Sometimes you get away with it, but usually you don’t. This time, I seem to have got away with it.
I’d always intended a spell of R’n’R after the Oxford 10K. Not because the race was especially taxing, but because it marked the end of a solid spell of running. For the first time in well over a year I’d done three successive weeks of 20+ miles. Burnt off another ten pounds of lard. So I scheduled a couple of days off, and a slightly more adventurous rehydration regime than I’ve enjoyed in recent times.
I offered myself an inch of rope, but took rather more. Though not quite enough to hang myself, it seems.
Despite the patchy week, I did run a couple of times. Just short loosening lopes around the block. By midweek, I should have been back on the schedule, but a few beers in front of the Champions League final seemed a more reasonable way of whiling away an evening. It was virtually the weekend by then, and a holiday weekend at that. Combined with some truly horrible weather, well, a couple of trips to the pub to tend to the local community seemed strangely preferable.
This evening I knew I had to get back out there. A long weekend of beer and Beaujolais, including a huge pub lunch on Saturday, and a long procession of fatty snacks at home, left me lying in bed this morning, perusing my stomach, which seemed suddenly to contain a quivering medicine ball. I feared the arrival of a John Hurt, Alien moment. All my recent good work undone.
But I shouldn’t have worried. An average pace of 10:30 won’t sound impressive to all those rippling athletes out there, but compared with my assumptions, and fears, it was just fine. Much more important was that I felt… strong and bouncy. I know what I mean by this. Take my word for it — it’s good.
There was one negative. It came as I reached the main road that crosses the end of a little-used, long, straight, hedged lane. I was puzzled by the absence of traffic that I can usually see zipping past as I approach from between the hedgerows. When I finally reached the junction, I could see why. The road was blocked by four or five police cars, blue lights flashing. A few yards in the other direction were the remains of two cars. One was burnt to a crisp. The other looked like it had been attacked by a scrapyard crusher. The ambulances had been and gone.
According to my GPS watch, my run contained a period of 7 seconds in which I had stopped still. It must have been there.
No iPod this evening, so my track du jour was the song thrush that chirruped like mad in the branches above my head as I arrived back home, panting. Glad to be alive. Again.
