Heavy air
As excuses go, it’s not a bad one: believe me, having employed thousands of freelance staff over the years, I have heard a goodly few reasons why people can’t do something. What sets this one apart, aside from the fact that I’ve not heard it before, is that the Bok ventured it as the probable reason why I was not running so well this morning. This is a third-party excuse, making it far stronger.
He is such an amazing friend that he completely ignored the scientific control group: the fact that he was breathing the very same heavy air and yet, if anything, appeared to be faster than ever!
It’s fairer to say that I didn’t run on Sunday, that I had a glass of wine last night and went to bed late. But then he didn’t run Sunday either, probably had a bottle of wine last night and got woken from his slumber several times by his sons.
He’s just faster and there’s an end to it!
It was lovely to run in the warmth again though – a whole 9 degrees (Centigrade I hasten to add!) and although the sun didn’t really break free until we were back, it was a bright morning. What was very different was the amount of standing water present en route and by default, mud! It’s a great workout for the core stability muscles and they were well used today: I had one moment and Nick had at least two that I saw, but neither of us even came close to hitting the deck.
Give it time though as the mud only gets thicker and more tricky as the autumn progresses! I hope it’s a day when we have a camera with us… whoever it is that goes down!
We proved that we were rubbish at cattle herding on a narrow bridge, where we just couldn’t get the bovines to pass us. Instead they stood in our way for as long as they dare before turning around and fleeing from the two strangely dressed bipeds!
In the end we ran the same route as Friday in 58 minutes – three more than I thought it took before, although Nick’s watch, very conspicuous by its exhausted absence today, had claimed it took us 57 minutes last time round. The mud was definitely a factor in this, but I suspect it had more to do with my walking at several points while the Bok could have bounded on!
Different tactics will be applied next time out in an attempt to experiment and we’ll see if we can’t get the time down a little (ergo, speed me up a little!). Watch this space for the results!
No run Sunday
We were honoured to have our good friend Tarat, an eminent businessman from Thailand, staying with us this weekend.
It has to be said that he was quite prepared for us to disappear off for a couple of hour run, but the combination of speed circuit training on Wednesday night, being run ragged by the Bok on Friday, two car journeys into the heart of the capital on Friday and Saturday night and an early morning Heathow run (in the car!) tomorrow, meant that I had as good an excuse not to run as I could think of.
So please accept my rainy-day apologies… no run today!
Macbeth
Rupert Goold’s production is clearly non-standard Shakespeare fare and the first inkling that you get is when you sit down in front of Anthony Ward’s gaunt and clinical Soviet set, reminiscent of a mental hospital or seventies comprehensive school.
Further proof is demonstrated by two of the stranger characters: a larder fridge, which is given a sinister aura by use of the soundtrack of an ageing fluorescent light; and a serving elevator, which serves as the portal for all the more important entrances. Both play supporting roles throughout the production that are quite simply chilling.
More menacing still however are the three witches who open the first scene portrayed as matrons, the transformation betwixt heralded by a cold change of light and sound… the hairs on my neck bristled at this and each subsequent transformation.
Patrick Stewart’s portrayal of Macbeth is utterly superb and his characterisation of the subtle transformation from warm-hearted to evilly-possessed is inspired, matched competently by Kate Fleetwood’s scheming and troubled Lady Macbeth.
This is a true contemporary masterpiece and if you like Shakespeare (and can get hold of tickets between now and the 1st December close) is a totally-must-see production.
Warm toes
It was SO cold out this morning that it seemed appropriate to roll out my new woolen Thorlo’s for their inaugural voyage! And before I get distracted with other matters, let me tell you they were FAB…. really toasty! Although the real test, I guess, is when they get wet and there were no puddles at all this morning… just lumps of ice!
Nick and his additional X pounds of weight had returned from Oman and after yesterdays false start, he duly arrived this morning at 7.30 and we ran off into a wonderfully crisp, clear morning. I think that he must have called in a favour with the National Coal Board, as his power-hungry watch-thingummy was fully charged and rearing to go.
We ran out to the Royal Oak, then along the magical path where I always seem to have more energy, then down and across to Wellhouse Lane, past the water tower and back along the railway. As always with the Bok, it felt hellishly quick and very much like he was dragging me along most of the way. When we were almost back he muttered something about having got me to carry his extra weight around for him, hence the reason that he was able to bounce along like his jacket was filled with helium, whilst my legs felt like lead… I almost think that he wasn’t joking!
Our circuit this morning was 6.5 miles according to the digital navigator, but having given us that great news it then changed its mind (or Nick’s eyes started functioning again as they warmed up), deciding it was only 6.3! No matter, at 55 minutes (by my reckoning) the overall speed was 6.87mph.
Nick kindly took a couple of photos on my mobile to show how beautiful the morning was… I’ll upload them with the ones I took the other day when I figure out how to send emails on it!
A heavy frost but no show
At 6.40am when I dragged myself out of a warm dream, there was a heavy frost on the world outside.
As I supped my morning coffee in my reading chair, there was a tinge of regret at having agreed to go running again this morning with the no doubt suntanned Nick, freshly returned from Oman.
There was a rush of joy then when I received his blow-out text a few minutes later.
But don’t tell him yet… let him wallow in the guilt of crying off for a while longer!
Circuit training
I joined Burgess Hill Runners at the Lewes track last night for their monthly session there. Despite being an interloper (this is Kim’s club) I was once again made to feel very welcome indeed… they truly are a wonderful bunch of people and Stuart is an excellent coach!
I warmed up with a gentle 1600m, although when I say warmed up I mean just my muscles – my hands started to get incrementally colder with every passing minute from the moment I got out of the car! It was fweezing!
Next came hops, skips, jumps, scissors, running backwards and a stretching session to create a little pliability from the part-frozen bodies present. This was followed by a session where we ran slow until the whistle, then fast until the next, slow, fast, turning round to run the other way when it sounded twice. This enabled everyone to run at their own pace without stretching too far around the track.
The main course of the evening was the interval session, with 1,000m sprints followed by 200m walks, or staggers in my case as the session progressed. I started by trying to hang onto Stuart’s coat-tails but quickly found Jo’s pace (a few seconds slower at 3 minutes 55) more to my liking… at least for the first three intervals. The last two intervals I hung onto Jo until the 500m mark, then fell away to come in 100m back and then only 50m back.
Next came all-out 100m sprints with teams of three relaying. 600m later and I was very grateful when the circuit lights were extinguished!
We stretched out comprehensively by the light of the swimming pool (they looked oh SO warm in there!) and it’s a testament to Stuart’s stretches that I can still walk this morning! My hands even got warm again. But only after about 20 minutes in the car on the way home!
I’m already looking forward to the next session – if my behaviour in the meantime is good enough to get invited again!
Into the Wild
We went to see Into the Wild last weekend… I haven’t written about it before because it’s still buzzin’ around in my mind.
It’s a warm, funny and ultimately tragic tale of a young man trying to understand life and himself, made far more poignant by the fact that it’s a true story.
Written and directed by Sean Penn, it stars Emile Hirsch (Jesse James Hollywood in Alpha Dog) as Christopher McCandless, recently graduated and looking to escape the claustrophobia of the life mapped out for him by his parents and society in general. Shedding his very existence by burning his identity papers, he calls himself Alexander Supertramp and disappears from the grid. Throughout the story, the way that he touches the other characters is both heartwarming and heart-wrenching and his diary gives a depth of insight into the soul of this young man that is hard to ignore afterwards. The soulful soundtrack by Eddie Vedders beautifully frames both his mind and the landscape.
Go and see this film and be prepared to be moved. Five stars!
Motivation
I’m sure that people start writing blogs (or anything else for that matter) for any number of reasons, but for me it was to create a cyclical pressure to both write and run. I want to write, so I have to run, even on mornings when I don’t want to, in order to have something to write about, even on days where I don’t feel like it. Shall I give you a moment to absorb that?
Today was one of those mornings where, having returned to a warm bed after working out where the alarm noise was coming from, I really did not want to run. Sitting here now, I can also tell you, I would rather be sinking into the sofa than trying to muster the energy to write. But run I did, so write I must!
It looked like rain, but within ten minutes (the time it takes the body to warm up to running temperature) I was regretting wearing two base layers AND my Goretex jacket. By the time the second runner passed me in the opposite direction wearing only shorts and t-shirt, I was feeling pretty silly It was milder than I had anticipated but I was only going for a slow run around the block, so to speak, so no worries.
You may already have realised that I’m fascinated by the power of the mind and its internal dichotomy – the conscious and unconscious. The writer Julia Cameron calls her unconscious inner critic ‘Nigel’, creating a persona for what the rest of just know as the thing that tries to stop us achieving our goals. The way to get around our inner Nigels’ is to creep up on them with practiced stealth, which is why I had decided to do a 45 minute circuit this morning… and why the run took me steadily away from the house. I could turn around at any stage, but all the time I felt okay I could also keep going.
When the rain finally came , I was already running through Ditchling with (half) a mind to go to the bottom of the Downs and turn around. The Gore jacket is such an effective bit of kit that it was a real pleasure running in the rain and this, ably supported by my iQ beanie, helped me run on until I found myself on the path that leads to the top of the Beacon. How strange.
How strange also that, despite not feeling at all like running, I would not allow myself to pause or walk in the ascent, so I just plugged away up the hill until I got to the very top. I note with interest that Sri Chinmoy, the Indian spiritual guru who passed away recently, believed in hard physical exercise as a route to enlightenment. Nietzsche similarly encouraged his readers to scale the peaks, physically and mentally (have you ever tried to read his work?!) and it’s true that there is a special draw about attaining the very top of a hill. As a man of discernment standing on a rocky eminence beholdeth those who are below and in distress; so doth the sage, who by his wakefulness hath put to flight his ignorance, look down upon suffering mankind from the heights of wisdom he hath attained. The Buddha.
These guys must have been fit, because I was knackered and standing there it was as much as I could do to take a photo… which I’ll upload when I have worked out how to email pictures from my new phone! Daniel? Tina?
So it was that I found myself slip-sliding back down the Beacon and retracing my steps, back through pretty Ditchling, back past the horny goats, back through the chicken pen, back past the horses and through the electric fences, back past the farmers with their shotgun (a bit too close for comfort on the way out!), back across the common and back to the house. Back to stretch out my tight muscles and then flat on my back with knackeredness.
The surprising things: my short run was two hours on the nose and 11.25 miles (18km) in length; including the climb I reached the Beacon after 1 hour and three minutes and it took me 57 minutes to get home again; three hours later, I’m still knackered!
Thanks Nessie
We spent a really lovely evening yesterday eating, drinking and making merry with Cliff & Ness, June and Penny. And I made the error of showing my new phone to Nessie who is well known to be an errant prodder of switches and buttons. Which is why the alarm went off at 8.50am this morning.
So this is a quick note to Ness to say thank you for your hospitality, a most delicious meal and for not setting my alarm any earlier! X