June 2009

[Sweder]

There's a faint stirring in the depths of my running psyche; a gentle awakening, maybe even a new dawn - but lets not get carried away just yet.
I'm entering into a 'run when you feel like it' phase. It won't necessarily mean less running (that's hardly possible after a parched April/ May), rather less running under pressure. I've been guilty of forcing myself to get out there, of trying to run at a standard and pace at odds with what's been a rather hectic slice of life. The result has been frustration, injury and a nagging feeling that I should pack it all in for a while.

The hope now is that I start to enjoy running again for running's sake as opposed to a means to an end (weight loss - ha! Fat chance, as the age-old gag has it; races - none on the immediate horizon; improvement - all very well if you operate on a full compliment of cylinders I'm sure). If that happens I might relax enough to let the synapses re-boot and before too long start churning out more comprehensible drivel to post in here.

Until then I'll pop in with irregular mini-updates, rather like this one.

Woke up this morning, felt good, strapped on the runners and chugged a leisurely fifty-minute five miler under a baking sun. A deliciously cool breeze mopped my brow, twittering skylarks and chirrupping blackbirds provided the soundtrack. I so enjoyed running at a less-than-bothered pace I actually relaxed a bit, stride lengthening, corpulence flowing freely on the wind-assisted homeward leg.

I could use a few more of these. It's what running, at this level at any rate, should be all about.


Before I go I'd like to share some rather exciting news which landed on our doormat on Monday.
Phoebe, now fourteen, has been working like a trooper over the past four months, going through any number of selection processes, auditions, interviews and hoop-jumping exercises, in an effort to win a place with the London School of Contemporary Dance Centre for Advanced Training (CAT). She made the regional (Brighton) group back in February, that series now just ended. This last round of grillings was for a place at The Place, one of LSCD's CAT facilities in the capital. She passed the audition and we all went up for the interview where we were told that although we'd made the cut into the last thirty-plus they would have to whittle a little more to fill the twenty-five places available. With talented applicants from as far afield as Dorset, Suffolk and Manchester we knew the competition would be fierce, and the nail-biting began.

As you may have surmised the news was good and she starts in September, every Saturday up in London and twice weekly at a satelite school closer to home. To say I'm chuffed would be a masterful understatement. I now have the task of keeping Phoebe's feet on the ground whilst trying to anchor my own sizeable plates, but just for the moment - Yeeeeeeaaaaahhhh!!!!