It’s been quite a 24 hours. It started on such a gentle note, too, in the Asics shop in Argyll Street, just opposite the London Palladium. I went to have my feet analysed. The smiling Japanese girl was a delight, and just giggled at my very English embarrassment at not having cut my toenails in a while. She carried on attaching tiny black stickers to a selection of my pedal protruberances without any outward sign of disgust.… READ MORE.... …
Blog Posts
Items for perusal on the agenda for today’s gathering: Wednesday1: Puzzled by apparently contradictory guidance on the eligibility of the elliptical cross-trainer as a cross-training option in the celebrated Furman FIRST marathon plan, I write a speculative email to Furman University, asking for clarification. I get a detailed reply within 20 minutes from Professor Bill Pierce, who wrote the book.… READ MORE.... …
When does marathon training begin? Perhaps the very first day you start running. But when do you start running? Before you’re born? This isn’t a helpful line of enquiry. Adopting a more prosaic perspective, I suppose the usual answer would be “When the training schedule says you begin”, and that could be anything: 16 or 18 or 20 or 26 weeks.… READ MORE.... …
Loads of stuff to babble about. Here’s an interesting read: How Oprah ruined the marathon. It made me think – perhaps too much. I was even tempted to allow it to depress me slightly, but I read some of the responses, and was once again cheered. My week followed a faintly similar pattern. After the boost of last Saturday’s run, and a hearty hour in the gym the next day, I was once again drawn, moth-like, to the flaming pub on Monday night, and to the well-concealed thrills of Wigan v Everton.… READ MORE.... …
A perfect running day in late autumn: bright and sunny, but cold. No run is ever flawless, but today’s was as good as I’ve had in a long time. Like Brighton last weekend, I set out with low expectations, but arrived home feeling pleasantly surprised. This could become a good habit. If you stick at it, there seems to come a time in almost any repetitive activity when suddenly you start to get it, and pass from self-conscious, frustrated neophyte into some other identity; some interim stage on the road to expertise.… READ MORE.... …
A good morning’s work on the Brighton seafront — a surreal mixture of Edwardian grandeur and kiss-me-quick frivolity. Reassuringly British. The weather was untypically mild. I associate the Brighton 10K with razor winds whipping off the sea, and freezing rain. But today was cool and bright and dry, and for the first year I can remember, the black bin-liner remained in my pack.… READ MORE.... …
I may have got away with this. A return to the rabbit diet, plus three hang-dog days of penance in the gym, silently chanting Hail Marys, seem to have dragged me back on message. This morning I felt normal again; normal enough to know that a run in the big outdoors was on the cards. It rained all morning, just like it rained all weekend, yet today’s seemed less hostile.… READ MORE.... …
At last. Thank god, at last. It’s all gone wrong. I was beginning to worry… I don’t know where these uninvited, anarchic impulses come from, but one arrived on Friday, mid-evening. I didn’t have time to reason with myself. I just suddenly thought: "Let’s go to the pub" and up I got. Five minutes later, I’m gulping a pint of the outstanding Good Old Boy from West Berkshire Brewery, and chewing a bag of salted peanuts.… READ MORE.... …
Who would have thought that Grant Park in central Chicago would give this Englishman two of his most inspirational moments? I was there in person for one of them – the start of the great Chicago Marathon; and in spirit for the other – Barack Obama’s word-perfect acceptance speech, delivered just an hour or so after California turned in the seats that pushed the Democrats past the crucial 270 mark.… READ MORE.... …
A weekend in Crawley, chez M’s folks, and with it, a welcome change of running scene. Two decent outings to report, both along the leaf-strewn Worth Way. On Saturday, a gritty 6½ miler in torrential rain; the sort of stuff against which you cannot protect yourself, except by staying indoors in front of a roaring radiator. Then today, a shorter version of the same.… READ MORE.... …