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. On their own, unremarkable facts: just a couple more bites in the elephant-eating task. But they’ve taken me closer to the tipping point that must surely come: the moment when I’ll be released from that waiting room, into the real contest. I sense it’s not far off now. I’m hoping that next weekend’s 10K race will mark the starting point for the tougher stuff ahead.
Another difference today was my warm-up. I confess: I rarely have any warm-up at all. Sometimes a casual, half-hearted stroll for a minute or two before breaking into a jog that barely lifts my velocity beyond the initial walk.
Using the J-word reminds me that there is yet another pointless thread on the Runner’s World forum at present, discussing the difference between jogging and running. I don’t understand why some runners get so het up about these words. Few things in the universe seem more inconsequential than this. Just at the moment, I can’t think of any, but I’m sure one will come to me, if I stop trying to force one from my inner Encyclopaedia of Unimportant Things***.
But back to that warm-up. Today I cycled 3 miles round the back lanes before arriving at a leafy car-park by the canal, where I leapt from the saddle and onto the tow-path for the start of my 3-miles-up-and-3-miles-back run. (Or jog. Go one, you choose. See if I care.)
Did the bike make a difference? I think it did. It wasn’t exactly an eyeballs-out Mark Cavendish-type rodeo ride. More of a pleasant bucolic excursion, and interrupted, like last week, by negotiations around the acquisition of a large quantity of wood chippings. But it was just sufficiently lusty to get the blood pumping faster than normal, and to produce a pleasing patina of perspiration on my left temple.
Apart from the bio-mechanical and respiratory benefits, the ride allowed me to start the run on the canal, instead of having the usual tedious trudge for a mile through the village from my house. Beginning the run a couple of miles up from the usual starting point meant seeing a stretch of the towpath not glimpsed for a while. This reinvigorated my appetite for the landscape. I sometimes moan, or used to, about the canal run, but actually, it’s rather nice. Traffic-free of course, a range of surfaces underfoot, and a constantly-changing kaleidoscope of incident and images to entertain and amuse.
Most towpath-users are cordial and alive to the outdoor life. The exception, as previously noted, is the anglers. Something unnerves me about these guys (and yes, they are always male – why is that?). I recently mentioned their expressionless tendency to gaze into the depths, but today I realised that this propensity is even darker than previously feared. As I approach them, they glance up at me, unsmiling, catch my eye, then immediately turn back to the deep, black waters of the Kennet. I realised today what they are up to. The meeting of the eyes allows them to absorb the fragment of me they need: the flake of spiritual DNA. Once in their possession, they turn back to the canal and dunk it. And now, peering into these dread waters, they can gorge on my darkest, wildest, deadliest, and most terrible thoughts. It must be from these moments of emotional butchery that they derive the strength to endure their own hushed lives on the canal bank. Featureless and futureless. All is now. Everything in their universe is still and silent, except the occasional rustle as they rummage for another bag of crisps. Beware the angler.
There was much excitement further up, where I came across a caravan of Lord’s Taverners minibuses, going about their admirable business. They had half a dozen strange double-canoe-like structures on the canal, filled with squealing, giggling teenagers. Laughter and joy was everywhere. Well done to the LTs: the rarest of animals. Those who put their money where their mouth is. Those who walk the walk, and give up their time for others.
Past the visitors’ centre at Aldermaston Wharf, populated as usual by people who don’t quite know what they are doing there. It’s like the world HQ of the disorientated. They stand outside, looking around, and gazing upwards at nothing very much. Puzzled children tug at their parents’ shirt-tails. Ask me no more: I know no more than you.
A half mile further on and BANG! I was sprawled across the towpath, my foot having failed to clear some egregious tree root. This was, I reckon, the 5th time I’ve fallen while running. January 2002, in training for the London Marathon, I fell over a sleeping policeman on an unlit road; once when running on the banks of the Thames, when training with my then running club; in Bracknell Forest with Nigel one summer evening; and another occasion on this very towpath, when I managed to embed a chunk of sharp stone in my knee cap. It should have happened more than 5 times. Perhaps it has, and I’ve succeeded in erasing the embarrassing memory.
This time wasn’t too bad. Received the standard knee graze and mini-explosion of temporary trauma. But I was back on my feet straight away, and doing the essential first thing: looking around to see if anyone had spotted my shame. Phew. No one had. I cursed the last angler I’d passed for the evil eye he must have given me, and moved on.
Or rather, moved back, as the fall coincided with the 3 mile point, and it was time to spin around and plod back. The Lord’s Taverners party was in full swing. The songs were starting, and the beaming man on the barbecue hollered out a pleasant greeting as I passed. Nice people.
On five miles, I suddenly flagged, and stopped for a minute’s walk. A few hundred yards further, and I had to stop again. And so it went. That last mile was ragged, and I was as relieved as I’ve ever been to get back to base. Today, this meant the bike. Instead of going straight home, I cycled up the canal to the next turn, and returned home the long way round, via the farm track. It’s a 7-mile circuit I used to run leading up to Boston.
Boston and the training seem like a very long time ago now. They belong to a different version of me. I’m stuck with this new one. I wasn’t happy when I first unwrapped it but, well, OK, I’m sort of getting used to it now I suppose.
Yep, we’ll be OK.
6.11 miles and a 7 mile bike ride to be added to the spreadsheet. That’ll do me.
*** And sorry, I couldn’t come up with anything more unimportant than the distinction between running and jogging.
