Many a truth is inadvertently spoken in clumsy translation. At least two good examples appeared in the marathon goody-bag I collected from the expo on Friday. One of the pre-race instructions, intended kindly no doubt, is “Don’t forget to say goodbye to your friends and family before you start the marathon”. They mean “Don’t clog up the start area”, but their version has a sense of dire finality that will resonate with certain participants.… READ MORE.... …
Month: April 2005
My only previous experience of Germany amounts to a brief, and patchy, recollection of a hundred soldiers pointing guns in my direction, on the other side of a rainy aeroplane window. I was out of my head on a cocktail of severe food poisoning, homesickness and amphetamine psychosis, and this wasn’t what I needed. An hour or so earlier, the pilot of the Afghan Air plane transporting me from Delhi to London had made a dramatic announcement over the public address system.… READ MORE.... …
I suppose I should be crafting some portentous paragraph about the impending marathon, but there’s too much fluster to contend with here. As usual, I’m not well prepared for the trip so it’s going to be another last-minute job. It might be a good thing. Had a good, brisk run on Monday evening, and nothing since. I should try to get out for half an hour tomorrow, then that will probably be it.… READ MORE.... …
London Marathon day. It’s my favourite session of the year. A sunlit, Sunday morning, and here I am, armchaired in front of the TV, in the thick of my marathon preparation. As I write, Paula Radcliffe is well on her way to another record-breaking victory. I feel ambivalent towards her. Her ability is beyond question, but the Paula industry is dispiriting.… READ MORE.... …
Perhaps this is the boost I was looking for. I weigh less today than I have done since… since records began, 2½ years ago. When I ‘ran’ London and Chicago in 2002 I was under 200 pounds, though I don’t seem to have a record of the exact weights. My post-marathon visit to the Chicago Cheesecake Factory (just go and look at the 35 cheesecakes on their menu….)… READ MORE.... …
Bigger, better, bouncier news. Yes, bouncy. Tonight I felt bouncy. Have I ever talked about the running bounce? I must have. Sometimes, for no very good reason, you just feel like you’re bouncing along the road without the usual effort. It’s a good feeling. It means, or I take it as meaning, that there’s something in reserve. I’m not plodding along on empty, panting and wheezing and aching.… READ MORE.... …
I’m an early-morning-run evangelist. Odd then, that this morning’s was one of the very few early runs I’ve done on this current marathon campaign. The habit evaporated during that long, wearying spell working away from home last year, and I’ve not yet picked it up again. As the world turns into spring, it’s a good time to rediscover this life-enhancing habit.… READ MORE.... …
How many people under 40 know what this is? Until this morning, I hadn’t realised how low in our esteem the humble bicycle bell had fallen. It seems to have been all but eliminated. Running down the canal for 12 miles, I was overtaken by a total of 34 bikes. I’ve no objection to them on the towpath. The average cyclist looks like a quivering sack of jelly abandoned on a garden wall, so it’s probably the only exercise these poor people get.… READ MORE.... …
Being able to distinguish between a trough and a mere dip is a bit like owning a grapefruit knife. It’s hardly ever needed, but invaluable when it is. I’m having a dip. Today was supposed to be my 12 mile long run day, as part of the wind down to the Hamburg Marathon in two weeks time. 12 miles today, went the daydream, with a restful 3 or 4 tomorrow.… READ MORE.... …
The least startling newsflash of the year so far came late morning, with the announcement of a general election on May 5th. The thought of four weeks in which no baby is safe from the rasping upper lip of some grinning, matey candidate fills most people with dismay – but I’m delighted. An election is like the World Cup or the Olympics to me.… READ MORE.... …
Perhaps the past really is a foreign country. Ambling idly through my teens the other day, I came across a tiny snicket I’d not noticed before. Peering down it, I see myself walking home from the pub one evening, aged about 17, and coming across a very fat skinhead with his left hand around the throat of a pretty girl. In his right hand he had a hefty claw hammer, and was waving this around above her head.… READ MORE.... …