If an evening with a Norwegian jazz trio was good endurance training, a couple of hours with a magician and illusionist would surely be good preparation for helping me set my targets for next spring’s races. So we went to see Geoffrey Durham perform in Maidenhead last night, and were well entertained. More mature readers may remember him as The Great Soprendo of our youth. His Newspaper Tear was amazing — the best I’ve seen. I must find out how it’s done. The man who can teach me that one may also have the secrets of the sub-60 minute 10K, sub-2 hour half marathon and sub-5 marathon.
The miracles continued into this morning, when I managed 4 miles or so along the canal, on a gorgeously warm autumnal day. The highlight was probably the discovery of an excellent place to hide a body. Am I the only runner who whiles away his runs in this way? I’m always on the lookout for new hidey-holes, should the need ever arise. For obvious reasons, I can’t disclose the precise location, but it’s a deep, overgrown ditch alongside a main road with no pavement. On the other side is a barbed wire fence, then a large, neglected field. A corpse could be concealed down there for ages.
I took it very easy, trying to avoid irking my heel and calf too much. Limited success on that front, as they’ve been sore again since this morning’s run, but I need to press on. I’ll take it gently this week, running just 2 or 3 times. If the pain persists I’ll get some professional help.
This Day of Energy day continued through the afternoon with more pondcraft. Have I mentioned that I’m creating two wildlife ponds? One is large and irregular in shape, the other much smaller (12 feet in diameter). The smaller one is nearly there, though there was an unscheduled delay today with the discovery of a seam of broken beer bottles about 2 feet down. Broken glass and pond liner are likely to argue at some point. Ironic that I had to work hard to clear away the debris of someone else’s relaxation. Life’s like that though, eh? After finishing the digging out and tamping down, came more exertion — conveying a ton and half of sand in wheelbarrow-loads, 120 feet across bumpy grass. This became the underlay for the pond. Shifting it was quite some job, and it made me realise how lucky I am not to have to do a real job to earn a crust.
We’d hoped to get the liner down and fill it with water today, but the discovery of the glass knocked the plan off the track once more. The Champagne moment is postponed again.
