All races are events, but some are Events. The Reading Half belongs in the capitalised category, where accountants and marketing teams often seem to nudge out running people. And yet I manage to approve of Reading, partly because they seem to have the balance between sport and business just about right, but mainly because it’s my local big race, so a spot of greasy chauvinism is always going to blur the lens of objectivity.… READ MORE.... …
Month: March 2009
Can my luck hold out for another 25 days? In my universe, it’s a bigger question than Is there a god? (no); or Which came first, the chicken or the egg? (the chicken); or Will the Rowdies win the quintuple? (no). At 6:30 on Tuesday morning I was in the gym for 90 minutes of sweat production. This wasn’t enough to satisfy my new-found craving, so I returned in the evening to top up with another 60.… READ MORE.... …
Up at 06:45 for a 7.2 miler along the canal and back through the lanes. After weeks of running through the farm, and grumbling to myself about the hazard of the wild canine, I realised last night, on looking at an Ordnance Survey map, that it isn’t actually a right of way. So the scowls I occasionally see on the faces of man and beast alike as I trot through, are more justified than I imagined.… READ MORE.... …
I’m not quite sure how, but perhaps — just perhaps — Boston really has been dragged from the jaws of failure. I set off yesterday morning, knowing that the following few hours would reveal all. Strangely, it all felt beyond my control. I knew I had to try hard, and stay focused. But I could do that and still fail if my calf or general fitness let me down.… READ MORE.... …
Crikey: good news to report. A decent morning’s work merited a break at about 2pm for a 7-miler along the canal towpath, and back on the farm track. What a corker of a day it was today. At this time of year, the sunshine doesn’t always deliver the heat it promises when viewed from inside, but today was an exception. It was genuinely warm out there.… READ MORE.... …
My first ever DNF (Did Not Finish) today. But it’s OK — it was expected, and I’m not unhappy about it. I entered the Finchley 20 a month or so ago, before the recent recurrence of the calf strain. It was going to be the culmination of four carefully choreographed training weeks in which mounting mileage was to be added to increasingly frenzied aerobic gym sessions.… READ MORE.... …
Over yonder, in Twitterland, I’ve been trying to allocate a regular "Boston optimism" index to my daily disposition. A 60% score may not sound too good, but it has crept up from 45% a few days ago. I suppose the direction it’s heading is more important than the absolute value. So the important message is that hope is waxing, and the optostat is showing my mood moving from cool to tepid.… READ MORE.... …
Like the final overs of the cricket (in which, as I type this, England have 5 overs to get 3 West Indian wickets**), Boston has become a touch-and-go marathon. I’m definitely going, and unless events (like a bad injury) make it utterly futile, I will be at the start line on April 20th. The big question is whether my stroppy muscles and tendons allow me to make the distance.… READ MORE.... …
At 12:30pm yesterday, I announced a personal state of emergency. My wife represented the population of planet Earth, and it’s fair to record that she did not immediately grasp the gravity of the moment. Instead, she leant forward and turned the radio back on. I had silenced it just a moment earlier, in readiness for my declaration. “But it’s The Now Show“, she said, as if this justified her recalcitrance.… READ MORE.... …