The wheezy alarm cough woke me at 5 a.m. again, just like it has the last 2 or 3 days. I felt unrested, and despite just the single glass of wine last night, felt faintly hungover. Maybe the tiredness and the medication, mild though it is, had turned it into a more potent cocktail than it deserved to be. Damn. How likely was a decent run today?… READ MORE.... …
Month: February 2009
A disappointing attempted long run today, but there’s no disgrace attached. It wasn’t for lack of effort or commitment. If anything, the opposite. I woke yesterday with a feverish brow, throat like sandpaper, and lungs full of wheezey phlegm. I’ll resist the schoolboyish temptation to be even more graphic. But it wasn’t pleasant. Today the corporeal thermostat was a few degrees lower, with the throat less raw and sore.… READ MORE.... …
Since the last entry, another furious gym session, raging against the step machine. More significantly, today, 7.2 steady country miles. I waited till my attention-seeking computer was whirring and grinding. It’s become self-important — a recent habit that doesn’t please me. I made a dash for it. It was mid-afternoon and mild. How liberating, and how promising, to be able to run in just teeshirt and shorts again.… READ MORE.... …
A spot of encouragement to peer at, and be grateful for. After Saturday’s panting plod, that I did at least get through, I chanced my arm with 4½ miles or so along the canal yesterday. The sun had switched itself off by the time I got out, leaving nothing but that cold grey glow to warm my spirits. It wasn’t enough.… READ MORE.... …
Back from Ireland. I am tempted to add blithely, “back to reality”, but apart from being a useless cliché, I’m not sure it’s true. Why is getting back to work, and sleeping in my own bed, any more ‘real’ than spending time with rarely-seen relatives, and burying my mother? The former activities are certainly more representative of normal life, but if anything are a kind of smokescreen behind which the big important things — death included — play out.… READ MORE.... …
Yesterday was a bad day. Maybe I was slightly hungover, which wouldn’t have helped, but I felt strangely isolated. I say “strangely” because I’m pretty self-sufficient. As long as I have a computer or a book, and access to a fine wine cellar, I’m perfectly happy with my own company. But yesterday it sort of crowded in on me there for a while.… READ MORE.... …