Month: October 2009

A forgettable weekend, which is just as well, as I don’t remember a lot about it in the first place. Late Friday afternoon I stepped out for a short run but barely got beyond the garden gate. The gouty toe was back in its box but the two stubbed toes on the left foot, now a rather gorgeous yellow and purple, were having none of it.… READ MORE.... …

This is a toecentric period alright. The right-hand toe, as it were, has moved through last week’s shiny gouty inflammation to a sort of buried pain that’s starting to reach backwards along the sole of my foot when I walk. It’s not cripplingly painful. In fact it’s much better than the last couple of weeks, but while it lingers, and for as long as it issues a small crackle of pain each time I bend the toe, it makes me nervous.… READ MORE.... …

Today I had my first taste of winter. Not that it was particularly cold out there, but there was something bleak and ominous about running the canal towpath in steady drizzle, in the hour before sunset. It was a repeat of the bike-run-bike format. This aerobic sandwich works well, with the bike rides forming a decent warm-up and warm-down around the run.… READ MORE.... …

Theirs not to make reply, Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do and die: Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred. Have I ever felt truly ready to run a race? Probably not. Did I feel ready to run the Crawley 10K today? Definitely not. Did I tell everyone, myself included, that I was ready? Yes. In the first few innocent strides through Lidgate Forest, I recalled my first ever Philosophy tutorial, in which my venerable tutor, Harry Lesser, asked us: “What is a table?”… READ MORE.... …

Where am I? Hard to say. I’m not where I was, and I’m not where I thought I would be now. But wherever I am, I’ve been here before, and I know that I’ll survive and flourish. The foot is better. It’s past the acute discomfort, throbbing stage and back into the mere ache phase. In terms of comparative pain, it’s no longer a ‘broken bone’ and back to being merely ‘badly bruised’.… READ MORE.... …

Throb, throb, throb. It had to happen: the first obstacle of the campaign is here, if a bit earlier than hoped. For about 12 years now I’ve had a gouty right toe. I can, and do, forget about it for 95% of the year, but every now and then it appears and waves a big red flag in my face. Ah yes, it’s you again.… READ MORE.... …

Ah, that’s better. Another 10 kilometres up the canal, but markedly more comfortable than last Saturday, when I was reduced to a run-walk for the second half. Today I crumbled in the final mile, but the first 5 were walkless and steady. So, why should today be different from a week ago? Three pounds lighter for one thing; and another 6½ hours of cardiovascular chalked up.… READ MORE.... …

Eagle-eyed followers of my desultory tweeting (www.twitter.com/runningcomm) will be aware that on Tuesday I was visited by an urge to get hold of a medicine ball. So on my way to the gym that evening, I called into Argos, emerging with a formidable 6 kg rubber specimen. Yep, with handles, and everything. I went for the handled one because it was described as being “easier to use”.… READ MORE.... …

Me, I’m to blame. It’s all my fault. I’m a middle class, white male, and I’m a ‘boomer’. Over the last few days, I’ve separately read, or heard, that all of these things make me a thoroughly wicked person, responsible for the ills of the world. It’s one of the reasons I need sometimes to take off my clothes and go running through the neighbourhood.… READ MORE.... …

It’s the end of the 3rd week of my reinvention. I like to keep records. The Americans have a name for it. I am a number slut. In my three weeks, I’ve managed 24.7 hours of cardiovascular exercise. This is broken down into 12.2 hours in the gym over 12 visits; 7.7 hours of cycling; and 3.55 hours of running. Rest days?… READ MORE.... …