As alluded to yesterday, tomorrow we move away from… wherever it is we live, so today’s lunchtime 8 miler had special resonance.
It always comes as a surprise to me that running is so hard. I spend most of my time thinking that running is easy and pleasant, like taking a stroll, but then every time I actually do it I remember that it’s actually a bit of a struggle. After I get back home and have a bath and put on some clean clothes I feel so good and so relieved that I instantly forget that it was difficult and uncomfortable. The post-run me dupes the yet-to-run me. If it didn’t, I’d never get out of the door.
Eight miles at lunchtime has an extra toughness as I’m more conscious of the time pressure. I should be at home, doing moderately useful things to ASP code, but instead I’m stealing an extra 22 minutes to squash in another 2 miles. The weather has been glorious this week: real, strong sunshine – the pukka stuff, not that watery wintry version. Despite longing for it for months, it’s slightly deflating to find that actually it’s not ideal for running in. Add to that my failure to ‘prehydrate’, and that’s why it was a bit of a struggle.
And so for the last time I pound past Tesco and B & Q and all those long, featureless roads through the housing estates. I’ve never seen it so sunny and fresh but sorry, they left it too late. Along the High Road, past the chippie and the unvisited pubs; past the barber shop and the string of six estate agents in a line; past the unused railway station and the small trading estate and that sign for the weekly Sunday car boot sale that we never did visit, despite promising to every Friday evening when planning our weekend activities. Past the neat little football ground of Yate FC which I regret I never made it to. Then round up North Lane for the final time and into Engine Common Lane where I’ve run a hundred times since I started this training programme in early December. I’ve seen this quiet, rustic lane in all its guises: pitch black, twilit, moonlit, sunny and warm, dark and teeming with rain, black and freezing, light and icy. You name it, I’ve done it. Six in the morning, ten at night. Christmas Day, New Year’s Day, the first day of spring. Crusted with frost, ankle-deep in a river of rain and mud, and today – filled with sunshine and studded with a thousand daffodils.
I enjoyed my sentimental moment, but it’s time to move on. What’s that verse from Lord Of The Rings?
The road goes ever on and on, down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead my road has gone and I must follow if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet until it joins some larger way,
Where many paths and errands meet. And whither then?
I cannot say.
Farewell, wherever it was we lived.
