RunningCommentary

I’m still chained to a project in Leeds but have shifted my patch of personal space to Huddersfield, a windy, stoney, spare and boney sort of town on the western fringe of the Pennines. I’m an urbanite by birth but cities are claustrophobic places, and sleeping over the shop makes it worse. So I’ve moved about 18 miles away, to a place where I can breathe more easily and perhaps see a little more clearly. It’s a not a wholly new running landscape. The first few months of this web log has me tramping over the tops from Flockton on a damp and blistery 12 miler in the approach to the 2002 London marathon. I was here again a few … …

The first in an occasional series: The Monday Rant Baby On Board. No other 3-word phrase in the English language (with the possible exception of “Time gentlemen please”) irritates me more than this one. Although I’m an unusually benign and patient driver, nothing is more likely to transform me into a mass murderer than this diamond-shaped proclamation swinging from the rear window of the clapped-out vehicle in front of me. Someone explain to me: what does it mean? And don’t say that it means there’s a baby in the car because 9 times out of 10 there isn’t. So it’s a sign that tells me that the car very occasionally contains a baby. Or perhaps that the previous owner … …

Home and away… 7.85 miles on a warm afternoon yesterday. Not very enjoyable. First 3 miles were steady, then it just collapsed in the middle like a soggy sponge, and I ended up doing a run-walk shuffle for the last 4 miles or so. It happens sometimes, though it’s happening more frequently these days. I can’t remember the last longish (say over 5 miles) run I’ve done where I ran all the way and finished feeling strong and capable of going on. Where is my stamina and endurance? A week or so ago I mentioned that my weight-loss programme was in full swing. I was 217 pounds, aiming for 189 by October 25. How am I doing? Hmm, well not … …

At last, a pleasant early morning running route through central Leeds, courtesy of those helpful chaps on the Runners World forum. The Leeds-Liverpool Canal passes almost beneath my hotel and oozes straight through the centre of the city. Why didn’t I think of it before? The towpath is wide and springy, and takes the runner past some scintillating industrial architecture, and beneath several wonderful bridges. From the path you can hear the traffic in the distance but can’t see or smell it. In my 3.8 miles I saw 4 runners, 3 cyclists and a solitary angler. The water was dark, almost black, but not dirty. The atmosphere is unusual. Like that stretch of canal in Huddersfield that I ran along … …

My usual early morning running slot wasted heading northwards up the M40. But if I couldn’t manage a run today, I did at least collect a running engagement. This evening I went over to Keighley to visit an old friend and his new (to me) wife and baby son. In Keighley, not only can you still buy a 6 bedroomed house with enormous cellar for next-to-nowt, but just round the corner is Timothy Taylor’s brewery, purveyor of the nation’s finest ale. What more could you ask for? Over a pukka Indian supper of hand-crafted bhindi, chapatis, rice and dal, we talked about running, and agreed to make it up to Bolton Abbey one evening next week. The plan is to … …

A London meeting keeps Leeds at bay for a day longer than expected, giving me the luxury of a morning run at home. It wasn’t a great run, but it was the kind of morning that makes you value those ordinary things that the 21st century wants to beat out of you with a computer keyboard. The sunny lanes with their tall, dense hedges and twitchy rabbits; the long shadow of the medieval church, the avenue of oaks through the park, the deer by the lake, the two old horses nodding over the fence, a skyful of birds. Americans love to reassure each other that they live in the greatest nation on earth. Such vulgar arrogance is beneath us of … …

I sort of ran 8.22 miles this morning. I did run the first 4, then started to feel knackered, so the rest was run-walk. The intention was to head off down the canal to the second road crossing, and return via the main road. This is about 5 miles. But once I’d reached the A4 I decided to go straight across it and come back via the much longer, hilly back route. The hills are big and steep, and there are four of them on this route. I settled for walking up them and trotting down the other side. It struck me that I should be making more use of these chaps. Good preparation for the Burnham Beeches half marathon … …

As predicted, some kind of barrier has been breached, and I can report that I’m almost back to my usual level of chronic unfitness. This morning I got out for another 3 city centre miles, but unlike previous days, I didn’t feel like a fish out of water. I didn’t feel much like a fish in water either, if I’m honest. Let’s settle for something amphibious, like a lobster. But one with a slight preference for land. Make it a dog. A rural dog. One that lives fairly near a big river, but not right next to it. About a quarter of a mile away. Perhaps a bit less. Anyway, from the start I felt stronger than I did the … …

Just a couple of sodden miles before breakfast. I was aching from last night’s effort, and my appetite for a sinewy 5 mile splash through the damp streets wasn’t quite there. So I settled for 25 minutes of faltering plodacity in among the rather depressed looking city centre workers as they tramped towards their desks. But it was enough to give me that glow at work all morning, and it even kept me awake after lunch, despite having to read a 200 page document describing the amalgamation of two databases filled with mortgage payment transactions. Imagine yourself to be a spider traversing a vat of marmalade. Make it orange curd. Or honey. Imagine yourself to be a spider traversing a … …

Another idiosyncratic communication from Aussie Graham H-M today. Trying to read one of his emails is like running uphill for half the morning. Despite not being English, or even British, he has some interesting opinions, though finding them in one of his emails is like searching for your glass eye in a swimming pool full of the marbles he appears to have lost along the way. One observation was that I’ve sentenced myself to some Sisyphus-like existence. (He was the dude doomed to spend his life pushing the huge rock up the hill, only to see it roll all the way down again.) An inability to hang on to my fitness gains means a constant battle against my nature was, … …