Songs of distant earth

Last night was already late after a meeting in London relegated me to the 1045 train. I arrived at Didcot, already in a bad mood because of the dreadful contract I had been reviewing during the journey, got into the car and turned the key ...

Nothing. The lights on the instrument panel went out, and the car stood there in silence and darkness. The battery is  new, I did not leave the lights on, there was no door ajar to cause the interior light to remain on all day. I opened the boot and then the bonnet (the release lever for the latter being in the former, for some reason known only to MG designers) and wiggled the battery leads about a bit. Instrument panel warning lights appeared, but when I tried to crank it there was nothing. I set the horns off a couple of times wiggling those battery leads, and tried several more times to get it to turn over, but eventually admitted defeat. I walked back to the station, in search of the first of a phone box to call the RAC (my Blackberry smartphone having died earlier) or a Pryor's taxi. Basil Pryor beat British Telecom.

This morning I set off to run into Didcot to get the RAC to sort out the problem. I thought I might speed the process by calling them en route, but the operator to whom I spoke thwarted that idea by asking for the registration number. I could give her the letters, but she was not satisfied when I told there were three digits between the first letter and the final three. So I ran on, and called when I reached the car.

The second operator, male, asked me the type of car. "MGF". "What model?" Good grief. "Petrol or diesel?" I explained patiently about the extreme rarity of diesel MGFs. "I don't know much about cars" giggled my interlocutor. Evidently. I refrained, with no little difficulty, from suggesting that the RAC might not be the right employer for him.

The patrolman was with me very quickly, and soon diagnosed a faulty contact at the end of the earth cable (not before he had tried the classic fix for any starter motor problem, a few whacks with a blunt instrument). Emery paper was applied and the lead refastened, and the car started on the first turn of the key. It might be my imagination, but it seems even to run better now.

4.11 miles on my GPS watch, which didn't find a satellite until I had already run half a mile or so, but the Garmin distance is the one to add to my cumulative total. Still way off track for 1,000 miles this year, but heading in the right direction. And a beautiful morning for a run. Pace not bad either: I used Vivobarefoot Evos rather than Breathos - but the first third of the route is on farm tracks, which were a bit rocky and might have been more comfortable if I had used the trail shoe.

Run awhile

A coincidence of two small matters that reminds me of - what? Well, something important. Something that it's important to keep in mind.

Last night, at Nettlebed folk club, during an excellent evening with Fairport Convention in which we were treated to performances of Farewell, farewell, Who knows where the time goes, Mattie Groves, and of course Meet on the ledge, I also hear one of my all-time favourite Fairport songs, Walk awhile. Not because of the tune, although it's a great song for singing along, but for the sentiment. "The more we walk together, the better we'll agree". If only Richard Thompson or Dave Swarbrick had been runners - I mean at the time, not to suggest that they are no more, though Swarb has famously had the rare experience of reading his obituary in the papers - I think Run awhile would have been even better. But back in 1970 I would not have appreciated it ...

Then, this morning, my daily inspirational email from Runner's World:

Running is not, as it so often seems, only about what you did in your last race or about how many miles you ran last week. It is, in a much more important way, about community, about appreciating all the miles run by other runners, too. (Richard O'Brien)

I believe that's Richard O'Brien the actor and writer - and, obviously, and more importantly, runner. And clearly all-round good man. I have seen that one before, perhaps even shared it with readers of this blog, but it bears repeating. Shared it ... actually not an expression I find very comfortable: too American for my taste, as I grow to resent the intrusions into our language of more and more of theirs. But perhaps not inappropriate, because sharing is what it is all about. Appreciating all those other runners' miles, too. I never disparage what another runner achieves. At least, not knowingly.

Overall, a Perfect Day at #writethisrun

I won't get many chances to run with an Olympic Marathoner: in fact, I would not be surprised if today turns out to be a unique occasion. I don't mean simply in the same race, which I have already done (when he beat me, as did several thousand others) but at Scott Overall's shoulder, having a conversation if his conversational pace were not my tempo pace. Eventually I dropped back with slippery huaraches from the wet grass. Great excuse.

Write This Run was an event for running bloggers, of whom there were about 100 in attendance. First interesting observation: about 90 per cent were female. Do men not have the time, or the need, or the aptitude, to blog their running activities? Or is it just a disinclination to spend their Sunday at a conference (with a grand prix and some football on the TV to deter them)? Or were they out running? There were plenty out pounding the pavements around Hampton Court as I drove to the venue.

Laura and Liz did a great job putting together a programme, although to my mind they tried to cram in too many speakers, so time slots were short and a 10 am start on a Sunday was a bit early. Several speakers didn't seem particularly comfortable presenting to an audience of such a size, although they were all at their ease with a roomful of runners. I will write more another time, but while it was nearly all interesting stuff I would have liked to hear more about blogging - though the tips I picked up about running were valuable, and the inspirational stories of some of the speakers were, well, thoroughly inspirational. A day well spent, even without the group run at the end!

The ultimate positive spin

"We expect to gain a 15 minute extension to our journey time today", the "train manager"l has just announced, a propos a signalling fault between the Slough of Despond and Paddington. He went on to say this means an arrival time of 0930, which in the language spoken by ordinary people is 15 minutes late.
I am heartily sick of being lied to by the train operating company. Some years ago, their services were usually announced as "the slightly delayed First Great Western service to ...", so a stranger might assume the qualification was part of the company name, but they have rewritten the definition of "on time" so no qualification is needed except in extreme situations. When the dot matrix departure board on the platform tells me that the train is on time (the time posted being the timetabled departure time) yet it is not even visible half a mile down the line to the west, it is clearly late and they are therefore giving false information. As a Latin American fellow commuter remarked to me years ago, civil disorder on the station would be unavoidable in her home country. I never see her on the train these days - last time I saw her she had carved out a career in viticulture that minimised her need to commute to London.
I have spent a few hours in the past 24 putting a positive spin on my election address for the management committee of the Society of Authors. Having questioned the proposed constitutional reforms last years (both the substance and the process) and joined the task force set up to seek a better model, I would consider myself a hypocrite (not, perhaps of the most egregious stripe, but a hypocrite nonetheless) if I stood by and allowed a raft of candidates picked by a Magic Circle modelled on the one that brought in Home to succeed Supermac to be "elected" unopposed. William Horwood and Charles Palliser, also members of the task force, are doing likewise: we are, if you like, a slate, standing on a platform of democracy and transparency.
Yesterday also found me marking mock exams for my Russian students. As usual, too many demands on their time meant inadequate preparation and incomplete scripts. I cannot imagine trying to write an exam in a foreign language, even having to write in a foreign alphabet: surely you cannot write very quickly that way, and certainly the results can be rather untidy. One script was actually much easier to read than I had expected, in fact, and it was interesting to see how that student had formed Latin letters the Russian way (elaborate capital Ds for example. (Update: the train manager says that "the disruption is now complete", but contradicts the clear meaning of that statement by promising an earlier arrival time than previously advised.)
Another problem for the Russian students is reading the questions. The problem questions take a few minutes for me to read: were they in French it might take me four times as long, and I guess that's comparable to what my students have to do. And they miss things in the question: an English student would easily recognise that a question featuring the trade mark WONDERFUL will involve possible invalidity, but a foreign student can easily fail to appreciate that.
Sent using BlackBerry® from Orange

Time was

The railway operator which claims me as its "customer", for which privilege I pay indecent sums of money, treats me and fellow passengers like idiots. I am particularly incensed by their habit of describing as "on time" trains which manifestly are not. The 1016 to Paddington is late if does not leave at 1016: it is therefore late (meaning "not on time" to everyone except train operators) if it pulls in at 1016, later still if it is not even in sight at that time.
Today the 1016 halted as the digital clock clicked over to 1020, and almost at the same instant the display changed from "on time" to "expected at 1020". So I don't feel in the least bit patronised.
 Unfortunately the late arrival, compounded by slow running to Reading, meant that despite a sprint through the wonderful new station from a distant new platform all the way to Platform 2 I missed my connection. I asked a couple of railway employees for guidance, as the next train to Waterloo (from which I intended to alight at Twickenham) was half-an-hour later and I was already behind schedule. The senior one suggested, eventually, a train to Paddington then transfer by underground to Waterloo ("but I can't guarantee the Tube" - as if anyone could!): I needed the 1045 departing from ... "About Platform 53, I suppose?" I suggested, referring to the large number of new platforms at Reading. He thought that was hilarious, and undertook to walk with me in that direction so we could continue talking about the new facilities.
On the huge new bridge, all high picture windows and metalwork with myriad escalators which my new friend told me seem to be causing rather a lot of falls, I observed that it would not be long until the space became filled with shops and food retailers. Indeed, he told me that many passengers wanted a cup of coffee, and he was pleased that Starbucks would be opening soon. "Oh," I said, "I thought you said coffee." He thought that was hilarious too. I was on a roll.

 

A Hazy Shade of Winter

The coldest Easter on record, and the coldest march since 1962 - but today the weather was more like spring than it has been since early January. 5K round the playing fields, stopping to thrown the ball for Hugo, is not great but it's certainly better than nothing, and nothing is what has been happening with my running of late. The other day, I ventured out on the same route (with the same running mate, and the same ball to throw for him), wearing a sweatshirt against the cold, which I assumed was not going to be Muscovite in its intensity because the sun was shining - a little. And while I was running with the wind at my back, I was right. Turning along the southern edge of my lap, though, the wind hit  me and it was immediately apparent that gloves and hat were essential. Since they were at home, that was where I went, though for a cappuccino rather than to pick them up.

I deliberately raised the pace along that southern edge of the lap today, and for the last lap kept it raised for another fifty or so yards: and I find I was up to (or down to?) 5:31 pace, at least for an instant. OK, that might be a Garmin hiccup, but it's not entirely implausible, and it gives me something to work on. Timekeeping at the Abingdon Parkrun yesterday, I envied not only the first man home in 17-something but all the other runners who came in at times quicker than I could contemplate. That elusive sub-20 5K has surely eluded me for ever now, but it would be very nice to get down to the low end of the 20s again. Rather better weather will certainly help my training.

Related articles

• Coldest Easter on record for UK

The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner

Does your running sometimes amaze you? Do you sometimes manage to keep up a workrate that you didn't believe possible? Do you ever finish a run and ask yourself where on earth it came from?

If your experience is anything like mine, you'll have had this feeling - perhaps once or twice, perhaps a few times, definitely not very often. It's too special to happen every day. I have particularly had this on club runs, when I have fallen in with someone rather faster than me - and kept up with them. Often left them at the end. It's the very antithesis of social running, but sometimes it's what I feel I need.

Talking to Kerry the other day, over a lunch that I've been looking forward to ever since he phoned me to ask if I would be interested in writing for RW, I was surprised to find that his take on running with people, on socialising on the hoof, was quite different from mine. It never struck me that some people might be so much in the zone that they wouldn't want to be interrupted. Well, it's probably something elite athletes do, but they inhabit a different - not distant, but definitely different - planet, and for me the social side of running has always been essential. Well, nearly always.

Actually, even tonight it was important. I suggested to Kerry that even if one did not speak, the act of running with someone, matching strides, breathing in parallel (or perhaps out of synch), was a form of communing. He didn't seem to agree - but this evening, on the long drag along Audlet Drive/Twelve Acre Drive/Dunmore Road, the last couple of miles of a run far longer than I thought I could comfortably manage, there was something reassuring about the sound of feet behind me. I wasn't talking to the teammate to whom the feet belonged: I had no breath for that. But just to know from the sound of her feet that she was there, that was enough. We hadn't met each other before - she told me after the run that she had only joined the club about five months earlier, and I haven't been out with them much in that time - but we pushed each other to performances far beyond what we thought we could manage: and the feeling that gives you is priceless. I have a sense that I can achieve something big now: but the most important thing is to keep up the running, stay in this zone, hang onto these positive vibrations.