Nature hates an imbalance. After an abstemious week, it seemed only right to use the weekend to redress matters. At least I managed a sort of run first. 5.2 miles sounds good, but on such a sweltering day, my poor undernourished body really didn’t want to play the game, and who could blame it? While the rest of the village snoozed on their sun-loungers or watched the test match from a favourite armchair, I pointed my Hal Higdon baseball cap at the horizon and turned the ignition.… READ MORE.... …
Month: July 2004
A busy evening of wholesome exercise with Luke, my old friend from Keighley. We met at Barden Bridge, a mile or two beyond Bolton Abbey near Skipton, North Yorkshire. This is Wharfedale, part of the Yorkshire Dales, and as landscapes go, tearfully close to heaven. We set off at 7:30 and walked steadily upwards for an hour or so, till we reached the craggy summit of Simon’s Seat.… READ MORE.... …
It seems like a long time since I lived in this town, and I’d taken it for granted that the people I hung round with then must have moved away or shrivelled into middle-age. But this morning I saw someone I recognised. I was standing outside the George Hotel in my Reading Half Marathon teeshirt and shorts, waiting for my watch to wake up and find a satellite, when he shambled past me.… READ MORE.... …
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.… READ MORE.... …
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.… READ MORE.... …
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.… READ MORE.... …
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.… READ MORE.... …
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.… READ MORE.... …
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.… READ MORE.... …
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.… READ MORE.... …
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.… READ MORE.... …