynamism in a period of opportunity for the party that might not come back for another 30 years. The Tories had all but disappeared down the plug hole of their own vanity. They were the ailing foxes waiting to be hunted, but Kennedy never released the dogs on them. He let them get away. That's why he deserves to go. The alcohol is a poisson rouge.

That said, I'm very nearly convinced that the new Tory revival is an orgy that will come to a close rather earlier than it said on the invitations. Am I the only Cameron cynic in the house? The man is so lightweight that he will find himself being blown all over the place. He personally crafted the Tories' right-wing election manifesto just a few months ago, but now he is on his knees - a born-again socialist, would you believe. Well, would you believe?

Hmm. Me neither.

Cameron will start to overstretch himself very soon. He'll be resilient enough in the way that good public schoolboys are taught to be, but his credibility won't last beyond 2006. He'll then have to choose. My prediction? That he'll be beaten back into line by the spluttering indignation of the retired colonels and the blue-rinse brigade; the very people who are supposedly whooping and throwing their hats in the air. Like Cameron himself, they will ultimately be shown to have talked the talk, but not quite managed to clamber out of their deepening armchairs to walk the walk.

Tomorrow it's back to running.

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Saturday 7 January 2006

14 miles today, on a dismal, rain-swept afternoon. To add an extra layer of featurelessness, I chose to do 4 laps of my usual round-the-block-route.

The prospect was so uninviting that I did a rare thing -- took a radio with me. Here are some words I never thought I'd hear myself say: Thank god for TalkSport.

This radio station annoys the hell out of me, but today they just about kept me sane. It was the only talkie station I could get reasonable reception on, so I spent my 2½ hours keeping up-to-date with the FA Cup 3rd Round, and the 3-0 defeat of my team. In an uncertain world, it's good to know that there are some things you can depend on. We haven't won a cup game for about 5 years.

There's not a lot else to say about today. I trudged my miles; saw barely no one. I ground it out. It's another long run on the board, and that's what matters.

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Wednesday 11 January 2006

The forum comes and goes. Just recently there's been a buzz around the place. After a few lean months, several of us are now gearing up for races and/or midway through a marathon campaign.

By contrast, one of our most loyal parishioners, Seafront Plodder, has just renounced marathons. Understandable. As I said in my reply, it's all about motivation. When that sense of marathon wonder seeps away, the motivation soon follows it, and when that's gone, it becomes a very tough obstacle. Well, it becomes an obstacle, full-stop. It should be an aspiration, the golden temple at the end of the long journey. When it ceases to be that, you've had it.

Shorter race distances are different. As long as you keep yourself moderately roadworthy, perhaps by chalking up 2 or 3 runs a week, then you can wake up on a Sunday morning and decide to do the local 10K. If you're doing occasional longer weekend runs of 7, 8, 10 miles, then you can comfortably turn up at a half marathon on a whim. But unless you're a 9 stone, 60+ mile-a-week fitness nut, you can never do a spontaneous marathon. They have to be planned. Time must be allotted, momentum built, diet planned, and most of all perhaps, you have to 'get your head right'. Without that, you've no hope.

I've got Zurich coming up on April 9, and things are bubbling away nicely. I've never completed a marathon in less than 5 hours, and Zurich has a 5 our cut-off. If I haven't reached the 10K, 20K, 30K points in a certain time, I'll be escorted from the course. No medal, no teeshirt. Erased from the records. If I pass the 30K test but fail to finish in 5 hours, the same humiliation awaits. I chose the race for this very reason. It's time to live dangerously.

It focusses the mind alright.

I reckon weight is the shortest short-cut to faster running. If I could lose 25 pounds, I'd make life very much easier for myself. Since making that calculation, 4 weeks ago, I've got rid of about 8 of them, and feel much better for it. The last couple of runs I've felt a bit more streamlined. Last night, I joined up with the local club again. I came in last, as usual, but I could at least see the 2nd and 3rd slowest this time. Five sub-10 minute miles. That's good by my wretched standards.

Today I took a day off work to sort out my tax return. If I've not returned it by the end of this month, I'll be dismembered.

I didn't do it of course, but I did sort of visualise it as I plodded along the canal for 7 beautifully sunlit miles. Legs felt a bit heavy after last night's exertions, so at least I can console myself that it was a taxing run.

Not a totally wasted day then.

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Friday 12 January 2006

When the subject of early morning running crops up, I enthuse.

Best time of the day, I say. Makes you feel great. Sets you up for the day. Gets it out of the way.

All this is true, but the shameful fact is that I don't drink my own Kool-Aid, as our American cousins like to say. It's months since I slid out of bed before 7:30 to trot around the block. This morning at seven, slowly toasting beneath the duvet, I thought about this. I thought about it too much. I thought about it so much that I had to do it, didn't I? Got up and put my shorts on, quietly weeping as I did so.

Am I losing my nerve when it comes to running in cold weather? Until last winter I'd wear nothing more than a short-sleeved shirt and shorts, even in the very epicentre of the season. It wasn't macho stupidity. Or not just macho stupidity It was the thought of wrapping up to run. After a few minutes I'd be hot and sweaty, I reasoned. The clothes would itch and restrict my movement. I must have got this idea from an early experiment, when I wore some sort of woolly hat on a run. It didn't work at all, and that was that. Running through the frozen fog at 7 in the morning, virtually naked, stared at by people dressed up like gorillas, became a habit. It's the way it was, and the way it would always be, I thought.

Then last year, out running with the local club one evening, I noticed that of the 20 or so runners there, I was one of only two people with bare legs, and the only one wearing just one layer above the waist. Some had hat, gloves, leggings, 2 or 3 teeshirts and a jacket. It made me think. Was it my cloak of blubber protecting me from the cold? Or I was I being foolish?

As I keep reminding my wife (in vain), we should all revisit our prejudices from time to time. I reassessed Sweaty Wooly Hat Syndrome and one day soon after, I donned a plasticky "running jacket" I'd bought from Aldi for about £2.50. It was essentially a plastic rubbish sack with a tuppeny zip on it, but it sort of worked. It kept all but the sharpest of icy gusts from my flesh, though I could feel moisture evaporating from my midriff, then condensing under my icy neck and dripping back down my chest into my groin. If only there had been a vessel with a tube to collect the moisture and feed it into my water bottle, I could have been totally self-sufficient.

This damp development didn't put me off, and probably a third of my midwinter runs from then were encased in this jacket, or the rather smarter gillet I'd bought at a knockdown price from the generally excellent wiggle.co.uk. I wondered why it had been half price until the sweaty morning when I found the colour had leached from the fabric around the zip, leaving a red slash down the front of my London Marathon finisher's teeshirt, like a surgeon's incision. This winter, rather colder than the last, has even seen me in leggings once or twice, though I think leggings are taking things just a bit too far.

So this morning, I donned 2 teeshirts and a jacket (but no leggings), and left the house. As I did so, I found myself absent-mindedly singing The Beatles' "She's Leaving Home", and realised that every time I wander round the kitchen in this intimidating semi-darkness, this song is in my head.

Wednesday morning at five o'clock as the day begins,
Silently closing her bedroom door,
Leaving the note that she hoped would say more.
She goes downstairs to the kitchen clutching her handkerchief.
Silently turning the backdoor key,
Stepping outside, she is free.

It sets the right tone -- a puzzling mixture of pathos and hope. It's how I feel as I move through that door into the icy darkness. I can't tell you how much I hate that moment.

But ask me again, 45 minutes later, as I stand in the same kitchen. Now it's daylight, and the central heating has been on for half an hour. I'm chomping hungrily on a brick of malt loaf, and simultaneously pushing a banana into my mouth. In my other hand is the end of the second pint of orange squash. I'm a furnace, tottering on trembling legs, breathing noisily. I'm staring blankly through the kitchen window into the frosty garden, seeing all those things that non-runners will never see.

Boys, if we could sell that feeling, we'd be worth bloody millions.

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Saturday 13 January 2006

"Walcott is a virgin, Walcott is a virgin, L'la la la, L'la la la"

Not the wittiest effort I've heard from the Loftus Road faithful, but it will stick in my memory if Theo Walcott really does fulfill the potential that Arsenal, apparently, value at £15 million. I saw the 16 year old play today in what might have been his last match for Southampton. I noticed him only twice. On both occasions, he received the ball and sort of exploded forward, dancing over 2 or 3 lunging tackles as though they didn't exist, before allowing the ball to run just a little too far. His pace seems very impressive indeed, though it wasn't enough to stop us gaining a rare victory.

Hurrah!

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Sunday 14 January 2006

It's a curious thing. You'd think that the longer the run, the more there would be to write about, but it doesn't seem to work that way.

A 15 mile slog up the canal today, but I'm struggling to find anything interesting to say about it. The most notable aspect was probably the debut of my new portable DAB radio. I've tried running and radio-listening a couple of times, but the hissy signal is frustrating. It was like being permanently stuck on Radio Hattersley.

Then Sweder of this parish mentioned that he runs with a digital radio, reporting good reception. I looked into it a couple of times, weighing up pros and cons. Could I really justify the expense?

I forgot about it for a while, but then yesterday, I sort of bought one by accident. I was in John Lewis after the football, hunting for a wife. Preferably the existing one, but... b-but sometimes sentences are left uncompleted.

I passed someone filling up an open display case, and noticed that the box in the man's hand was a Roberts DAB radio -- the one used by Sweder. I stopped and had a chat with the sales guy. Yes, the Roberts was very good, he said, but if it's for running with, why not consider this newer one, the Nevada, which is even smaller and lighter, has a rechargeable battery, and is twenty quid cheaper to boot?

He slipped the shiny beauty into my eager hands. Gadget Fever instantly began to sweep over me. It was hopeless. No point in fighting it. I had to have it.

I got it home and went through the normal three-phase routine attached to the acquisition of a new toy:

1) Oh bugger, it doesn't bloody work.

2) Oh hang on, hmm, yeah I can see what you do now. Tsk! It doesn't work very well though, does it? I wonder if they'd take it back?

3) No wait, I've sussed it. Wow! That's fantastic!

I knew that gillet, with its radio-sized pocket, would come in useful one day. Today was that day. In honour of the man who set me on this audio path, I set it to Planet Rock and trotted off towards the canal. And it worked a treat. The reception was crystal clear, virtually CD quality. I'd been led to believe that Planet Rock played Motorhead's "Ace Of Spades" every 15 minutes or so on this station, but no, I heard just a snatch of it in a trailer (repeated frequently, admittedly). The genre would be called something like "Classic Metal": Def Leppard, Van Halen, Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden et al, but there was also a sprinkling of the more delicate -- David Bowie, Yes, and Dire Straits. I enjoyed it.

Approaching the halfway point of my run, it was "Love Her Madly" by the Doors, then Bruce Springsteen's "Born To Run". With the latter, and in particular that 13 or 14 note guitar riff, came technicolor memories of Chicago 2002. Crossing the start line with thirty seven thousand equally lumpy-throated runners, that song was belting out over the PA. Read about it here.

It wasn't going to get any better than this, I realised, so I switched over to Gardener's Question Time, and spent a more sedate hour with Bob Flowerdew's mulching tips.

15 miles is the furthest I've run since Hamburg in April last year. I managed to keep plodding the whole way apart from two or three brief walks in the final 4 miles or so. It's good to be knocking out the distances, but the main concern remains my snail-like pace. That said, the idea of long weekend runs is to build stamina and endurance, and we're positively advised to slow it right down, so perhaps I'm worrying about nothing. I need to keep running with my local group on Tuesdays and Thursdays. They aren't super-quick, but they are a good 90 seconds a mile faster than I'm used to, and 5 miles at that faster pace pulls me out of my comfort zone.

I mentioned recently that we should revisit our prejudices from time to time, and I've done just that with my drink problem. I've long had a thing about carrying fluid on long runs. It never felt right, whatever I tried. Those hollow, hand-held bottles that, over a period turn your Lucozade Sport into a hot drink; the bouncing bottle belt; the rucksack-type bladder. Been there, done it, rejected it.

Well, I tried again with a bottle belt and sure enough, it suddenly works. The bad news is that gels have gone in the other direction. I used to find these things tolerable but...

I experienced my first energy gel for some months today, and finally realised just how disgusting these things are. It's like sucking sweetened snot out of a plastic hankie. There must be a better way than this of receiving a jolt on a long run. A banana would probably work just as well, but last time I went for a run with a banana in the pocket of my shorts, I was arrested.

Is there a healthy, natural alternative to gels? I would love to know.

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Tuesday 17 January 2006

I've not been using my GPS watch recently, but the club run this evening was estimated as 4½ to 5 miles. The faster pace, and the two hills (or rather, one hill and two halfs), were a struggle for me. But that's exactly what I wanted -- a struggle.

It's not a new or original observation. In fact, it's something of a cliché. Someone on the forum referred to it yesterday as that No Pain, No Gain Malarkey.

The simple truth is that no run is useless. Even those juddering ambles round-the-block get my heart pumping and burn off a few hundred calories. Just as important, they give me time to pick over the day that's gone, and allow me to think of a few good excuses for the day ahead. It's why I don't like the trendy term "junk miles". Maybe they don't further the training cause in a specific way, but they are life-enhancing and keep us ticking over.

One of the differences between these easy runs and the other sort -- the ones that fight back -- is that we're more likely to appreciate the easy ones as they occur. They happen in real time, and give us a chance to enjoy the sight of the rabbits and the deer, the smell of woodsmoke on the evening breeze, the tranquility of the towpath. The tough, sweaty, painful runs -- wrestling matches between your training plan and your spirit -- are to be treasured only in retrospect. How I hate them while they happen. How much I want to make them stop. But remember those strict teachers at school? I can think of one or two who made my life a misery, and I theirs, yet the passage of time eventually revealed them to be the best. It's the one and only way of working through the hard ones. You try to project yourself forward to a point where it's all over. And particularly post-shower, in fresh, warm clothes, when you sit in silence, vibrating with something I can only compare to a post-coital sensation.

I don't want to exaggerate the toughness of the run. It wasn't a 10 mile slog up a rocky hillside in the dark, through a hailstorm. It was a sprightly jog on the pavements of suburban Reading, but a sprightly jog for 45 minutes, including hills, is more than I do when I'm on my own. I felt it, I hated it, but I benefitted from it.

Pain and gain.

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Wednesday 18 January 2006

If Haile Gebrselassie was to take a job at the Co-op in the village, I bet he wouldn't have to take an extended lunch break to run 10K. As observant readers will know, I'm not Haile Gebrselassie, I didn't run a half marathon in a new world record of 58 minutes on Sunday, so I did have to take an extended lunch break to run today's 10K.

It was unscheduled.

At 12 noon I was sitting at my desk, doing... stuff. Then the boss called a meeting, and announced that he was leaving. For many people reading this, it's the sort of news that might spark an office celebration, but not in our case. We're a small, closely-knit team, and we've now lost two good people in a couple of weeks. I was fed up, and glancing through the window at the bright wintry sunshine, decided to get out for some fresh air.

6.2 miles was longer than intended, but I just kept on along the canal for as long as I felt I could get away with.

I was running away.

It's another useful dimension to this activity. Sometimes you just want to get out and get far, far away from the epicentre of misery.

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Saturday 21 January 2006

Today -- as disturbing a run as I ever had. So many avoidable errors. Here are a few random, snatched examples:

1) Too anal about my training schedule. Don't I frequently remind people new to marathon training plans that they mustn't be a slave to the schedule? Today folks, I was that slave.

The plan said 18 miles. Following a couple of hard running weeks I should have laughed at it and spat in its eye. I should have jumped up and down on the idea till it expired, then interred it in my garden and carried on jumping up and down on the burial mound, singing The Red Flag at the top of my voice.

But I didn't.

2) Dehydration. I didn't just leave myself open to the risk, I personally crafted an invitation with a gold border and everything, and hand-delivered it. This, despite the unusual step of taking some water with me. But half a litre for 18 miles was never going to work. Indeed, the irony is that it was the decision to take some fluid with me that led me to ignore the bigger question of whether I had enough. I just didn't think hard enough about it.

3) I wasn't in the right physical condition, or the right frame of mind, to do any sort of long run. Yesterday (Friday), I ran a hard 6 miler. So in the first 5 miles today, I could feel the weight in my legs, slowing me down. Yesterday's happy lope was now like some hangover; a pair of vigorous, brawny, bony hands, dragging me down into the earth.

But I pressed on. I shouldn't have run yesterday, or perhaps better, should have pushed today's run back to Sunday.

4) Nutrition problems again. After the nauseating gel last weekend, I took a collection of dried fruits with me today. Apricots, figs, cranberries. There was something satisfyingly romantic and medieval about this collection of fruits. I think I got carried away. I was hovering in a bucolic idyll, a character from A Midsummer Night's Dream, or one of Robin Hood's Merrye Men, wandering in the forest, grinning, aimless, occasionally reaching into the trees for survival. Intoxicated by this pocketful of nature.

What a tragic way for a grown man to behave. And worse, to admit the full grisly details.

5) Indecision. I set off, unsure of just how far I was going to run; whether to do it all along the canal, or to branch off somewhere. Approaching the decision point, I still hadn't decided. Even now, I can't be certain what I did, or why.

6) Obstinacy. Running into the eye of the storm, all I could do was to put my wrap-around shades on. I didn't duck out when I could. A few minutes into the hilly diversion, I started to have severe doubts, but I kept going. Let the mountains move, not me.

7) Badly prepared. Everything was underestimated. I wasn't sure where I was going. I had no phone with me, no map. I just presumed that I.... I just presumed I'd survive the darkness and the cold by default. I just presumed.

So. Where do I start? This was a cock-up from start to finish.

I'll start with the good news. I ran 15 miles. That's what my spreadsheet will show.

My GPS watch has been troublesome recently; I've lost the habit of using it. Will pick it up again when the new Forerunner 305 appears, in a few weeks. For the moment, I'm measuring routes on an OS map, just like I used to. In theory, canal runs are easy to plot. You measure a distance that marks 50% of your distance, then you do an out-and-back. This only works if you remember exactly where to turn. Was it Lock 93, or Lock 91? Or was 93 last week? No hang on, wasn't it Bridge 40?

I trudged past Lock 93 and Bridge 42. Should I turn back here? Then Bridges 41 and 40. Or here? Lock 92 came and went. At Lock 91 I did, finally, stop and took my first slug of water. Dipping my head to look at the ground, a cascade of sweat ran off the peak of my cap and splashed my shoes. The weak sun was still out, but it was colder now than when I'd set out. I could see my breath in front of me. I was wearing only a short-sleeved teeshirt and a sleeveless gillet.

Leaning on my imaginary quarter-staff, I chomped on another fig and apricot. Spent a minute stretching, then turned and headed back. Even a one minute break like this disrupts the rhythm. For a hypnotic hour and a half or more, I'd been ticking along, existing on the margins, a minor character in someone else's reverie.

At one point on the outward leg, where the railway line comes close to the canal, I'd found myself chugging alongside a slow-moving goods train. I'd glanced up at the driver and caught his eye. We'd swapped waves. At the same time, on my other side, a variegated narrow-boat was gliding sedately along the canal, like a lump of butter sliding across a hot frying pan. The pipe-smoking pilot had smiled and nodded. For perhaps 30 seconds or so, the three of us had moved slowly westward in concert, while a driving blues from ZZ Top, courtesy of Planet Rock in my headphones, had provided the soundtrack. For those brief moments I'd felt a satisfying sense of purpose and direction. In our own different ways, we were all on the same journey, but then the train sped up and clanked off towards Newbury and beyond, and the bubble popped.

Stopping now at this halfway point was like waking from a dream. Trying to recreate that sense of peace was like trying to fall asleep again to re-enter the same dream. It can't be done.

Heading back was a different sensation. Somehow the life had begun to drain out of the run. If the first half was a dream, I was now lying awake, psyching myself up for the task ahead. How far had I come? Was it enough? What were my options? With four miles left to go along the canal before I got home, I started to weigh up my options. Yes, I was tired now. My quads and calfs were heavy and unresponsive. I was plodding. Worse than plodding, I was beginning to shuffle. The quickest way home was straight back the way I'd come, but if I turned off at the next bridge and made my way over the A4 towards the villages of Tutts Clump and Bradfield, I'd be adding a couple of miles at least, therefore guaranteeing that I'd done the distance. It would be hard, but worth it in the end, I reasoned.

A gentler voice was telling me: No. Continue along this path of least resistance. With a tough half marathon next weekend, nothing would be gained by taking the diversion. But this voice lost out, and at Ufton Bridge, I turned north-west, away from the canal. I trotted over the level crossing where all those people had died, just 14 months ago. Here's the story.

A couple of hundred yards later, I was at the main road, looking across the A4 to the start of the road leading into the hilly woods beyond. No, I told myself, this is stupid. I was already walking as much as I was running. But I carried on, and carried on. Another half mile and I could barely run at all. I was now walking, with occasional short bursts of jogging.

And suddenly it was dark, too. And much colder.

Past a couple of farms till I came to Hill Number 1. Steep, but I had a go at jogging up it. Gave up 50 yards later. Down the other side, and straight into Hill Number 2. This is really steep, and long. The woods closed in some more. By the time I was tottering down the other side, I could barely see my hand in front of my face. Then another, smaller hill. Then a short steep one. I didn't remember this route being so long, and so hilly. I encouraged myself by thinking what a good stretch of road this would be to do some hilly intervals in the future. Drive down to the start of the track; run one way for 2 miles or so, then back the other. A total of 8 hills in 4 miles. A good workout. But not after running for 3 hours or more.

For all our sakes, I'll put this tale out of its misery now.

I walked for another 2 miles, till I finally conceded I was in trouble. Black as pitch, freezing, and in the middle of a wood. Miserable. I decided to throw in the towel -- but how? No phone, no money, no ideas.

Another painful mile, then at last, a bit of luck. Turning a corner, glowing gold in the distance, like a beacon for the traveller, a red phonebox. Please let it work.

It did. A reverse-charge call home, and 15 minutes later, M turns up to rescue me.

Here's the lesson: hard runs deserve hard thinking. Nature is bigger than we are. Modern living is so easy that we seem to want to make it hard for ourselves. Sometimes, too hard.

And here's the irony: when I got home and measured my route, I found I'd already run 15 miles by the time I turned away from the canal. Had I kept chugging along, I'd have managed 18 miles. When I finally called my wife, I'd covered more than 19, and had I managed to finish the route I was intending, it would have been almost 22 miles. Way, way too far.

A cock-up. That's it.

Changing the subject, here's a piece of video I posted recently on the forum. I'm posting it again in case people missed it:

London Marathon.

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Tuesday 24 January 2006

Is there a dog? I'm not a dogmatic type, so I say no....

[pause]

How did I get into this cul-de-sac? And how do I get out?

Regarding the first question, I was about to say "Thank god for Excel", but I hesitated. As a shrink-wrapped atheist, I hate mentioning the word. Not because I find it distasteful, but because I worry that people might suspect that I'm a closet theist.

In answer to the second, I say this: Bugger 'em, let's start again.

So. Thank god for Excel. How easy it becomes to answer another question, one I was pondering during this evening's run: How long will it have been between next Sunday's Almeria Half, and my previous half marathon?

A glance at my spreadsheet says 322 days. Just 6 weeks or so shy of a year.

Halfs can be pretty frightening things. It's not anxiety about failing to finish, and I won't be wearing those PB stress shoes this weekend - the ones with the concrete soles. It doesn't matter what my time is for this race. It's the distance itself; it just isn't a comfortable one. As I said recently, if you run regularly, and throw in occasional weekend 10 milers, then you can turn up on a whim for a half and get round -- unlike a marathon, which sees a third of your year turn to dust.

But a half is still a robust workout. It's long enough to think, half a mile into the race, "Oh bugger, what the hell have I gone and done?" It's long enough to get depressed about your athletic fragility, and long enough to curse your burgeoning adiposity, and long enough to resolve that next time you find yourself in one of these irksome events, you'll be two stone lighter and will have developed thighs of tempered steel. You'll have found the perfect shoes -- the ones that make you feel the way you do when you're hurrying along one of those moving walkways at the airport. Every time I'm on one of those things, I shut my eyes for a moment, and think: "Wow, so this is what Paula Radcliffe must feel like".

I was probably going through all those must-dos at Silverstone last March. 322 days later, I suspect I'll be going through that well-thumbed task-list yet again.

A bracing 5 miles or so this evening with the local club. The streets were black and empty and cold. Very cold. It was the coldest night in London for 9 years, I heard later, and the statistic might well extend the 50 or so miles westwards to Reading. Cold enough to debut those rather effete white gloves that advertise last year's Eintracht Marathon, a freebie from the Hamburg Expo. The trouble with gloves is that your instincts tell you to use them as a handkerchief. Which is perfectly OK in my cavalier running universe, except that (in running company) a handkerchief is sometimes used for blowing a nose, and at other times, for wiping the sweat and steam from a pair of glasses.

As I discovered this evening, these functions are not truly complementary when carried out in quick succession.

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Wednesday 25 January 2006

No run today. I'm trying to force a step-back week on myself, and conserve a bit of energy for Sunday's half marathon.

Any spare traces of vigour have been directed towards the annual tax return.

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Saturday 28 January 2006 - Almeria, Spain

One of life's mysteries - waking up a few minutes in advance of the alarm clock, regardless of how early it's due to cry out in the darkness. It happened as usual this morning, despite it being set for 03:55.

Half an hour later I was tip-toeing down the stairs of my in-laws' place, and off out into the icy pre-dawn. Ash (Sweder) and Andy (Seafront Plodder) nearly turned up on time, and 20 minutes or so later, we were checking in our bags at Gatwick.

We finished counting our good omens as we arrived in Almeria. Despite the pleasure of meeting up with our hospitable local mate, Antonio, it was disappointing to see the teeming rain. We learned that this had started yesterday evening, and hadn't stopped. After checking into the Tryp Indalo hotel, a second piece of bad news came in a phone call to Ash from EasyJet, telling him he'd left his wallet on the plane. On reflection, this may not have been such bad news for him. It presented him with the perfect excuse to keep his hands firmly in his pockets as Antonio led us round a cake paradise and some tapas bars.

In truth, this wasn't the most satisfying of activities the day before a race, when I'm ultra-paranoid about what I eat and drink, not to mention the perils of ingesting too much recycled cigarette smoke. But it was good to meet up for a chat with some of Antonio's friends and work colleagues. One in particular, a lively and personable redhead called Carmen, reproached our great nation, and called us uncivilised. We drink too much, it seems. The irony hadn't struck her. She was talking to two water-supping Brits while she necked a few cervezas in a bar dedicated to the noble art of bull-fighting. How do we define being civilised? It's in the eye of the beholder, evidently. It wasn't a completely serious discussion, or we could now be looking forward yet again to repulsing the Spanish Armada from our southern shores.

Even more enjoyable was the siesta that followed, and I managed to claw back a couple of the hours lost early this morning.

This evening it was registration at the new stadium, opened last year just in time for the half marathon. It's developed in the intervening year, and now has a car park, a large electronic scoreboard, and a restaurant overlooking the floodlit, fluorescent green pitch. Here the pasta meal was held. I didn't mind the more down-to-earth youth hostel venue last year -- but the greater convenience this year was welcome.

The meal was fine. Cold pasta and ham starter, followed by what I first assumed to be the roasted leg of an ostrich. But no, a couple of bites later and I revised my view -- it transpired to have once belonged to a gargantuan chicken.

I have a thing about empty stadiums. Nothing to do with being a QPR fan, no, but connected with childhood memories of Wembley Stadium. But these are mournful tales for another time.

Tomorrow, the race.

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Tuesday 31 January 2006 - Almeria, Spain

Picture the scene...

Lying on my deathbed, a solemn, distant, whispering face...will be slowly lowered into my grey, fading world.... and will tell me... my time is almost up.

Peering out weakly, a waning stamen amid a bonnet of withering petals, I'll smile the best I can...

and call loudly for a bottle of Taylor's 77.

Admit it, port is the greatest of all drinks, and fittingly, it generates the greatest of all hangovers. Knowing I'll be dead tomorrow would be the ideal opportunity to push the boat out, and allow myself the luxury of chewing over a whole bottle. What a way to go.

These thoughts emerged through today's painful, extended crapulence. Ash, Andy and I flew back from Spain with, surely, the largest collective bad head in the history of modern aviation.

A dry January and galloping old age had combined to reduce the opacity of my hangover memories. Today they are back in full, living technicolor.

Where were we?

Almeria, southern Spain.

Opening the curtains on Sunday morning revealed a heartening sight -- one of those exotic, orangey Mediterranean skies. There was even a trace of sunshine. Below, people were wandering round without umbrellas. The ground was dry and things were looking good.

Over a leisurely but ascetic breakfast -- a few bites of baguette, a banana, an orange, and a mouthful of water -- I considered what to wear. I had with me a wide selection of items from the Running Commentary wardrobe, and I now had to consider the optimum permutation. Wet or dry weather? Warm or cold? So... long-sleeved or short? One layer or two? How many pockets did I need? Which cap to wear -- the traditional, canary-yellow Hal Higdon? Or the tasteful, grey, New Balance cap purchased last night from the modest expo? Thick socks or thin?

In the end I went for the new cap and gel belt, and thick Thorlo socks. Club vest on top, but underneath? Couldn't decide.

The boldest decision was wearing some brand new shoes. I've had to stock up on New Balance 854s recently after the company announced the disastrous decision to discontinue them. Why they should vote to stop producing one of their best-loved models is a mystery. These shoes are kind to the runner with the more generous figure. Solid, stable, and comfortable over high mileages. New Balance evidently can't cope with their commercial success, and are abandoning them. I mailed the company a while back to ask why, and received an anodyne and schoolgirlish response, complete with typos and nauseatingly jolly exclamation marks.

Hang on, I can feel a rant coming on...

<rant>
Excessive exclamation marks are the curse of the modern age! They seem to be saying: I've just said something awfully amusing, by the way, so don't forget to chuckle!! I have to put in an exclamation mark just to let you know!!!!

So anyway, I had a message back from one of the YTS kids in the New Balance marketing department, splattered with these terrible things, telling me that well, We all have to move on! We have to keep innovating!! People like change!!!

Do we really like change? We're constantly told that not only should we like it, we should embrace it, whatever that means. This platitude has elevated itself to the status of Eleventh Commandment. Thou Shalt Not Grumble About New Things. Personally, I think it's a useless maxim. What we should like and embrace and encourage, is progress and improvement, not just change. New Balance is introducing a new shoe - well why not? No problem with that. But to make room for this new shoe, they're disposing of another one that a lot of people support and cherish, and are happy to keep buying. According to this month's Runner's World mag, the new model is nothing like the 854, so we don't even have any compensation.

So it's Boooooooooooo to New Balance.
</rant>

Man, that feels a lot better.

So anyway, I pulled on my new 854s for only the second time yesterday. Just 3½ miles notched on them, during Friday's gentle loosener.

The other three As -- Ash, Andy and Antonio -- were waiting in the lobby. Ash had been ingratiating himself with one of those startlingly flimsy, gaminesque Kenyan women runners. She must have weighed less than one his legs.

Andy and Antonio were deep in conversation. The plan was for Andy to borrow Antonio's bike to help him act as our second. Both men seemed to be losing enthusiasm for what had seemed like a good idea to begin with. Andy was explaining that he hadn't ridden a bike for 25 years, and asking if it would be safe if he just left it outside the stadium for an hour or so while he watched the end of the race. Antonio was gazing at his machine as though for the last time.

Eventually, Andy wobbled off towards the start line a couple of miles away while Antonio chauffeured us to the stadium. On the way there, I confided in Ash that I was still undecided about what to wear under my bright yellow Reading Joggers club vest. Short-sleeved blue tee? Or the long-sleeved, yellow Coolmax top? In a judgement that would have delighted my wife, he opined that the two yellows would clash, and therefore I should go with the more co-ordinated blue tee-shirt. I confess I was startled by his reasoning, but meekly went along with the verdict.

Once we'd parked, Antonio vanished. As always, he had some act of kindness to accomplish -- this time to deliver a race pack to an Italian friend in some uncertain location. Meanwhile, we passed the Kenyan runner again. She grinned and gave us a Shearer salute.

We nervously glanced at the huge black clouds that were mustering in the west, and starting to drift towards us. As we jogged around the car park, the inevitable happened. Large spots of rain began to fall. The English contingent were evidently more waterproof than the Spaniards. As it got wetter and colder, Ash and I continued to... warm up, while most of the other runners ran shrieking into the stadium to seek shelter.

With a couple of minutes to go, the squealing field moved towards the start line, like lemmings heading for the cliff.

Admittedly, it was uncomfortable. The rain was now heavy and dense, and a cold wind had whipped up from somewhere. In the middle distance, the surrounding mountains were coated with snow. It was like being trapped in a washing machine on an ice-cold cycle; the least pleasant start to a race since Bath in 2003.

As some readers might recall, I like to check out apparel during the moments leading up to the start of a race, and one thing that struck me in Almeria was the almost total lack of leggings, jackets, and even long-sleeved shirts. I don't think this was bravado on the part of the Spanish runners. I wouldn't want to accuse them of that. No, I suspected it was a simple reflection of differences in our running gear. British runners who've survived a couple of winters tend to have started to build up quite a collection of waterproof, windproof outer gear. Gillets, jackets, leggings, tracksuit bottoms, hats, caps, gloves, as well as things like figure-hugging undershirts. If this race had been happening in the UK, you'd have seen quite a few examples. But here there was virtually nothing. A large proportion of runners wore vests and shorts, and no headgear.

There was a minute's silence for some local people who'd died in a motor accident. The minute's silence lasted about 10 seconds, then we were off.

Like last year, the start was ragged. I didn't notice a start line. I didn't notice a starting gun. One moment we were leaping like salmons and flapping our arms about, then there was a concerted jog forward, then a stop, then a start again, and more shuffling. About 30 seconds later I decided to start my watch.

Antonio and I ran together for 3½ kilometres or so, through the unremarkable semi-industrial sector, and on into the centre of the town. He has taught in Almeria for 17 years, and knows thousands of people in the town. He's a latterday Mister Chips, or whatever the Spanish equivalent might be. Senor Tortillas, perhaps. He kept up a running commentary throughout these first three kilometres, explaining who people were, both in the race and among the spectators. Dozens of people called out to him, or waved as we passed. At one point he suddenly said "Excuse me", and darted off round a corner. I assumed he'd promised to do some shopping for an elderly neighbour on his way round, or to undertake some other humanitarian act. But no, he was only having a pee.

I'm not very good at talking during a race, so I said little. The rain was still teeming, and large puddles were starting to form across the tarmac. 3 kilometres in, we pass beneath the railway bridge and swing right towards the dreaded Rambla. This is Almeria's long, uphill main street. In truth, it's not a steep hill but it lasts for about 2 kilometres, or a mile and a quarter. In the half marathon, we run it twice.

200 metres or so up the Rambla, Antonio decided to push on, probably bored by my silence. He might also have cast a worrying glance over his shoulder and seen that there was only one runner behind us. I felt no anxiety about this. I knew that I wouldn't be second-last for long. Too many had gone off too quickly, probably spurred on by the bad weather. They wouldn't be able to sustain that pace.

At the very top of the Rambla, 5km into the race where with gratitude and relief, we turn sharply left, pick up some water, and head back down the other side of the street, I overtook the first dozen or so slowing runners. Most of this group was wearing red shirts, and were soldiers. I stayed just ahead of them for almost the entire race. For most of that time they sang and shouted and played.

Why are trained killers always so darned cheerful?

The descent was over in a snap, helped, halfway down, by the realisation that the rain had almost stopped, and at the bottom, by the uplifting sight of Carmen, her young son Paquito, and her friend Encarna waving and squealing at me. Running a race is a surprisingly solitary activity. Physically you're part of a crowd, but the need to stay disciplined and focussed draws you into yourself. When there's someone out there to cheer you on, you're jolted out of your isolation and have to re-engage with the event and the external world. Seeing a friendly face is like taking a gel or hitting a downward stretch. You're temporarily energised.

It wasn't just these three who helped us round. Andy and José were always popping up when least expected, dangling a banana in front of me, or taking a picture, or offering water, or just a bit of encouragement. It makes a difference.

Last year's race offered me probably my best running moment ever, being overtaken by Haile Gebrselassie. This year he shunned a rematch, but the front-runners did inevitably catch up with me, though a few hundred metres further on this time. It's always exciting to hear the police outriders roaring up behind you, nudging you to the side of the road, and seeing the real athletes gracefully skipping past, full of running and energy. I doubt if they avoided the puddles like I did. They can probably walk on water in any case.

The long flat road down to the roundabout, where you turn and retrace your steps back to the town centre, is a tough stretch. The Rambla may sound like the hardest part of the race, but at least it's a pleasant, tree-lined route through the glitzy part of town, and it's where the spectators tend to gather. The 3 or 4 long pulls before and after the Rambla are where your spirit and energy are drained from you. It's here you must dig deep and just keep on keeping on.

The second time up and down the Rambla was much tougher than the first, but now I was tired and wanted to finish. My aim for the race was to beat last year's time, while my hope was for a PB. I sensed the PB dream slipping away through the second half of the race as I gradually tired. The endless, featureless stretch alongside the sea and back up to the stadium must be 5 or 6 km at least. Add in the day's deathly greyness, strapped around us like a straitjacket, the huge puddles and the bedraggled palm trees flapping in the icy breeze, and you have a slightly demoralising run-in.

The sight of a race finish is enough to compete with any of the Great Wonders of the World. At Almeria, as with the Reading Half, you see the stadium long before you actually arrive there, which only adds to the thrill of finally reaching it. When you do get there, fatigued and aching and mentally tired, you must plummet down a horribly steep ramp into the arena. It's easy to imagine falling, and being too scratched and torn to continue. For this to happen would be the cruellest blow. It's not just the "so near yet so far" aspect, but you'd be deprived of the best moment of this or any race -- the thrill of coming off the streets and into a stadium. At Almeria (unlike Reading), you have to run a full circuit of the track before hitting the finish. Is this cruel or exciting? Hard to say. True, it's the last thing you feel like doing after all those miles, and within touching distance of the tape (so to speak) too. But let's face it, it's here you can act out your fantasies, as you hurl around the track towards the finish, with thousands of screaming fans on their feet, pogoing with excitement.

That's (almost) how it feels, anyway. The truth, tragically, is not quite identical to the hallucinations produced by your emotional weariness and physical debilitation. I discovered this only later, after viewing the video footage taken by Andy. My memory is of accelerating into a strong, confident stride for that final lap. The reality is that I am an old man in survival-shuffle mode, desperate for the finish line to reach me before my coronary does. But if my eyes were opened by seeing the video, they were swiftly slammed shut, beneath the weight of my own disappointment and shame.

The running star of the show was Ash, whose 1:47 was a PB, and 3 minutes faster than his target. A tremendous performance in those conditions. Antonio coasted to 2:07, well ahead of me. I finished in 2:12. This was 1 minute outside my PB, but 3 minutes less slow than Almeria last year. I was happy with that.

On the subject of congratulations, let's mention a few others: Antonio, who seems to have limitless patience with the excesses of the Brits. Andy and José for their support during the race. Antonio's colleagues, Carmen and Encarna, and young Paquito for their lusty cheering.

And of course, there's the legendary Almeria Half goody bag. This has to be the best value race on the planet. For 10 euros (about £7), you get race entry, champion chip, three course pre-race meal, decent quality teeshirt, runner's rucksack, chunky keyring, pen, fruit, punnet of green tomatoes, and probably several other things I've forgotten about.

Wrapped in gold foil, we crept past the long queues for the massage tables and those massive Almeria Half posters that Ash and I cast covetous glances at. Back at the car, how good it was to bite into one of Antonio's chocolate cereal bars. I'd not had a sniff of this wonderful substance for a month. Boy, it was all worth it for that mouthful.

Back to the hotel, quick shower, change of clothes, then down to the bar for my first beer for 4 weeks. Hmmm. If the chocolate tasted good, the beer was a significant step further along the pleasure path. Standing there in the sunlit bar with Ash and Andy, aching sweetly from the race, feeling clean and wearing fresh clothes, glugging a couple of beers and giggling over recalled bits of the race, was the best 30 minutes of the entire weekend.

Just before 3, we took a cab down to the Rambla for the now-traditional group photo in our race teeshirts. Then we carried on to lunch at the Club de Mar. Let's not mince our words here, the meal was very ordinary and I was unlucky with the wine. The first bottle of Cune Reserva 73 was badly oxidised and was sent back. The second bottle, this time a Faustino V 94 Reserva should have been a safer choice, but was also out of condition. This time, the waiters were getting so stroppy that I didn't dare complain. But next year, if we are back in Almeria, I think we may look for a different venue.

If the meal was disappointing, the occasion was good, and we managed to enjoy it. We raised our (beer) glasses to Nigel, Suzie and M, and other absent friends, and continued to relish the sheer joy of having finished the race.

After the meal, the three English chaps went to the football of course. Almeria versus Numancia. The home side were poor, and were deservedly beaten 2-1, the winning goal coming in the 3rd minute of time added on in the second half. We watched the game in the same stadium that we'd finished the race in earlier that day. It's a polished product, but I've said before that I don't much like new stadia. Yes, I'm comfortable and have leg-room. The new scoreboard is lovely and makes sounds that are "fun". But where are the ghosts of yesteryear? The atmosphere? Where is the sense of history, of past pain and triumph? It isn't there. It's the difference between new shoes and a comfortable, worn-in pair. Almeria's running track takes you away from the pitch, and away from the sport. You really are a spectator, and not a participant in the event. We enjoyed the experience, but we were never a part of it.

Then a long walk back to the hotel, a quick rest, and it was out again to one of the local bars, where we met up with Juan Pedro, the chap we'd been introduced to the previous day. He was there with a skinny guy who turned out to have run the half marathon that morning in 1:09. More than an hour faster than me. Bastard. I bet I could drink more beer than he could. The truth of this seemed to be indicated by him making an early departure, leaving the four of us to glug lager and watch Celta Vigo go down, unluckily, 2-1 at home to Real Madrid.

Later, we found ourselves in a beerless bar called Aqualung. There was a wistful silence as we scanned the row of 70s album covers above us.

Oh Aqualung my friend,
don't you start away uneasy.....

I was never a big Jethro Tull fan, but ageing plays tricks on you.

We spent three hours drinking gargantuan glasses of Beefeater gin and Jack Daniels, and some other evil German stuff that the buxom German barmaid told us we must have. Who were we to argue?

We had one more day left in Almeria, but if I start talking about that, this report will be delayed even further. This was another good away day for Team Running Commentary. With no women around to keep us in order, we were perhaps more badly behaved than last year. We ate far too many peanuts, for instance, and I forgot to comb my hair this morning.

But despite it all, we somehow managed to pull through, and so we live to run another day.

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