With the Brighton 10K just 2 days away, the inevitable doubts have been descending along with the grey clouds that are traditional at this event. We are in for an almighty maelstrom if the Met men are to be believed. The radio reports that the plucky population of Haywards Heath are being evacuated by boat at this very moment. One imagines a ruddy-faced Sir Bufton Tufton invoking the spirit of wartime Britain as he notionally directs operations from the saloon bar of the Dog and Duck.… READ MORE.... …
Blog Posts
(Originally posted on the forum) I’m in another disappointing hotel in Nottingham, without the ability to upload a proper entry, but I wanted to mention today’s run. Just 4.5 miles, but apart from that ever-nasty first half mile, this was an outing that felt good at last. Last week’s 8 miler made me happy after I’d got home; this one managed to offer pleasure as it happened.… READ MORE.... …
It’s been said before, but bears repeating: that we run only because we so quickly forget how horrible it really is. Today’s parkrun is a case in point. Here I am, peering at my spreadsheet, noting my likely future opportunities to do this weekly 5K, when barely an hour ago, floundering in the mud, panting like a runaway pig, I was resolving never to put myself through this pain and indignity ever again.… READ MORE.... …
The plan was for a sinewy, grunting hour in the gym this evening but I’ve been under the weather all day. I even sloped off to bed for a while at 6pm, nursing my incipient man-flu. The Grim Reaper has shown me mercy. I will give thanks by having an early night, and hope that I’ll still be alive when I wake in the morning.… READ MORE.... …
Into November, and feeling even more optimistic about the running winter ahead. I was going to post this entry on Tuesday evening, and had started with these paragraphs: Speed of progress has been frustratingly slow, but I’m staying rational. If advancement was instant and easy, without constant self-doubt, it wouldn’t amount to the prize it remains, and I’d still be snuggled up on the sofa.… READ MORE.... …
Reading ParkRun – 5K Typical. You wait ages for a 5K race, then two come along at once. For much of this week, I’ve allowed myself to slip into a negative frame of mind. Despite another week of austere dining, I seem to be bumping along the weight plateau once more. Average weekly loss so far in this campaign is around 2 pounds, but this week that’s slipped to a paltry half pound.… READ MORE.... …
A forgettable weekend, which is just as well, as I don’t remember a lot about it in the first place. Late Friday afternoon I stepped out for a short run but barely got beyond the garden gate. The gouty toe was back in its box but the two stubbed toes on the left foot, now a rather gorgeous yellow and purple, were having none of it.… READ MORE.... …
This is a toecentric period alright. The right-hand toe, as it were, has moved through last week’s shiny gouty inflammation to a sort of buried pain that’s starting to reach backwards along the sole of my foot when I walk. It’s not cripplingly painful. In fact it’s much better than the last couple of weeks, but while it lingers, and for as long as it issues a small crackle of pain each time I bend the toe, it makes me nervous.… READ MORE.... …
Today I had my first taste of winter. Not that it was particularly cold out there, but there was something bleak and ominous about running the canal towpath in steady drizzle, in the hour before sunset. It was a repeat of the bike-run-bike format. This aerobic sandwich works well, with the bike rides forming a decent warm-up and warm-down around the run.… READ MORE.... …
Theirs not to make reply, Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do and die: Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred. Have I ever felt truly ready to run a race? Probably not. Did I feel ready to run the Crawley 10K today? Definitely not. Did I tell everyone, myself included, that I was ready? Yes. In the first few innocent strides through Lidgate Forest, I recalled my first ever Philosophy tutorial, in which my venerable tutor, Harry Lesser, asked us: “What is a table?”… READ MORE.... …