Sometimes you get away with it, but usually you don’t. This time, I seem to have got away with it. I’d always intended a spell of R’n’R after the Oxford 10K. Not because the race was especially taxing, but because it marked the end of a solid spell of running. For the first time in well over a year I’d done three successive weeks of 20+ miles.… READ MORE.... …
Month: May 2007
Writing a race report on the Oxford 10K without using the phrase "city of dreaming spires", or even less resistible, Frederick Raphael’s "city of perspiring dreams", is probably tougher than the race itself. But I’ll give it a go. This is the race, mentioned here, to which I’d challenged my athletic Moriarty, Mark. Getting out of bed at seven in the morning on a Sunday, isn’t much fun, particularly after a late night.… READ MORE.... …
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Apart from global celebrity, there aren’t too many benefits that come with the maintenance of this website. The friendships I’ve made and the encouragement harvested from them stand out as the biggest plus points. However, the occasional freebie doesn’t go amiss. I’ve had a few offers and limp inducements over the years but the only two useful ones that come to mind are 1) a free subscription to the excellent WeightLossResources which has helped me shed some surplus lard, and 2) a wireless headset that recently came my way.… READ MORE.... …
Dress disposably… This invaluable piece of advice appeared while I was searching for information on the Boston Marathon. I call it “searching” but you don’t have to look too hard. Boston is massive. We don’t normally associate running races with tradition, but Boston has it oozing from every orifice. Much more of this over the next few months, I’m afraid. I mentioned a few weeks ago (see April 9), a strange experience I had, waking in the middle of the night to hear a voice coming through the radio, telling me what my running plans were to be for the coming year.… READ MORE.... …
Another race, another deluge. Was there a time when I ran races in dry weather? I fancy there must have been, but it seems like a very long time ago now. I have distant recollections of finishing a race feeling rather warm. I can recall a towel being used to wipe sweat, and not rain, from my face. Like last week at Shinfield, the Woodley 10K is a cordial, community event.… READ MORE.... …
As the great EJ Thribb (17½) might have said: So. Farewell then Tony Blair. The Churchill of The modern era. Never was so much Promised to so many by So… few. Now you’re gone, So… phew. I’d be slightly more charitable than Private Eye‘s redoubtable wordsmith and obituarist, but an expectant universe will have to await my assessment — partly because, despite today’s announcement, he’ll still be PM for another seven weeks, and partly because it’s late, and I have the rare need to be up early in the morning to catch the London train.… READ MORE.... …
4.6 miles on a cool evening, catching the last of the light. As part of my campaign to improve, I’ve resolved to extend my bog-standard 3½ mile round-the-block jog when I can. I’ve tacked on a detour which, I’m appalled to announce, includes a hill, or at least something that I would call a hill, but which, I suspect, some of the RC regulars would scoff at.… READ MORE.... …
The Shinfield 10K was a sort of accidental race. A minute or so into this event, I suddenly thought: “Crikey, I’m running a race”. It was as if I’d suddenly woken up and found myself sleepwalking. In the real world, I’d opened my eyes at around 8 o’clock, got up and mooched around for a bit. Over a cup of coffee, I absent-mindedly checked out local 10K races for the coming months, and saw that there was one happening today, in just over an hour’s time.… READ MORE.... …
i have always known that at last i would take this road, but yesterday i did not know that it would be today. Akira No Narihara Now then, friends… Sweder’s heroic battle with the Two Ocean’s Marathon (and if you’ve not read it, read it now) added a bit more fuel to a fire that’s been glowing for a few weeks now.… READ MORE.... …
The early part of the morning was spent trying to finish a longer entry that I started to write some time ago — but it can wait another day or two. If I continue to suspend normal life on here, I’ll miss out recording the other good things that are happening. Like a really bouncey run this morning, around a six mile loop of the local fields.… READ MORE.... …