I recently bought an iPod Nano, and have been teasing myself with its possibilities. Started off with a few rather unsatisfying weeks, re-exploring the less hospitable, outer territories of my own MP3-ised CD collection. Since then I’ve been back on safer ground — the spoken word. It’s a wholly different experience. Being a lifelong BBC Radio 4 addict, this shouldn’t have been such a surprise, but it was. It’s the different context that’s startled me. There’s something surreal about hearing languid, disembodied voices while out running. I suppose this is what believing in god must be like. On the subject of which, I heard yet another cracking Mark Twain quotation yesterday, while listening to the podcast of Start The Week… …
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DO NOT USE LIFT IN CASE OF FIRE It amuses me, anyway, even if it doesn’t quite come up to the high standards of semiotic ambiguity set by DOGS MUST BE CARRIED, seen next to the escalators on the London Underground. I’ve had three days of very mild debauchery in Dusseldorf. Nothing too extreme, but in a Champions League week that featured critical 2nd legs for 4 British teams, it was impossible to avoid the siren calls from McLaughlin’s Irish Bar in the Altstadt with its 3 large TV screens, each showing a different game. I spent yesterday evening there, barely knowing which way to turn. Eventually I found a spot in the corner from where I could see … …
Here we go: Positive thinking is A Good Thing; negative thinking is A Bad Thing. I understand the value of positive thinking, and I am, therefore, a positive thinker, rarely falling victim to gratuitous negativity, which I find corrosive, exasperating and boring. OK? Right. I need to get those thoughts nailed to the top of this entry, so they can flutter freely at the periphery of your vision while you read the next bit. I think it’s unlikely that I’ll get round the Zurich Marathon in under 5 hours. The last time I hinted at such a planet-juddering possibility, I had 3 or 4 emails, and several kind messages on the forum, urging me to be more positive about … …
No run today, but I did go for a spot of Pilates at the local school. It’s a deceptively gentle activity. Supine ballet. Here I lie on my floor mat, waggling an ankle, or drawing arcs in the air with my arms, while hypnotic New Age music oozes from a portable CD player. At the end of it, you tend to think: Is that it then? But when you get up and walk away, you feel stretched and buoyant. Pilates has two difficulties for me. One is trying to remember all those things I should be doing simultaneously – feet apart a certain distance, pointing this way, breathing at “30% capacity”, shoulders and hips supporting the weight, understanding the … …
Here comes the sun. I’m a big fan of the Today programme, never more so than since it came under hostile fire from the Blair government and its multifarious satellites, following the infamous Gilligan broadcast. So when, this morning, the impossibly seductive whisper of Charlotte Green revealed that today would be the coldest day of the year, I believed her. Because we must believe everything that Charlotte tells us. There is no alternative. I kept glancing through the office windows this morning, watching for the first signs of the approaching blizzard. But nothing happened. Nothing except a constant blast of golden sunshine. Then lunchtime came, and I drove home to change. Jacket not required, but I wore one anyway, … …
Six weeks to Zurich, and things are ropey. Bumping along on your arse like this is painful, but it must be about as bad as it gets. I fell asleep back there, and missed my stop. Now I’m just waiting for the bus to slow down long enough for me to jump off, and begin the long trek back. Another lesson learned the uncomfortable way. Maybe races aren’t always such a good idea. It’s not easy to predict their impact. A good race might be a non-stop ticket to nirvana, but a hard race will mash your spirit like little else. There were times in the last few miles at Bramley when I could hear my own skeleton rattling. When … …
“Ooooh, what a grey day”. Another week, another aimless plod through rural England. The Bramley 20 is a bigger undertaking than last week’s half marathon, but the tale is a simpler one. The running landscape was much the same as last weekend. Workaday agricultural land, patches of dense wood, humourless farmers, mazey lanes, rutted farm tracks. Grey skies. Foggy and cold. Lying awake at five o’clock this morning, I mulled over what to try this time. Like most hopeless plodders, I tell myself that all I need to do is shuffle the pieces into the right order, and Bingo! Today I was a Mourinho, not an Eriksson. I threw everything up in the air then snatched at a few things … …
No wonder I felt knackered after the Wokingham Half. The results show that I did the race twice. Someone with my name, race number and club finished in 1:50, then apparently went back and did it again, this time trailing home in 2:18. I feel better about my performance now. I’ve been wondering about my falling energy levels. Is it a hideous portent of my nightmarish appointment with the Grim Reaper….? Or a lack of carbohydrate? I’ve decided to pile my money on the latter hypothesis. I’ve not mentioned that I’ve shed about 20 pounds in the last couple of months. I’ve not starved myself — far from it — but perhaps I’ve been a bit carb-averse. Thinking about it, … …
Almeria was a grand weekend, and life hasn’t quite returned to normal. Perhaps the apres-race took it out of me. Whatever it was, I seem to have taken my eye off the ball. Last Saturday I had a difficult 18 miler. The first 12 or 14 were OK, but the rest was cold and dark and slow. For the first time in a long time, I began to wonder about the wisdom of marathons, and these long preparatory runs. Why not stick with halfs, I started to think? Next day, with M away at the in-laws, I popped out for a few beers and watched Chelsea play Liverpool on TV at the local pub. What a gloomy experience that was. … …
Picture the scene… Lying on my deathbed, a solemn, distant, whispering face…will be slowly lowered into my grey, fading world…. and will tell me… my time is almost up. Peering out weakly, a waning stamen amid a bonnet of withering petals, I’ll smile the best I can… and call loudly for a bottle of Taylor’s 77. Admit it, port is the greatest of all drinks, and fittingly, it generates the greatest of all hangovers. Knowing I’ll be dead tomorrow would be the ideal opportunity to push the boat out, and allow myself the luxury of chewing over a whole bottle. What a way to go. These thoughts emerged through today’s painful, extended crapulence. Ash, Andy and I flew back from … …