Mon 24 June 2002Have just realised that none of last week's entries were uploaded properly. They are now, I hope. I keep meaning to redesign this site but if you hand-code everything it's a bit daunting.And as you can tell I don't have a great deal to talk about as Monday is a day of rest. I spoke to the Chicago hotel to change the dates slightly, but that's about the only marathon-related thing to have happened today. This week sees the Wednesday run go up to 4 miles but tomorrow and Thursday are still just 3. Ah, the opening weeks of the training are sooo misleading! I'm going to enjoy it while I can. Tues 25 June 2002Looks like the UK Brain Tumour Society will be the recipients of any money I manage to raise. More news when I get it.My 3.67 miler this evening was a little disappointing. I was all geared up to have a go at beating my record again, currently 37:27 (that's a 10:12 pace - I must edge down below 10 minutes a mile), and I was making pretty good progress when, about half way round, I came across half a dozen bewildered French cyclists squinting helplessly over an Ordnance Survey map of the area. I decided to extend the hand of international friendship, and stop. A few minutes of trying to speak pidgin French while they tried to speak pidgin English, including a friendly World Cup jibe or two, and I was on my way again. Decided to forget the time and just enjoy the run. Wed 26 June 2002The daily train journey always has some diversion. Hot on the heels of my man-with-peach-bathrobe, another weird sight on the train to London this morning: at Slough someone got on with two lifesized cardboard cutouts of Michael Owen and Paul Scholes. By this time the train was getting full, so he stood there, leaning against the carriage wall with an arm around each. Every time I looked up from my book (currently Enduring Love by Ian McEwan), I did a double-take. It was unnerving and surreal.Never again. This evening, for my 4 mile canal run, I decided it was time to explore what lay in the opposite direction from usual. Why have I never taken this way before? Probably because it takes me nearer to the sprawl of Reading, and the ominous shadow it casts across the horizon. My usual direction takes me deeper into rural West Berkshire, with the promise of cleaner air and some idealised notion of bucolic gaiety. Along the canal towards Reading, the first notable landmark is the M4. It roars at you for half a mile before you get there, like some gargantuan monster lying in wait around the corner, and for half a mile beyond. After that the towpath just vanishes and you plunge into a series of overgrown, nettley fields. Tiny, bumpy paths wind through them, sometimes 20 or 30 yards from the water. Running is treacherous, and for much of the jaunt I was reduced to a feeble, tentative jog, almost as though I was treading water as I struggled to keep my feet. Needless to say the 4.5 mile run was extremely slow at around 57 minutes, or 12:45 a mile. Hopeless, but useful to know that I need never trouble the Reading path again. Tonight's conditions notwithstanding, I'm not running well at the moment. I feel tired and overweight and listless. I think I need more sleep. Goodnight. Thurs 27 June 2002Another early morning run: not successful. I woke at 5.30 and lay there in a fog. I was just a semi-detached spectator as a fight broke out between Sleep and Run. Five minutes later I was sitting on the stairs, wearily tying the laces of my Brooks, having accepted the inevitable.The morning came straight from the Running Paradise catalogue. The sun was already bright, but the air remained cool and fresh from the night. No moving cars to be seen or heard or dodged as I set out on my now-familiar 3.67 mile circuit of the local lanes. After a good start, I began to feel a stitch, then that remote pain in my chest that I used to get during my winter training. I hadn't done any stretching or warming-up, and I was paying the price. I persisted as best I could but it was tough, and eventually I decided to curtail the run, meaning that I was out for 30 minutes rather than the normal 40. Not a disaster, especially as I was due to visit the gym in the evening. No bathrobed baldies or cardboard heroes on the train this morning, but I did manage to finish Enduring Love, another great Ian McEwan novel. The opening chapter is sensational, and no one who stands in a bookshop and reads those first few pages of the book can have much hope of leaving the store without it. A very readable novel, though without the true magnificence of McEwan's Atonement, which I'd read immediately before. Atonement is the finest novel I've read in a very long time. This evening I went for my fitness test at the local gym. Quite an interesting experience. Here's what I discovered:
I spent a pleasant half hour nattering with the young chap, James, who does the tests. (My neighbour reckons he shaves his legs. Women notice these things...) After our chat he drew up a gym training schedule. At one point he asked me which two pieces of upper-body apparatus I wanted to concentrate on. I wasn't expecting the question, and came up with the only two whose names I knew: the pec-deck and the lateral machine. "Ah", he said, sounding like an obsequious waiter collecting the wine menu, "An excellent choice!" After the fitness test I put in the first of my planned 12 sessions and returned home, glowing with smug good health. M had one of her bacon salads waiting. I felt great. I realised that this was a turning point. If I could maintain this kind of regime, I would quickly lose the 15 or so pounds I need to. Ten minutes later, as I leaned on the bar of the local pub, munching peanuts and crisps and enjoying the first of my two pints of bitter, I had cause to reflect on the weaknesses inherent in the human spirit. I'm beginning to worry about one of the bosses at work. I don't know if it's symptomatic of too much World Cup-watching, or something rather... darker, but this week I've noticed his tendency to hover behind me, loudly humming Deutschland Uber Alles. What can this mean? Fri 28 June 2002A rest day, filled with beer and crisps and lethargy. The coming weekend is a lost cause even before it starts. We have friends arriving tomorrow; we're all off to a party in London in the evening, then Sunday is the World Cup Final and another birthday celebration. Hopeless, quite hopeless. When am I supposed to run in that lot?If I survive, I'll be back around Monday-ish. Let's just call it "early July". Next week > |