Some men, it is said, pay prostitutes just to have a conversation with them. I have a similar relationship with Phil Chalmers, the sports therapist who tortured my calf into obedience in the lead-up to the Boston Marathon. Like, I suspect, a tart’s recreation room, Phil’s studio is lined with equipment, offering varying degrees of cardiovascular menace: rowing machine, bike, medicine balls, fitballs, weights, and other instruments I don’t dare enquire about in case he invites me to get off my arse and do something with them. An appalling thought. Mercifully, I’m never required to do anything active. We just sit and talk, then I give him some money and leave, feeling suitably relieved. When he writes his memoirs, he … …
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Something very odd has happened. A run. It’s been 5 months since the Boston Marathon, since when I’ve plodded a total of 9 miles. Two miles a month isn’t ideal preparation for the coming campaign. Including the 5 minute walk to warm down, the 3.64 miles this evening took me 48 minutes. That’s not very good. The positive spin is that it’s not quite as bad as it might have been. After 22 weeks out of action, I was fearing being forced into some pitiful, alternating 2 minutes run – 2 minutes walk routine. There were three brief walk breaks, but a total of about 40 plodding minutes. I can’t bring myself to call it “running” but even mild jogging … …
Another 65 minutes or so of very sweaty cardiovascular exertion in the gym this evening, bouncing around on the treadmill, fuelled by an unsettling cocktail of upliftingly earnest Sussex folk music (courtesy of SP), and the throb of high velocity, wild electronic dance. I liked the folky stuff, but I may have to concede that its congruity with the gym is limited. I came away with aching legs and a deep sense of smugness. Adjacent to the gym is an Asda supermarket. I spend half an hour here, filling a trolley with fresh fruit and vegetables, muesli, low-fat dairy items and dried fruit. I should have saved the folk music for this section of the evening. More tomorrow.… …
It’s official. After a nervous few days, when I couldn’t be certain of not flunking this revival, I’m happy that the latest in a long chain of personal re-inventions is well underway. I’ve not ventured into the big wide running world yet, but I can report 8 days of exercise out of the last 9, including 7 gym trips, and that’s good prep for the real thing. The results of this effort seem to be dribbling down to my midriff. Well, I can’t claim to have made a visible difference to my torso, but the scales are registering a dip of about 5 pounds over this opening week and a half. More important than this is the change in outlook. … …
Would they ever do it? They did. In 1995, Blackburn Rovers finally won the Premier League, after several seasons of just missing out on the top prize. But that was their only modern moment of glory. The following season they dropped to 7th, and the year after that, to 13th. They never regained the title, and seem unlikely to over the next several years. It was as if the focus and effort required to reach their goal finished them off. What else was there after that? This is the Blackburn Rovers syndrome. It’s very similar to what runners call the marathon blues — the sense of anti-climax that follows the event they’ve trained so long for. After a gruelling journey … …
Ten weeks ago, I boldly instructed my spreadsheet that this was it. "Starting over". A week later, I tried again, and this time actually put in a good week of easing-back activity: just one leisurely 3½ mile run-walk, but supplemented with a couple of good bike rides, a trip to the gym, and 1½ hours of gardening. A total of five and a half fairly sweaty hours. Good start. But that was it. The following week, I resuccumbed to the usual summer disease — beer and cricket and sunlit idleness — and I’ve pretty much stayed there ever since. The trouble is, this indolent lifestyle is not quite so pleasant as it seems. Ot at least, it’s subject to the … …
It’s said that a man’s shoes will tell you all you need to know about their occupier. I believe that a solitary breakfast sausage is likewise a motif for an entire hotel and its position in the accommodation universe. Even retreating from such grandiose extrapolation, let’s agree that a sausage is the yardstick by which you judge a breakfast, or “the breakfast”, as they say here in Ireland. Must say, I like the inclusion of the definite article. The “the” hints at the sacramental status this morning ritual merits. In the Shannon Court Hotel, the sausages were mean looking. Thin and greasy and, like other items on this plate, looking like they’d arrived from the ‘credit-crunch-buster’ economy range at the … …
Hellifield Gala Fell Race – Saturday 2nd Aug A contemplative start on the first ascent. [url]http://www.photos-dsb.co.uk/hellifield%2009/content/Hellifield_Fell_Race_2009_118_2_large.html[/url] The damage is done. [url]http://www.photos-dsb.co.uk/hellifield%2009/content/Hellifield_Fell_Race_2009_173_2_large.html[/url] Another valuable learning experience. Mainly concerning the fact that fell shoes need to be a really snug fit to deal with the fast and uneven descents. It serves me right for trying out new kit in a race. But descending is also a real skill that will take some time to get half-descent at. And 3.5 miles turns out to be alot longer than it sounds when the first half is up a big hill. Obvious when you say it like that. Not so obvious when everybody is charging to the end of the first field. And Junior GM … …
Last week’s scheduled relaunch nearly went to plan. I’d put all the posters up, invited the spectators, got the creaking fuselage in place, drew my map of the stars, lit the blue touchpaper… and phut!. Nothing happened. I didn’t get off the ground. Too many beer invitations, a BBQ, a dinner out, and the new village takeaway pizza place to put through its paces. The health moonshot was doomed from the start. This week has a couple of sizeable lumps of space debris to dodge, or at least to buffet without diverting my course too much. The first is Thursday’s invitation to the pub, to watch the final bit of the first day of the Lords’ Ashes test. From … …
It seems like more than nine weeks ago that I was lining up in Hopkinton, pointing my innocent knees in the direction of a distant Boston. In a way, it is more than that, because to try measuring the gap using time alone is misleading and simplistic. I shouldn’t be surprised. I warned myself against it enough times — the danger of allowing the momentum to drain away too quickly. It’s happened after every previous marathon, though this time, of course, I vowed that it would be different. Predictably, it wasn’t. The bald story is that since Boston I’ve piled on around 20 pounds, jogged a total of 5.47 miles (the last 3.47 of these being six weeks ago), and … …