Blame Lord Hutton and a large pickled onion.
Thames Trains couldn’t be trusted to deliver me to London today so I worked from home. The snow never came, though we did have hail, thunder and lightning in an exciting 3 minute spell in mid-afternoon. The run was over by then, though an even earlier outing may have been a better idea, while the sunshine was strong. Instead I had a robust, gusty wind and an air temperature of one degree above freezing.
Five windy, disconsolate, canal miles clocked up. I began in a good mood, but that wintry assault blunted my keenness just a bit. Unusually, I took a radio with me, and my spirit became flatter and flatter the deeper I sank into the Hutton Report analysis. Everyone knew that the noble lord was going to boot the BBC in the nuts, but we took it for granted that Campbell, Hoon and Blair would be in the same queue. But nope, they’ve escaped. They got away with it. The murderous villains have vanished, leaving the trembling getaway driver to take the rap. An infamous day for justice.
About three miles into the run I suddenly stopped. There was something not quite right with my stomach. As usual, I hadn’t eaten before the run but on my way out I’d spied the massive jar of pickled onions that I devised before Christmas from the massive crop we had last year. It would have been disrespectful not to eat one, so one was eaten, and damn fine it was too. But I could now feel it bouncing around inside me, like a squash ball pinging around an empty box. I didn’t feel sick, or worse, but was just strangely aware of its presence.
Despite what seemed like the tortoise-like progress of the last couple of miles, I still got home inside my target marathon pace, so I ended up happy enough.
I have to make decisions soon about what races to do in the next three months. Apart from Copenhagen on May 16, the only definite race I’m entered for is the Bath Half on March 14. Two weeks before that is the Bramley 10 which I’d thought of doing, but it’s the weekend in between that’s problematical: the weekend of the Reading and Silverstone Halfs.
Normally I’d like to have done Reading, my local big race, but Silverstone calls. I was talking to a couple of running friends in December, comparing stories about last year’s Silverstone event. The public transport facilities were dire. I gave a lift to a couple of guys from Oxford; they collected five strangers between them to take up there. We talked about laying on a coach to the event this time. A service for runners by runners. And that’s what we’ve done: www.runningbus.co.uk. A minor drawback is that it looks like neither of them might be able to help out on the day, but so be it.
The big question is whether I should run the race again myself. Ordinarily I would, but sandwiched between Bramley and Bath, it’s asking a lot. Maybe I should forget Bramley, and make Silverstone a gentle training run? And then there’s the little matter of the Brighton Half which comes the week before Bramley. Could I manage a half marathon 3½ weeks from now?
A lot depends on those pickled onions. I must either persuade M to hide them well enough, or I need to sit down one day and eat the entire jar to remove the temptation once and for all. It could be a permanent answer to my predeliction for the delicacies. An entire 3 litre jar? It would be a permanent answer to pretty much everything, I suspect.
