At last. Back to the plodding, pedestrian 3 miler round the village at seven this morning. No soaring, inspirational highs. No love-ins with Mother Nature. Just three long, grey miles with nothing but dull pains in my knees and a sore calf muscle to keep me amused. What a relief.… …
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And yet better. Today at lunchtime, I peered through the venetian blinds at the office and saw a blizzard, and a couple of inches of snow on the ground. What a prospect. Did it matter that I’d left my tracksuit top at home? And that I had no leggings? Yes, it mattered a lot. It made it even more memorable. I made for the front door of the building, leaving a trail of incredulous stares in my wake. What do they understand? Into the snowstorm, it was like suddenly being able to breathe again. Five lovely, lonely miles around the golf course. Just me, my T-shirt and shorts and trainers – against all this lot. But I’m learning something. It’s … …
It does get better. An early morning 4 mile run on a freezing, early January morning. Minus seven degrees, the pavements white with a patina of frozen snow. What a great feeling it was, legging it down the broad avenue through the estate, past the herd of startled deer. Everything was new and raw and fresh and exciting. I came back, pumped up and starving for everything. I think I’m beginning to see what this is all about.… …
Five days into 2003, and one of the runs of the year to report. Here was one of those frozen-but-sunny-and-windless mornings that people always list as one of their favourite things in the entire universe. Along with crispy bacon sandwiches. I was out by ten o’clock. The lawn was still frost-crunchy, the car windows opaque with ice. Even setting off, I knew this was going to be a good one. Nine miles ahead of me, but I felt strong and enthusiastic and unusually… happy. Happiness tends to come at the end, not the beginning, of a run. A new route today. Normally for longish runs I head for the flatness and solitude of the canal, but the recent rains … …
My new toy arrived today. The Timex Speed and Distance Monitor. This is a watch that uses GPS/satellite technology to tell you how far you’ve run. It’s intended to be the end of Autoroute hell. I went out for a chilly 4 miler to try it out. It seems to do the job. The 3.67 mile circuit I do turns out to be 3.62 miles, and I carried on running till the watch tripped over to 4 miles. I stopped here and walked back the few hundred yards, marvelling at the data that I could recall, like the pace for each mile split, and the top and average speeds. Another excellent running investment, and this one free of charge is … …
Being a stickler for tradition, I normally like to spend the first 12 hours of the new year either drunk or asleep. But this year, at 11 o’clock on New Year’s Day morning, I found myself lining up in Hyde Park for the annual 10K race. I’m going to start writing a document called Things To Remember On Race Day. Among those items will be: Keep breakfast to a minimum No milk or dairy products Never underestimate a race I was up at 7:30, feeling hungry. Ignoring the residual wisdom scraped from the bones of previous disasters, I was soon tucking into a large bowl of cereal, two hot cross buns, a glass of grapefruit juice and a mug … …
Just 11 hours into the new year, and I’m somewhere in the middle of this lot: More tomorrow.… …
Monday is normally a rest day, but with the Hyde Park 10 kilometre race on Wednesday (New Year’s Day), it seemed sensible to go for a three mile loosener this evening, and rest tomorrow instead. Running in the rain offers a great sense of liberation. A dark night, the rain dense and cool, no one on the black, flashing pavements except a mad runner with a grin hanging from one ear to the other. The pleasure comes from the certain knowledge that you’re going to get soaked through. Why worry about it? It’s a kind of Buddhist perspective, I suppose. Discomfort ceases to be discomfort once you stop fighting it. That’s the theory, anyway. It works well enough with rain, … …
No run today. Negotiations about the Wokingham Half opened, but are not going well. The issue is that it’s on the same day (February 9th) as M’s dad’s birthday, which means lunch out somewhere in Sussex. Can I finish the race and get down to Sussex by 1pm/1:30? I think yes; M thinks no. I might have to concede graciously here, and bank a bit of goodwill instead. I’ve no doubt I’ll have to call on it as the running season progresses. … …
The party’s over. Three days of alcohol, chocolate and other calorific unmentionables, and it’s time to start repairing some of the damage. After three weeks of running and dieting, my weight has actually increased by half a pound. Coming after the 7.5 miler on Christmas Eve – my longest run since the marathon in October – the 4 mile run on Christmas morning was painful and slow. I’d been looking forward to it as a curtain raiser to three days of gluttony and sloth, but it was a rather miserable affair. I decided to do the decent thing and go through with the gluttony and sloth, however. So after returning home, there were a few glasses of Champagne (Heidsieck NV) … …