A disappointing attempted long run today, but there’s no disgrace attached. It wasn’t for lack of effort or commitment. If anything, the opposite. I woke yesterday with a feverish brow, throat like sandpaper, and lungs full of wheezey phlegm. I’ll resist the schoolboyish temptation to be even more graphic. But it wasn’t pleasant. Today the corporeal thermostat was a few degrees lower, with the throat less raw and sore. At any other time I’d have opted to give myself another rest day but I’m starting to glance anxiously at the Boston clock, and know that I need to pull out some long runs. So up I got and out I went. As early as 2 or 3 miles I started … …
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Since the last entry, another furious gym session, raging against the step machine. More significantly, today, 7.2 steady country miles. I waited till my attention-seeking computer was whirring and grinding. It’s become self-important — a recent habit that doesn’t please me. I made a dash for it. It was mid-afternoon and mild. How liberating, and how promising, to be able to run in just teeshirt and shorts again. Was this the first breath of spring? I hope so. We need hope. Despite the kindly temperature, a gentle rain fell, and beneath a colourless sky I headed off towards the canal, and onto my extended round-the-block route. This is the one that takes me off the towpath after 3½ miles and … …
A spot of encouragement to peer at, and be grateful for. After Saturday’s panting plod, that I did at least get through, I chanced my arm with 4½ miles or so along the canal yesterday. The sun had switched itself off by the time I got out, leaving nothing but that cold grey glow to warm my spirits. It wasn’t enough. After 2 miles I jettisoned the dream of a cheeky 7 or 8 miler, and settled for the towpath version of my round-the-block standard. In the final mile, I had to walk for a couple of minutes. It’s shocking how much fitness can be lost in so short a time. A week or two of minimal exercise I can … …
Back from Ireland. I am tempted to add blithely, “back to reality”, but apart from being a useless cliché, I’m not sure it’s true. Why is getting back to work, and sleeping in my own bed, any more ‘real’ than spending time with rarely-seen relatives, and burying my mother? The former activities are certainly more representative of normal life, but if anything are a kind of smokescreen behind which the big important things — death included — play out. It’s been a remarkable experience, but one that on the whole, went well. Our main fear the previous week was that the weather would impede us. We’d had heavy snow in the south-east, with airports being closed. Most of the family … …
Yesterday was a bad day. Maybe I was slightly hungover, which wouldn’t have helped, but I felt strangely isolated. I say “strangely” because I’m pretty self-sufficient. As long as I have a computer or a book, and access to a fine wine cellar, I’m perfectly happy with my own company. But yesterday it sort of crowded in on me there for a while. Work is relentlessly worrying. It’s become 7-days a week, and will be until the end of the financial year at the start of April. In addition, the last time I ran was a week ago, and I’ve lapsed into comfort-eating. I’ve started doing the strangest things, like returning from the pub on Friday evening, and immediately setting … …
My mum died this morning at 10:40. The decision not to go to Almeria was the right one. I’d set my sails, and was ready go. Then late yesterday afternoon, having just made arrangements with Sweder to pick me up in Crawley on his way to Gatwick, I went to see my mother. She’s been unwell since Christmas. Last weekend, M and I drove to North Yorkshire to help celebrate the 50th birthday of M’s old friend, Sally. The party was raucous, but beautifully organised with a never-ending supply of decent Australian fizz and spicy canapés — distributed by a small platoon of unflappable professional caterers. We finally got to bed sometime after 3 a.m., only to be woken 4 … …
Life is frantic these days. It’s like being pursued by a gorgon, with each mini head yelling at me to get something done. It’s all happening. What is? Too much, you’ll be relieved to hear, to list and to pick over right now. I have a thousand things to do, including, now, at 11 p.m. on a Friday night, the need to pack for a party weekend in Yorkshire and a complicated business day in Nottingham on Monday. But let’s get our priorities in place. I also need to record today’s long run, and I’d better complete the Oz Chardonnay that’s sitting in a state of… sort of semi-attemptedness, in the fridge. I must be brief. Before Christmas, I’d set … …
Success: my first experiment with treadmill intervals yesterday evening. At least I’m presuming it was a success. I did what I set out to do, namely run 6 x 2 minutes fastish, interleaved with 6 x 2 minutes slowish, on a treadmill set to an incline of +1. This followed 30 minutes of bug-eyed biking and elliptical cross-training to get the blood bubbling nicely through my arteries. 8:25 minutes a mile pace will be jogging speed for some reading this, but for me, it’s fast enough. Rest day today. Another trip to London, but managed to escape early enough to get back home to see the epochal inauguration of President Obama. Then this evening, I scuttled along to the back … …
After 3 weeks of clinging to the Boston ledge by my fingertips, I may just have clambered back to safety. An enforced lay-off can be a good thing. It’s one of nature’s slick self-protection mechanisms. When your instincts may be to overload, you end up compelled to take some rest and recovery. Sounds good, but during a marathon training plan, you can very quickly have too much of a good thing. A few days will never be a problem, but it’s 3 weeks since my calf popped, on Boxing Day, and 3 weeks blasts a fair sized hole in a 16 or 18 week schedule. Not irrecoverable: far from it. But any longer might be, so I decided this was … …
Within hours of gloomily tucking up the previous entry in bed, and retiring, head bowed, I feel obliged to rush back up this glittering celebrity staircase to announce these better tidings. It’s a small gain, but at the moment, any gain is something to be snatched and shown off. It was nothing more than 3.5 miles around the block at lunchtime, but for the first time since Boxing Day, I managed it without feeling any calf twinges of note. Even better, it wasn’t a desperately slow, damage-limitation plod, but a jog of medium intensity at around 10:30 minutes per mile. Not exactly a sprint, but enough effort to feel as though I was testing the bloody-minded tendons. It’s tempting fate, … …