How very presumptuous, but I seem already to have started formulating some Laws of Running. One such seems to be that the enjoyment of a run is generally in inverse proportion to the level of expectation. The day was filled with sudden patches of excitement when I remembered I was to run this evening. True to form, it was a disappointment.
Fatigue. My knee aches again, my gouty toe feels vulnerable. I still get round the 3 mile circuit, but it takes 41 minutes today, a slower rate than the last 2 days. I’m not much interested in time but comparisons are unavoidable.
Again, I take the dark back lanes though this time, as threatened, I have a small torch with me. Perhaps it’s this extra baggage that slows me down. Yes, that must be it. It wasn’t used much. In fact the first car to pass me did so within about 50 yards of the finish. The only other person I notice all evening is a van driver hurriedly emerging from a run-down yard and running to his vehicle. I spent the following few minutes rehearsing my Crimewatch appearance, in which I will describe this fellow. I look forward to reading about the grisly murder in tomorrow’s paper.
Today the guy who caused the Selby train crash was convicted of ‘causing death by dangerous driving’. He fell asleep at the wheel and ended up on a railway line. The resulting collision killed 10 people. He will no doubt be sent down when he appears for sentence next month. I feel some sympathy for him. The consequences of his commonplace error were grotesquely disproportionate, and it’s impossible to avoid the worrying feeling that it could happen to most people. Ooops, too rational again. Far less troubling to shut your eyes and recline on that perilously over-inflated cushion of sanctimoniousness.
The only winners in this dismal situation are the spectators in the public gallery, who will at least feel that they have been royally entertained by the technicolour dramatisation of other people’s misery.
It was cold again this evening. I didn’t start out until after 2100. Even wore my tracksuit bottoms as a precaution, but this was a mistake. Both they and and my jacket were newly washed, and they felt stiff and cardboardy, and smelt of washing powder. It didn’t seem right somehow.
Noticed a gypsy encampment for the first time this evening.
I seem to be wrestling with a number of different, competing, often downright contradictory elements in this running lark: weight, speed, distance and heart-rate. It’s like trying to keep a 4-sided container intact when there’s some wild animal trapped inside and trying violently to escape.
Tomorrow is a rest day, then a ‘cross training’ day on Saturday which I’ll probably not pay much attention to. Then Sunday with a 6 mile run. Looking forward to this new challenge.
