Yesterday’s C25K instalment took me to Hampden Park. Not the celebrated Glasgow football stadium but the more modest patch of greenery in Eastbourne’s northern territories. It was uneventful. A dog peered at me suspiciously, as if I was some sort of weirdo — a bit rich, I thought, for a Bedlington Terrier. I saw a couple of squirrels and some truanting schoolboys smoking weed. I listened to part of an audiobook called the Slow AF Running Club. The cartoonish author, Martinus Evans, tells us he’s ‘a badass on a badass journey’ which, as an English speaker, I didn’t find very illuminating. But he’s essentially a large fat man — even fatter than me — who embarked on his running odyssey … …
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There’s nothing like a war memorial to stop me in my tracks. Late this afternoon, en route for Holywell, at the end of the seafront, I drove through Meads, along an unfamiliar road, and happened across a great arch that was once the entrance to St Vincent’s School and later, evidently, a war memorial. Situated in a quiet suburban road, the archway was so visually arresting that I felt compelled to stop and investigate. The inscription reads: In memory of 49 gallant men who were at school here in their early boyhood and gave their lives in the service of their country during the Great War of 1914-19. At the going down of the sun and in the morning we … …
The survey of local running locations continues, this time with Sovereign Harbour, Eastbourne’s marina and lifestyle hub. It’s a good place to bring visitors, and to mooch round the inner harbour, peering approvingly at the moored boats groaning and clanking in the breeze. Landlubbers have a fascination with these craft and their gnarly denizens though it’s hard to pinpoint why. Despite the charm of the place, it turns out not to be a great running location. I couldn’t get going for 50% of the time I was supposed to be running. Overcomplicated. Too many people, narrow paths, sharp corners, single-file bridges, and locks that constantly open and close, disrupting the silky gazelle-like motion of the dedicated athlete. And annoying for … …
For Eastbourne athletes like me, there are stretches of the local coastal path that neatly lend themselves to primitive plodding tasks. Holywell to the Redoubt (2.2 miles). The Redoubt to Sovereign Harbour (2.2 miles). Sovereign Harbour to Pevensey Bay (2 miles). Pevensey Bay to Normans Bay (2.2 miles). As these are straight point-to-point routes, you obviously double these distances if you want to arrive back at the place you started from. Around 4 or 4.5 miles is, or used to be, a decent midweek running distance for me. Perhaps they’ll become so again though my current half-hour-or-so C25K legs don’t yet stretch to a full out-and-back trip. At the moment, about two-thirds or three-quarters of the way through my running … …
A day so dismal that I went to the local cemetery to cheer up. Ocklynge is a remarkable location and handy for a walk or casual plod when I don’t have the time, the inclination, or the emotional buoyancy to head for the seafront. It was here, this afternoon, that I executed my Week 2 Day 1 C25K duty. Week 2 means the running spells have rocketed by 50%, to 1.5 minutes, but there are just 6 of them rather than the previous 8. So the total scuttling element has eased upwards from 8 to 9 minutes. By way of compensation, the walking intervals have expanded to a leisurely 2 minutes. To add an aggravating edge, the looping path I … …
There weren’t too many things I missed about England when I lived in Switzerland. Proper beer, proper football, proper fish and chips of course. And the sea. Switzerland is well-equipped with most of life’s heart-stirring natural essentials like mountains and lakes and waterfalls and magnificent hiking routes. But a coastline is one item someone left off the list, and this helps me appreciate it more now. Today’s C25K Week 1 Day 3 jaunt was another coastal venture. Despite the blustery conditions, being a Saturday meant having to share the seafront path with plenty of other outdoor enthusiasts: fellow red-faced, plump plodders, proper polished runners, dutiful dog-walkers, kids on scooters, cyclists, and wretched looking, dripping swimmers. Nothing good comes of winter … …
The lobby thermometer inside my house reckoned it was 4ºC early this afternoon so the seafront must have been hovering somewhere below freezing. I may have to rethink these coastal plods. Or is it that there’s no such thing as the wrong weather for a cold coastal jaunt, only the wrong clothes for a cold coastal jaunt? There’s an awkward relationship between insulation and mobility which explains why, outside the London Marathon, you don’t see many runners dressed in thermal 4-layer polar expedition outerwear. Being uncharacteristically practical, it’s probably helpful to reconceive what I’m really doing here. Instead of trying to fool myself, and certainly anyone reading this, that I’m going for a run, it would more accurate to describe … …
My neighbourhood WhatsApp group announced today a local weekly session of gentle stretching and movement for ‘older residents’. When I realised they were including me in that decaying demographic, I knew it was time to act. With a sense of outrage and defiance, I would seize the exercise nettle myself. The resulting experience, a sort of run along Eastbourne seafront, was joyous. This coastal venture wasn’t as spontaneous as I’m pretending. The notion of trying to re-enter the plodosphere, more than 11 years after the 2013 Berlin Marathon, my last serious athletic endeavour [it was the event that was serious, not so much my six-hour effort], has been brewing for a long time. Years. But it’s only in the past … …
Having nothing worthwhile to write about is a good reason to keep away from the page, though it’s a rule of thumb ignored by many, including most newspaper columnists. Another reason for writing paralysis, and the one that applies to me, is the opposite — a mumble mountain so high that any attempted expedition seems doomed to end in failure. It’s like staring at that forest of six-foot weeds on the allotment you’ve been allocated after years on the waiting list. You know that if you start digging it over at one end, by the time you reach the far boundary, your initial efforts will have vanished beneath another carpet of weeds. There was a heap of Swiss compost to … …
Two diverting walks to report. I’m afraid I got so bored with this entry that I’ll leave the second to next time. Here’s the first. 1. Sunday 14 March, Wagitalersee: Ah! Nothing better than a bracing walk in a blizzard to blow a few cobwebs from the fat bloke emerging from winter hibernation — even if a statement as glibly positive as this will be heard only after the trauma is over, and the memory rapidly diminishing in the rear-view mirror. My German friend, C, messaged me far too early for a Sunday — a common character defect among the wholesome Teutonic peoples. I blame myself for forgetting to turn off the phone. Otherwise, I’d have slept on obliviously, no … …