August already 2014

[Charliecat5]

This week we have been staying in a Yurt (I know) in an extremely quiet part of France, but not a part that is wholly devoid of bread, cheese and alcohol – in fact it has plenty of all things culinary and tasty; however, I have not quite been the glutton I was last week… more fruit and vegetables have past my lips over recent days and the alcohol intake has been substantially less. So putting confit duck and marshmallows toasted on an open fire to one side, my diet has improved… improved when compared to my previous excesses. Having said that, I am struggling to see my feet, so there is some serious work to be done post vacances.

But what of the running? Well thus far this week I have been out twice. The bells of the local church start their morning ritual at 7am every morning, chiming to encourage the locals out of bed to start work in the fields (or converting old barns into holiday lets, as it appears to be these days), so on both days I was out of bed by 7:10am and tying up the laces of my Nikes.

This part of the world is mostly woodland with fields interspersed between, which is lovely, but it is not clear where the tracks are, or indeed where they lead… so not wishing to risk getting lost on a somewhat grand scale, I decided to stick to the roads… roads that to be honest, are little more than farm tracks.

On Monday, the route took me out of our hamlet and onto the main thoroughfare to the next town. I ran up hill and down, past fields of sunflowers just starting to turn their heads to the rising sun, past old farms creaking into life and past endless rows of sweetcorn ripening on their stems. Having achieved just over 1.5 miles, I turned round and experienced it all again arriving home before the rest of them had even noticed that I had gone. So what of my pace? 8.15 min/mi without really trying which I put down to a combination of road running, a better diet; and to be truthful, a better frame of mind.

This morning I decided to run to a church in a neighbouring village which when we drove past yesterday I had estimated to be about 1.5 miles away. Of course it was more than that, but who cares? Again, I set off just as the sun was rising, passing fields of sweetcorn, sunflowers and a pig farm and best of all, a deer grazing in a field only 50 yards away from me, completely oblivious to the strange running man, huffing and puffing past her.

The church, as churches are, was on top of a hill which allowed me to stretch my lungs and test my muscles and after a quick rest at the top to enjoy the peace and the view, I turned round to retrace my steps home. My pace started to suffer a little and the old anxiety started to build, so remembering some of those rare wise words that Sweder once gave me, I switched my Garmin off (well I switched it from the pace screen to the clock, so I couldn’t see it) and sunk all my energies into absorbing the beauty around me. Funnily enough, when I did check my time at the end of the run, my pace was pretty good for a five miler (8.35 min/mi). More importantly though, I rediscovered a bit of the reason I started to run in the first place - the joy and simplicity of getting out there in the countryside, where the running itself becomes both the means and the end of reaching a state of tranquillity – a source of meditation if you will.