Read this: if URL is Levy and within his name is a full given update on an old piano lesson a wholly old law has died in the proof that could have been the new Newt under our window and the women who’ve known union men hit them the new you can be younger than them no one woman is the game in Vienna but may be moving lower than the women they plan to be the one new perk per floor had lifted politics in the end it was a man who had the end of the boom and he seems nowhere now This rather interesting passage appeared after I opened the Microsoft handwriting recognition utility by mistake. I … …
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I can see the appeal of the treadmill. For only the third or fourth time ever, I bounced along on one this evening for 40 minutes or so. It makes the chore easier. It gives you control over your environment. You set the speed, the incline, the time, while you gaze blankly at Eastenders with the sound turned down. A teaspoonful of imagination is all you need. "Pack it in, will yer… Leave it aht, Mate… oy, donchoo tork to me like vat…". Television is one of the few addictions I’ve never bothered learning to enjoy, but I’m sure the routine and the predictability must be comforting. Just like the treadmill. Setting the speed, the incline, the time once again. … …
Some people hate them, or say they do. But I love hotels and hotel life, and the servility with which one is treated. It appeals to the monarch in me. For the past few work-days I’ve had to settle for the austere Dartford Travelodge, but now I’ve been promoted to the rather more agreeable Hilton with its Odeon-sofa-ed bedrooms and tasteful reproduction Deco desk and bed. The sort of place that provides bathrobes, and allows elderly residents to snore gently over unopened Daily Telegaphs in the cathedral-like lobby, undisturbed and unnoticed among the rustling jungle foliage. Some of the snoozers may have been ignored for rather too long, I fear. I’m sure that one of the headlines referred to the … …
What a very English collection of words: "the Hogweed Trot, Chipping Sodbury". But why did I feel it so important to drive 80 miles at white-knuckle speed after work to take part in it? The inaugural Hogweed Trot (named after the local Hogweed Trotters running club) winds round 10 kilometres of rustic lanes around Chipping Sodbury and Yate, somewhere north of Bristol. We lived there for 6 months in late 2001/early 2002, and it’s on those very lanes that I started running, and on which nearly all of my London Marathon training took place. The nostalgist in me had to be there. The plan was to leave work in Maidenhead at 4:30, but a succession of trivial catastrophes kept me … …
I’m a great believer in solving problems by throwing my wife’s money at them. Today we bought a new lawnmower. I was geeky enough to wear <em>_colin</em>, my distance monitor gadget while I was mowing the lawn. The garden is biggish, but I was staggered to find that cutting the grass, and making the regular trips to the compost heap in the far corner, involved a total of 3.4 miles of legwork. Even more startling was the discovery that while I spent 2 hours 5 mins moving around the garden I was evidently stationary (according to the "rest" reading on my Garmin Forerunner) for even longer: 2 hours 40. I have to keep this information close to my chest, or … …
Marathon day. It ends with sublime weariness, but starts with such a naive energy and sense of purpose. Highly strung in the morning, totally plucked by the afternoon. Here we are at 06:30, assembled for a clamorous communion in the hotel restaurant. Water, and bananas and bread and coffee, and more water, taken in the company of 150 marathon zealots. Febrile energy, apprehension, anxiety, manic glee. High-pitched chatter. We’re a chaotic army of excited monkeys, and a well-meaning someone is about to throw open the cage door. The breakfast temperature is high, but Copenhagen remains a cool and decidedly Scandinavian marathon. Slick, tidy, restrained. Yes, the riotous train to Blackheath and those dawn buses to Staten Island may be part … …
I’ve been trying all week to be positive about tomorrow’s marathon, but I keep wondering if I’m doing it right. Of course I’m going to finish, I tell myself. If I take it steadily, I can avoid upsetting my calf. I can beat my Chicago time, and get in under 5 hours. Of course. But this positive thinking lark confuses me sometimes too. Is thinking positive thoughts the same as really believing something, or are these thoughts just affirmations, self-hypnotising mantras? Faced with a cold reality, am I just slamming my eyes shut, sticking my fingers in my ears and singing loudly? And discussing it like this is unnerving me further. Have I just shopped myself to me? Or did … …
Perhaps it’s when you feel least able to run that you most need to do it. I’m having, or (fingers crossed) have had, a bizarre couple of weeks. For some invisible reason, one day, with no warning, running just ran away from me, and I’ve been struggling to catch up with it ever since. Demotivation is a terrible blight. All it needs is the narrowest crack to hide in. It descends from nowhere, when you least expect it. The weeks leading up to a marathon isn’t the time for it to happen, but that’s when it happened to me. Frustrating yes, but these past few weeks will prove to have value. If I can understand why this happened, and how … …
I can’t get away from it. I really don’t think the marathon is going to happen for me. I’ve had two brief early morning runs this week, and they’ve been fine, but a marathon is a different animal, and I just don’t believe I could do more than run half of it and walk the rest. I know people will suggest I do just that – and perhaps I will. But it does seem kind of pointless. I doubt if I’d make it in less than 6 hours. Could I really say I’d run the Copenhagen Marathon? I could say I’d done it, but not run it. Life is strange at the moment. A few weeks ago, our London contract … …