Mildly hungover and slightly bloated after yesterday’s family golden wedding celebration, I nonetheless managed to get out for a sporting 3½ miles late this afternoon. It was dark and raining steadily. I like it when it’s raining so hard that you can hear the water trickling into the roadside drains. Much nobler than namby-pamby drizzle. I heard on the radio the other night that 4% of food is consumed “in front of an open refrigerator”. This was one of the things that exercised my brain as I ran. The other was last night’s showing on the BBC of Jerry Springer – The Opera. This was the best thing I saw in the theatre during 2004, and it was great … …
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Working from home today, so was able to get out at lunchtime on a grey and very blustery day. First half was a struggle against the wind, which might explain the rare occurrence of the negative split – running the second half faster than the first. Here was the first long run of the campaign, and it was a good one. The schedule said 8 miles but it ended up as an accidental 9½, making it the longest non-race run I’ve done for nine months. It’s a long while since I went along the canal past the ill-fated level-crossing, but I had it in mind that the water-stop was just about four miles from home, so decided on a there-and-back. … …
Rest. The very word is peaceful. Like the hiss of the steam train at Adlestrop Station. Rest, I need it. It struck me last night that I’d run 5 days out 6, and with the likelihood of doing my first long run of the campaign tomorrow rather than Saturday, it’s makes sense to take it easy today. It means I won’t be rejoining my tigers again tonight (yeah, I think I’ll call them the Tilehurst Tigers from now on), but will aim to get back there next week. Yesterday evening, I called in to see the Reading Road Runners again after a long time away. I think I’m going to give up on this club, even though they provide access … …
Is it just me, or do other adults fancy a go in the ball pool at IKEA? OK, so it’s just me, but anyway, this thought strayed through my head just now as I wondered about endorphins. Chemicals, I know, but I sort of imagined for a moment that they might be a bit like balls in the IKEA ball pool, and I thought of myself flapping around in it, having a lovely time, while all the solemn adult types did solemn adult things like walking round the store in shoes with sensible heels, shopping for a new bedside cabinet. I’m rambling, I know, but I feel sort of elated. Not that this evening’s run was particularly fast or long … …
And so the four weeks of pre marathon-training training get left behind, and I enter the Restricted Zone. The brief had been simple – to run just 20 miles in each of the last four weeks, yet this final week is the only one in which I actually managed it. It has to be said that Christmas hasn’t been a roaring success in terms of food, alcohol and running. Well, there’s been plenty of roaring, particularly after a few bevies in the pub next door, but not so much of the success. It could have been much worse, however. I’ve picked up a couple of pounds during the period when I was scheduled to lose about 4, but the two … …
I woke yesterday thinking I must have left the radio on all night. White noise everywhere. And why was my neighbour hammering on the wall at such an hour on New Year’s Day? The terrible truth took a moment or two to filter through. This was a corker of a hangover. I was able to gather just enough marbles together to locate the clock, and to interpret the data. It revealed to me that in 80 minutes time, 50 miles away, my 10K race would be starting. Not just any 50 miles away, but 50 miles away in the centre of London. The very thought of struggling through the city feeling like this, just for the privilege of joining a … …
Tomorrow’s 10K race in Hyde Park is suddenly in the balance. All was going swimmingly until this afternoon, when I managed to trip over a tree root on a footpath. No serious injuries, just a few grazes, but the painful toe seems to have woken up again. I’ll have to take a late fitness test. I’ve also broken one of my cardinal rules about alcohol the day before a race. New Year’s Eve was suddenly too tempting. On top of that, I heard today that I’ve got a new job, and a small celebration seemed to be in order. A glass of wine with my chow mein was surely allowable? Inevitably, this became 3 or 4, and suddenly a trip … …
I woke up this morning, realised in a panic that I hadn’t been shopping for hours, and had to spend the afternoon worshipping at the supermarket when I should have been running. One task bled into another, and eventually it was 20:45 when I got out. Dark of course, but not cold. The 3½ run was more of a struggle than I expected. It’s true that I’ve not run much in the past couple of weeks but I thought the Cliveden plod might have blasted a bit more energy through me. … …
I got up this morning and jogged up and down the stairs a couple of times to test my toe. The signs were bad. It was a major disappointment. I’d hoped to start the week with some positive news, but it wasn’t to be. Yes, the toe felt absolutely fine, and I had no excuses to stay away from the race. As usual, I left late, and found myself bombing down the M4 at high speed. My excuse this time was the de-gunkification of the soles of my Asics Gel Guts. I bought these items, my first pair of off-road shoes, just a few weeks ago specially for this race. I wore them once on a very muddy run to … …
— What sort of pizzas does Good King Wenceslas like? — Deep pan, crisp and even. Some words have magic attached to them. Take “gout”. In French (admittedly with a circumflex hovering over the u), it means “taste”, and is a rather mysterious word. Le goût du terroir, the taste of the earth, is a mystical quality not just attached to, but actually giving rise to, the individual character of a wine or an olive oil or a cheese, and very probably to an Eric Cantona or a Thierry Henri too. The land explains the quality, is the message. But I digress. Our gout is nothing much to do with the French goût. Our gout is an affliction … …