Competitive but not combative: The camaraderie of the long-distance runner

Long may you run

2012-01-29T22:01:00.001Z

I got thinking yesterday, after a chat with a modern pentathlete friend: if a pentathlete takes part in a pentathlon, in what does an athlete - such as I pretend to be - participate? And having little better to do this weekend than search for a llama and do the FT crossword and multiple Parkruns, I logged onto the Oxford English Dictionary (courtesy of the County Council Library Service) and found the answer.

The group of words derive from the ancient Greek ἆθλον which means a prize (but you don't get five prizes in a pentathlon, do you?), and ἆθλος meaning a contest (but surely a pentathlon, or pentathlos as perhaps it should be, is in fact only one contest?). Hmm. I have won a spot prize once, but I'm not usually in contention, except for age-group prizes at INTA. Parkrun is, as I mentioned yesterday, emphatically not a contest. We run against the clock, some of us against time itself. I have taken part in contests, but as an extra, a distant figure in a crowd scene.

My conclusion must be, disappointingly, that I am not literally an athlete. (I also made time this weekend to read a few pages on The Guardian's website, and am going to continue to consider myself figuratively as an athlete.) Anyone with whom I was at school would, of course, have told you this already.

Turn, turn, turn

2012-01-29T16:58:00.000Z

A two-Parkrun weekend this weekend, because Newbury had a trial run this afternoon a couple of weeks in advance of the real start. A single loop (one left turn, then several rights) round the notorious (to anyone of my generation with any interest in politics) Greenham Common, including crossing the main runway - most of which seems to have vanished in the period since the USAF was in residence. A cold wind on the outward section, but not too strong, and it was quite balmy when the wind was behind me - must have been blowing at running pace (which, incidentally, was deliberately slow but evidently rather faster than yesterday) - so I had to remove green hat and gloves. I forgot to wear my Garmin when setting off, but never intended to burn up the course out of deference to both Achilles and Hugo. The former seemed reasonably happy with a heel-banging, modest-paced effort in clunky cushioned shoes; the latter set off too fast, causing another runner whom he passed with me trailing several yards behind to remark "the dog's got a big lead!" - and faded badly after the first mile or so, finishing one extending lead's length behind me - except that I stopped before the line to allow him to finish in front of me.

Photos by Chris Duffer Birch

The official time was 25:25, so that's a PB for Hugo. An improvement of 1:23 from yesterday morning! Maybe the extra clothes I wore had something to do with it? I hadn't really expected to get up to operating temperature.

I'm beginning to think that I need to get myself a new pair of conventional cushioned shoes and at least use them for most of my running until Achilles can cope with minimalism - if that ever comes about. And next time I run the Newbury Parkrun (in three weeks, if all goes to plan) remind me to dig out my old "Lemmings Choose Cruise!" badge to wear. See whether anyone understands the reference.

It's All Over Now, Baby Blue

2012-01-29T12:50:00.000Z

Someone remarked once that a particular model of Jaguar - an XJS, I think - must have been built around the oil filter, so inaccessible was it. I now know that Ford Fiestas of a certain vintage were built round the heater valve. My first thought on trying to replace one was that perhaps they used child labour, because who else would have hands small enough to get into the space provided? But I couldn't imagine Ford doing that - and I realised that it's all to do with the fact that cars are designed carefully for ease (and cheapness) of assembly. The heater valve went in long before most of the other stuff under the bonnet, and replacing a part of the car in a different order from that in which the parts were originally assembled is always going to be tricky. So at least I have a logical explanation, to go with my with my dislike of modern cars.

And why use those strange clamp things that have to be squeezed to open them out, to fasten the hoses on? Spring loaded, self tightening hose clamps, as I find they are called, and you can buy special pliers to open them out. What's wrong with good old Jubilee clips? Jubilee, incidentally, is a (UK) registered trade mark of L. Robinson & Co. (Gillingham) Limited, number 648779, a very low number which dates it to 1946. Interesting. I'll be careful to avoid using the word in a generic sense now.

The answer to that question is probably that it might add 50p to the cost of making the car, but if that's the case why on earth use an electrically operated valve instead of a simple mechanical one? My old frogeye didn't even have a control in the cockpit - it had a tap on the engine block, with "winter" and "summer" settings (heater on or off).

I could, of course, have bought a pair of special pliers to release those clips (and refit them), or I could have bought some worm-drive ones to ease the reassembly, but with a five-mile trip to the nearest shop it seemed easier to press on with a pair of grips, especially for a car that's going on eBay. I probably made the job take an hour longer than necessary, so time-wise not much in it. Next time, though, I'll invest in the right tool and save my hands a battering.

At least the job's done, which enables me to share the Bunns' wonderful version of a Dylan classic which I only discovered recently on a CD I'd never troubled to listen to.

The Road to Venezuela

2012-01-28T19:47:00.003Z

A friend who keeps her horses at our field had two llamas delivered yesterday. As soon as they were let loose in the enclosure that had been designated for them, one jumped a series of fences and disappeared into the distance. She is still at large, despite several sightings, and today we spent a few hours combing the countryside for her. Unfortunately, the topography of the Berkshire Downs does not afford extensive views and there is an abundance of cover. It could be a long time before she's caught: it might never happen. A llama hunt is, however, a rare experience, although a request for volunteers to assist - just take a long training run in an area of outstanding natural beauty, for goodness' sake! - at the start of this morning's Parkrun fell on deaf ears.

Two for the price of one

2012-01-28T11:16:00.000Z

Today's Abingdon Parkrun was also the Freeze Your Thorns Off 5K for me. My first virtual race, but I'm afraid I wasn't racing - first, because Parkrun is definitely, emphatically, legally, not a race, second because I didn't want to aggravate Achilles, and third because I did want to run it with Hugo, who incidentally is English Springer Spaniel Welfare's Dog of the Month. In fact, we had a record entry: three dogs - and about 120 people, making it a double record. The other dogs were miles ahead, but Hugo had a good time although he flagged after the first mile and didn't seem to understand that he was supposed to be towing me, not the other way round. The official time was 26:58, which is probably a record for me - I don't believe I have ever taken so long to run 5K, but I've never run it with a dog in tow before ...

Photo by John Harvey

He also looked a little uncomfortable when I put the roof down for the drive home. When it turned very cold and grey and threatened rain, so did I.

This weekend has become dedicated to the Great Berkshire Llama Hunt. More of that later. Got to get searching.

You'll spot the deliberate mistakes with the Garmin ...

Let it grow

2012-01-25T16:06:00.000Z

Too long I have been reading other people's running blogs and ruing doing too much, too soon, too quickly, and too barefoot - resulting in Achilles's present niggles. In fact I haven't run since that Parkrun where I pulled up at mile 2, the day we were adopted by Hugo the rescue springer spaniel. Today it was time to stop reading about running and actually do a little, and to initiate Hugo in the joys of the south Oxfordshire countryside. I think he's going to be a perfect running companion: he stayed close, ran several times as far as I did, obeyed when I called him, and gave me a welcome tow when I attached his lead. A short run, because I didn't know how he'd behave, but every mile counts, doesn't it?

I'm looking forward to feeling OK to try the Parkrun again - with him.

Salmon Fishing in the Yemen

2012-01-15T21:55:00.001Z

All this resting from running seems to be paying off: yesterday I volunteered at the Abingdon Parkrun, and managed to hand out 74 finishing tags in pretty well the right order, and today we went to the première of Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, the wonderful Paul Torday book, which was held in Oxford in aid of a refugee charity, and now Achilles is pain-free. It seems unlikely that such a film should have received its première in front of an audience of about 100 people, with no red carpet, no celebrity circus, but it's true - although confusingly there was another première later today with higher ticket prices. I think I have missed something here.

Anyway, it is a super film, quite true to the book though with several changes, some of them seemingly arbitrary but all explained by Simon Beaufoy, who wrote the screenplay, in a question-and-answer session afterwards. I won't spoil it for you - if you liked the book you'll like the film too, and if you haven't read the book, get on and do so, you'll like it, then you can enjoy the film too. We were told not to take recording equipment into the auditorium, and the production company sent the film down to Oxford in the hands of an employee, which is not really a surprising precaution. There are trailers on YouTube but, anxious about their legality, I thought I'd embed what seems to be a passer-by's video of the shooting of one of the London scenes.

Soon

2012-01-13T22:18:00.000Z

Another day's rest, another half-hour on ice, and surely it can't be long before I can run again. Five miles on the bike, one way only. The regular cycling has been good for me, I'm sure, but 35 miles this week was probably enough - perhaps as the weeks go by I'll be able to do more.

Thick as a brick

2012-01-12T19:56:00.000Z

The reference is to the meandering dog-walker with earphones in place to insulate him from his environment who got stroppy when I cycled past him this morning - despite having my shouted out to him as I approached. I should have blown my horn. Or gone to the station earlier - I was much later than planned, and missed event the 0929 by a few seconds.

Another 10 miles on the bike, another day resting Achilles which remains necessary. I hope it's getting there ...

Sat on the train next to a civilised-looking Scandinavian man somewhat older than me. How did I know he was Scandinavian? Well, he had those sharply-chiselled features that seem fairly typical of Scandinavians - but the giveaway was that his phone rang and he committed the heinous crime of engaging the caller in a conversation. Once upon a time (after Gunver's 25th birthday party) I could tell Danish, Swedish and Norwegian apart, because I'd spent a long weekend in the company exclusively of speakers of those languages - but given that Gunver is only a couple of weeks older than me I realise what a long time ago that was, and I have maintained that particular (and, frankly, not very useful) skill.

I forbore to remonstrate with him, because I had already read the Companies and Markets section of his FT and he'd promised me the main part when he had finished with it. In the event, and nothing to do with his breach of the quiet carriage rules, I didn't take him up on it.

Morning Dew

2012-01-11T22:50:00.003Z

As I expected, Achilles was much better this morning but everything else between my right knee and ankle was screaming. At least I could walk downstairs without a problem, and things settled down during the day. I don't know whether cycling helps, or whether it's just a good way to improve fitness - and strength, given the hill I have to get across. Anyway, another ten miles in total, the return journey into a troublesome headwind, both ways with an underinflated front tyre ... I left the pump on the bike at the station all day, and miraculously it was still there when I needed it this evening.

Time is tight

2012-01-10T19:33:00.000Z

Right calf now feeling extremely tender but I know this is only a stage that it has to go through and Sharon's ministrations will mean it feels a whole lot better in the morning. No running today: a cycle ride to the garage to collect the car when the new gearchange cables had been fitted, then a ride home when the car was returned to the garage with a very knackered wheel bearing. 5 miles on the bike in total, plus a short walk with our new four legged friend at lunchtime to let him do what a dog's got to do, and chase the training dummy round the playing fields.

Bike

2012-01-09T22:30:00.000Z

Took yesterday off and iced my Achilles, pending a visit to Sharon tomorrow afternoon. Today I got my exercise by cycling to the station - 5 miles each way. I came home - the train part of the journey - via Swindon, which if you have a passing acquaintance with the Great Western Railway you'll realise involves some serious overshooting - I took a train that did not stop at Didcot. To make it worse, I have taken the same train once before. Never again. I hope.

I did enjoy the bike rides, even the one in the dark. And I enjoyed Robyn's version of Syd Barrett's classic - hope you do too.

Oh! Wot a Dream!

2012-01-07T21:00:00.000Z

It felt fast, and looked good on the Watch - but along the riverbank path for the second time Achilles suddenly told me loud and clear that I should walk back. And, amazingly, I had enough respect for him to do so.

Photo by RichK www.theracephotographer.com

But while it lasted, it looked good too!

This is getting ridiculous!

I Don't Believe You

2012-01-05T20:00:00.000Z

Sometimes, you realise today's run was destined not to happen. After a false start, trying to get to the track for a training session, I headed out for a short solo run in the dark: but it wasn't meant to be this short. Achilles, and inhospitable weather, brought it to an early end.

I truly don't believe you ...

It happened today

2012-01-04T18:55:00.000Z

Partly because of a timekeeping error, I only recorded 1.82 miles this morning - on the way to work, which was the only opportunity to fit a run in. But that will do - so Achilles told me. I'll post more details later.

Decadence

2012-01-03T22:00:00.000Z

Nowadays people express surprise if they see me wearing running shoes. But I'm still at the stage where my feet sometimes need mollycoddling, and my old friend Achilles will benefit from a few minutes of old-fashioned heel-banging. A spot of decadence.

Ten minimalist miles on Sunday, and a near-Murakami (albeit in the Green Shoes, but still doing what I kid myself amounts to pose running) yesterday, is pushing it. I iced Achilles while we watched Endeavour (aka Young Morse) on the TV yesterday, spotting Colin Dexter in his customary cameo role, and today it was up for another outing: and having given it that outing I have sat and iced it again this evening and it's raring to go again now. Go where tomorrow, is another matter, as I have a full day in the office in London. A lap of Regent's Park beforehand (and perhaps another at the end of the day) will get the job done.

The club run this evening was route 32: I intended to do the long route, 8.8 miles, but discretion intervened and I stuck to the medium route. By dint of crossing Dunmore Road without waiting for the green man I got ahead of a lot of faster runners (most of the club being faster than me in my present state of tune) and then watched them come past again, some kindly pausing for a chat, mostly about my footwear. But somewhere along the third mile I found I'd reeled one group of four in, and run through them: later another group of three who'd done the extension that differentiated the long from the medium came past me again, and as they were doing their own "medium plus" or "long minus" route I followed them most of the way to the finish, bust strangely ran through them at the gates of Tilsley Park. What is going on? I seem to be getting faster. Not fast, in absolute terms, yet, but faster.

Three days, three runs, all over 6 miles if not quite Murakamis.

Black night

2012-01-02T19:54:00.000Z

Just as knowing that there's someone waiting at the corner to run with you is guaranteed to get you out of bed on a grim Sunday morning (thanks, Alex, David, John, Louis and others over the years) so too joining a scheme to run every day in January and blog about it demands that you get out there and run. Other exercise is allowable, and I toyed with the idea of claiming that feeding the horses counted, but in the end it had to be a run. Ideally it should have been a Murakami 10K, my goal for a daily run (a goal which, I must admit, led to plantar fasciitis by about day 4 of my last attempt to maintain such a routine), but I was worried how Achilles would cope after yesterday's ultra-minimalist ten-miler and kept the distance down - to 6.07 rather than 6.25 ...

It was pitch dark by the time I convinced myself that I had to be running, and cold. Fleece top, hat and gloves cold, though I knew I wasn't going to be getting up to normal operating temperature today - not with yesterday's miles in my legs, Achilles grumbling, and a general feeling of lethargy. But I did have the pleasure of trying out my new headlight, an impulse purchase at Scats the other day (on special offer, 20 per cent off) pending the arrival of a pair of Knucklights - which I am looking forward to reviewing here. The headlight - an Energiser product, like this but without the red trim - has a mere three white LEDs (plus a red one which I don't think I am going to use much), giving 28 lumens (I refrained from buying a much brighter one because it didn't have 20 per cent off), and a strap that goes only round the head not over it too, which reviews I'd read suggested was a must-have in a running headlight. The batteries (three AAA) go in the lamp unit, unlike some other lights which have a separate battery compartment which sits at the back of the user's head, so I was concerned about weight and balance. But it was fine for me, quite bright enough for light-polluted south Oxfordshire, well-balanced and secure although I did put the strap over my hat which I dare say helped. A very good buy.

I turned back at the roundabout instead of continuing to the Harwell junction (which makes a clear 10K), swinging round the lamppost, and climbed the hill that I'd just come down deliberately on my heels to give Achilles a break - then continued for most of the way home in the same way. Garmin told me that I was quite a long way short of a Murakami, so I did three laps of the playing field - a fourth was ruled out by a sudden and pressing need to get home, which I cannot (surely?) still blame on Saturday evening's curry.

A sedate run, but all the more satisfying because it might never have happened. Now for a spot of RICE (and perhaps even a dab of ibuprofen gel) so I might be ready for tomorrow evening's club run - an easy way to deal with day 3.

Ding dong, ding dong

2012-01-01T17:50:00.002Z

Have you ever thought that somewhere looked as if it would be a great place to run, but you've never actually found yourself there to run it? I have driven a stretch of road many, many times, often seeing runners (many more cyclists) on it, and felt quite envious of them. I've also assessed the woodlands on each side of another stretch of the same road, full of running promise, and admired a grand house in the bottom of a valley there. To increase my yearning, the Ridgeway passes through this piece of countryside - a very different piece of that ancient road from "my" stretch of it, here passing though woodland and not following the higher contours, but part of the same byway and importantly part of the course of the Ridgeway Challenge ...

So I was very excited to find that this year's New Year's Day run was ten miles around this part of Oxfordshire. It's far enough from home that I would never otherwise have reason to be there in my running kit, but today was my opportunity to run in it. And just to be out running at 10 o'clock on New Year's Day is a treat in itself, when much of the world is nursing a hangover in bed. I was, in fact, nursing an ill-considered Indian dinner, but a ten-miler, even at a gentle pace, would be a great way to deal with that.

Sarah, who had devised the route, asked with some concern about my footwear - but there is only one way to find out how huaraches will perform, and that's to give it a try. Mind you, ten miles is one mile further than I had done in them before, and that was in what passes for summer round here - but since we stopped having different seasons there's little to choose between 1 January and mid-July, except the mud. My main concern was sharp rocks, but after a mental run round the course Sarah assured me that it would be OK except perhaps for one short stretch.

Quite a reasonable group of Amblers turned out - about 20, I guess - and off we went over the fields. Apart from having to take a little care descending slopes, I seemed to be suffering no disadvantage as a result of being the only one in the group not wearing heavy-duty trail shoes. A group pulled away after a mile or so, and I certainly wasn't going to try to hang in with the speed merchants today: but they all seemed to stop at a church, and as I caught them Julian told me there was a tap there. I asked whether he was suggesting I might wash my feet. Actually a drink might have been a good idea, and later in the morning my eyesight became a little erratic making me wonder whether I was dehydrated. But hell, this was only a ten-miler!

At a couple of points of the course we had to follow signs marked "Chiltern Way", which speaks ominously of hills, and sure enough one presented itself at about 2·5 miles. I'd been running with Andrew for a while by this point, and we caught several others on the climb across a meadow - mainly due to the need to stop to pass through a gate at the top, I think. Entering a wood at this point, I saw a large, concealing tree-trunk which would serve a curry-related purpose that was becoming quite pressing so paused to use this facility and ran on alone until I caught Andrew again. Before that, though, leaving those wonderful beechwoods and joining the road I had driven so often, I encountered a man walking his dog, and having lost sight of any other runners (Andrew assured me he was standing at the next turn, waving, but I had not thought it necessary to wear my glasses) I stopped to check my bearings with him. He was anxious to find out the nature of the mass lunacy he was witnessing, as I must have been at least the tenth member of the group to pass him.

A random runner came past, too, but she was intent on a different route and I took the turn Andrew had tried to indicate and caught him soon afterwards (he had, it must be admitted, stopped at another turn to allow me to rejoin him). My right Achilles was now starting to mutter low-level complaints: it had been stiff and a little painful from the start, after which as usual it had loosened up, but a couple of short stops had not been to its taste - note to self: keep it moving! Of course, the huaraches place more strain on it than conventional shoes, and strengthening this part of my running equipment is a key part of what I am trying to do in this phase of my career.

The contours got closer together again on the route map, descending, and we made the most of it - though we both remarked later that, unless the finish line is at the foot of the descent, running downhill almost inevitably presages some uphill running later - and the finish was still six or more miles away. The going was muddy in places, and where possible I planted my feet on convenient fallen leaves to achieve as much certainty as possible, but a few steps into liquid mud introduced an unhelpful lubricating layer between the sole of my foot and the sole of my footwear. It soon worked its way out again, though - or dried out, or something.

Following Ridgeway signs - posts painted with a stylised acorn, and an arrow - we managed to find our way into an unscheduled farmyard (spur on the Garmin map at 6+ miles). "We'll end up in someone's living room" Andrew suggested - and I didn't think they'd welcome us. We hadn't been dressed for for social visiting when we set out, and adding copious mud to our get-up hadn't made us any more presentable.

Back on track we struggled up a long, long, steep hill, pausing to chat to three hikers who were taking a break near the top. They professed to have seen no other runners, which should have sounded a warning, but no, we pressed on until I objected that heading downhill was a bad idea if we were not certain we were going the right way. Shortly after we turned back (a bigger spur on the map, at about 7 miles) a couple came walking towards us, and I engaged them in a little light map-reading - though they were able to confirm that the other runners had turned off the path up the hill and followed the edge of a field, which we then proceeded to do having climbed twice as far as we needed to.

A couple of miles further on, the route rejoined the road so often driven, but only for a few hundred yards before that ominous Chiltern Way headed off in a substantially vertical direction to a point high above Ewelme, the start and finish. A loop through the village was prescribed, though at one point a short-cut seemed to be on offer - as each of us had a witness, and I had a tell-tale Garmin, we rejected any idea of taking it. We greeted everyone we encountered along the whole ten miles, wishing them good morning and a Happy New Year, but a lady who was sweeping outside her house corrected us - it was already afternoon. "And what year?" I asked.

We passed John Buchan's former house, the King's Pool where Henry VIII reportedly bathed, the almshouses, the oldest school building still in use in the country, and a wall belonging to the school which appeared to have come off second-best in an argument with a vehicle. As the Cow Meadow car park came into view I accelerated, and Achilles screamed at me to resume my sedate pace. Some work needed to make him happy again, but a very satisfying outing for the not-so-new sandals. And my feet now attract more attention than any part of my body ever has before, which seems like a good thing though perhaps the opposite is also true. My clubmates seemed genuinely impressed that I'd managed to complete the course without the sort of things they had on their feet. As was I.

A good way to start the year: and a good reason to come home and sign up for some more races. However, after lunch I began to feel very sleepy, so lay down to listen to Die Meistersinger (or at least some of it, as I didn't imagine I could devote the whole period from 1445 to 2115 to this pursuit). I remember hearing the first few bars of the overture, then later was aware that the batteries in my radio had expired, but that was all until I awoke an hour or so later. I think that serves to indicate how much fitness I need to regain: a sedate ten miler shouldn't be knocking me out in the way that nothing short of a hard Marathon used to do.

Happy New Year!

Tightrope walker

2011-12-31T14:26:00.001Z

Rye Meadow was slippery this morning. I wore trail shoes, having found last week how little traction huaraches have: I joked before the start that barefoot might be best, as one could dig in with one's toes, and maybe that was more right than I meant it to be. Along the riverbank and through the meadow I slithered all over the place (as did everyone else). On the tarmac I did OK, and at the end the Garmin data show that I managed a respectable turn of speed, but I have lost 20 seconds since last week and am a minute off my personal best for this course. Time for some serious New Year's Resolving ...

Drive

2011-12-30T08:42:00.000Z

I'd have considered this anathema once - not only because the motor industry paid my salary, and more cars was irrefragably better, but also because of my personal preferences - but now it delights me to read that the godless institution in Gower Street has produced a report for the Department for Transport arguing for a revolution in our relationship with the motor car.

UCL's godlessness (which, to be fair, was originally with a capital G) evidently extends to rejection of the cult of the automobile, and the report provides recognition for the romantic notion of self-propulsion, though I suspect the report doesn't use Caballo's words. A nice piece of joined-up thinking, connecting health policy with transport policy, though the suggestion that we (or any other country, I suspect) has a transport policy worthy of the name is verging on fantasy. A policy built around using the appropriate form of transport for each journey would be a sound one, and any transport policy that recognises the true cost of using cars so much should be applauded - provided it also puts in place a public transport system that can effectively replace those car journeys, like a bus from here to the station to connect with a train that will get me to work on time. And one back in the evening. But only for those days when cycling, or running, is out.

Airscape

2011-12-29T20:01:00.000Z

A breakthrough run, simply because it has been so often postponed. And even then it had to be done in the dark, with a blustery side-wind threatening to push me into the road and oncoming cars dazzling me so I could not see the path. The Watch ran out of power half-a-mile from home, but I didn't.

A daily 10K might be an ambitious target (I wonder whether Murakami is still doing them), but it's not completely out of sight.

Run Rudolph Run

2011-12-24T18:44:00.001Z

My concession to today's Parkrun being a fancy dress one was to dress as a raramuri, from the ankles down. Not very clever. Next year - if there is a next year - I will take up someone's suggestion and adopt the rest of the outfit.

I guess the conditions in the Copper Canyon are different to those in England at Christmas - mild though it is. Where the path was worn, it was rather slippery: trail shoes might have been a better choice than huaraches - but I have to take the opportunity to fly the minimalist flag, don't I? And it was my hands, not my feet, that were cold: after all, my feet were working (and they work more with huaraches on than in cushioned shoes, I'm sure).

Anyway, even throttling back on the slippery sections (about half the course) I beat my time from the last outing (last week's run having been cancelled because of freezing conditions - not because the participants were not up for it, I'm sure, but because we'd have had people in the river at the lock where the path was too slippery). Only by about 10 seconds but I'll take that - 40 seconds to go for a course PB. I finished with quite a satisfying turn of speed - not a sprint by any standards, and it didn't leave me feeling like death, so there was definitely more in the tank, but all in all a good run. Nice to see Martin, in heavy disguise, though it would have been nicer still to finish closer to him - although I was first man in my age group.

Tell all the people

2011-12-11T20:39:00.000Z

Another experience of that wonderful institution, the Parkrun: my sixth, not my fastest, but a good feeling. An institution that needs to be even more widely known, I think.

At home I wondered whether compression tights and long ordinary running tights would be too warm, compensated for them with a short-sleeve teeshirt, put a fleece on top to get me to the start, added my running hat and then as an afterthought put running gloves in my pockets. But I had forgotten that we have our own microclimate and the Thames Valley can have completely different weather. It's just as well that I decided against huaraches ....

Rye Meadow was white with frost, and my choice of conventional footwear was fortunate - though several friends enquired about the sandals. How mad do they think I am? I was only out for a gentle jog, anyway, as my resolutions about getting fitter and faster always seem to run into that hard-to-overcome barrier called "work". It's an inevitable consequence of portfolio working - though this week I finally unloaded one of my six jobs, one that was fun at times but never remunerative. That ought to leave a little more room for the three new ones that I added to the portfolio this year.

I put the fleece aside so I had a layer (half a layer) to put on when I finished, but kept all the other stuff on, as John's photo shows. I plodded round at an erratic pace, as the splits show - when I spotted John at about the 4K mark I put on a turn of speed for the benefit of the camera, which might account for why mile 3 was so much faster than mile 2 (which was all about consolidation, I suppose): mile 1 is all about ensuring I'm not going to be blocked later on by optimists or inexperienced runners who've set off too fast, meaning that I have to set off much too fast. As things settled down after the initial rush to get onto the narrow riverside path in a good position, we left the bright winter sunlight in which we'd started: the eastern end of the course was in shade. Cliff, a few yards behind, was moved to exclaim, loudly. The conditions certainly weren't ones to hang around in. Maybe that explains my splits too: mile 2 was the sunny part.

I spent the rest of the day as a white van man, which is fun occasionally. Last weekend it was a nail gun, this weekend we hired a Transit. Perhaps I should go through the whole gamut of fun things to hire.

A Little Bit More

2011-12-04T22:37:00.000Z

This time last year we were up to our knees in snow. This year trees are putting out buds and daffodils are reportedly blooming. There are flowers still out in the garden. They are likely to get a shock soon: but despite the unseasonal mildness, when I ventured out of the door this morning - rather later than intended, too - it was surprisingly cold. So I ventured back indoors to find a fleece - and bright green hat and gloves.

I rarely run with more than a single layer of clothing, but I didn't expect to be burning up the trails today. In fact, I wasn't even expecting to be doing more than perhaps three miles: I was expecting that the loop I used to do when I first started running, well over 20 years ago, would be quite enough. But at the southern end of South Row, where I might have headed back towards the village, I was trotting comfortably, and by the time I passed the field I was quite ready to decline the offered lift home and press on to complete what used to be my regular10K (very approximate), 1 hour Sunday morning (and subsequently other mornings too) run.

There was nothing really exceptional about it. A modest pace, grey weather, only a few people out exercising their dogs on the Ridgeway. My left knee felt slightly uncomfortable at one stage, and I gave careful attention to how that foot was striking and that problem went away: my right Achilles was also a little stiff at some points of the run, but the discomfort passed. My feet are much stronger than they were, I am sure, from the new posture I have been training myself to adopt - and I ran the entire distance today without once landing on my heel. Thanks to my compression tights, there are no ill-effects in my calves, unlike the last run recorded here!

Over the last mile or so I kept up a much faster pace, really running and not just jogging as I must admit I had been earlier on. But, before I get too carried away, I didn't even hit what six years ago was target half-Marathon pace. An unexceptional Sunday morning run, then, but even so - how good it felt to be out there doing it.

Riders on the Storm

2011-11-30T21:37:00.001Z

There's a price to be paid for a morning ride to the station in glorious, unseasonal sunshine: it's the ride back home in the evening, three hours after darkness fell, with the wind blasting what feels like sleet at you. But the feeling of righteousness, well-being, downright superiority, over those unfortunates who don't understand the romance of self-propulsion that you feel at the station on the way to work in the morning is the best part of all.

Even better: I left the office to walk back to Paddington this evening, breaking into a jog as I crossed the road, purely with a view to getting out of the way of the traffic - and it felt so good, I didn't stop (except for junctions) until I reached Paddington. That's the way it should be.

Rain

2011-11-29T16:43:00.001Z

In a desperate effort to secure some of the undoubted benefits of running, and when I had finished the urgent outstanding matters that had to be dealt with today, I put on running shorts, tee shirt, and (partly in the interest of speed, and to preserve my calf muscles) shoes and socks, then looking at the weather, added a waterproof jacket, and headed out.
My leaving home coincided with the start of the hitherto-unknown local monsoon season. The roads were awash, so there was hardly a dry patch on which to place my feet. I hadn't even reached the postbox (where I entrusted two FT crossword puzzles to the Royal Mail, or as the Postal Services Act would have it delivered them to the post office) before my shoes and socks were soaked. I thought I could still manage a few laps of the playing field, but when I got there the driving rain was so thick it could have been fog and the wind was enough almost to stop me in my tracks. I reckoned the long grass would be so wet, I might as well have been running through a few inches of water, so I turned round and the wind carried me home.
By the time I'd dried myself off the rain had stopped, of course.

I ran

2011-11-15T09:33:00.001Z

When I cycle to the station to go to work (an activity that, I regret to say, is on hold at present while the weather is as cold as it is) I use an old railway line, courtesy of Dr Beeching who does not really qualify to be referred to as the cyclist's friend. And occasionally I run it, though a five mile run on the way to work is just a bit much - having said which, five years ago I was running four-and-a-half regularly in the morning and the evening, so perhaps I should be more adventurous.

I don't know whether Italy had its own Dr Beeching, but what happened along the Ligurian Riviera was not that they dispensed with the railway, rather that they shifted it a little inland, and for much of its length underground, then turned the old one into a cycle-cum-running track. A sensational one.

Probably no surprise that on a Saturday morning it should be well-used by cycling clubs, along with individual serious-looking cyclists - no surprise at all, because every piece of tarmac in the country seems to have them. They ride responsibly, and (on the roads) cars seem to treat them respectfully, so it's as different from England as you could get. I was a little wary about stepping across the white line when pedestrians came at me two abreast, lest a cyclist come up at speed from behind me, but a prudent glance over my shoulder was all that was needed when I was forced into the cycle lanes.

For some distance I passed and repassed a young English couple on a side-by-side pedal quadricycle, chatting with them as we fell in alongside each other, then they seemed to tire of the game or went to do some sightseeing. It was hard - impossible - to believe it was November: not too hot to run, but quite warm enough (though it was the middle of the day - I certainly wouldn't be out running at that time in the summer).

The route goes through several tunnels and across a number of bridges - how many, of course, depends on how much of the old railway you run along - including the bridge from which I took this photo (those white birds dictating the choice of music clip for this posting), of the Argentina river. I was doing a prescribed distance, having been dropped in San Remo and being expected for a picnic lunch (in November?) on the beach at Riva, but I could have gone on for ever.

Actually, that's a complete lie. Had I been wearing clumpy cushioned shoes I'd probably have gone further: had I bothered to take my compression tights on holiday with me (and space in our single case was definitely at a premium) I might have gone further still, but after five miles in huaraches my calves knew it was time to stop - and it took me a week to be able to walk normally again ...

Saturday in the Park

2011-10-23T22:39:00.002+01:00

Another four seconds faster. Boring conventional footwear. Any connection?

Fast enough that I felt ill at the finish line: not something that has happened for a long time. The sign of a good 5K.

I'll feel a whole lot better

2011-10-18T10:03:00.000+01:00

I jogged this morning, I admit it. Just a short jog, to get back from the garage having dropped off the car for a service, but I gave blood late yesterday afternoon and my left arm is probably only half full. I thought I could manage a gentle jog of under three miles, and indeed I did, but I arrived home in the throes of an asthma attack. That might have been partly because the air was much colder than it has been so far this season. Anyway, good to have done even a short distance, and a superb autumn morning with a lovely blue sky, bright sun, and turning leaves.

Reconnez Cherie

2011-10-12T10:20:00.000+01:00

Two elements meet, merge together: The Elegance of the Hedgehog, a wonderful, humane, thought-provoking book, with its meditations about the nature of time, and an old packet of coffee. The coffee came from my mother-in-law's house, which we have been clearing gradually since she died: she left two presentation packs of coffees of the world, nine different varieties in each (the same nine, pretty much). Some had been consumed, some were open, others were still sealed and (I imagined) should be in reasonable shape. For my morning coffee, I took out an Ethiopian mocha that sounded promising, only to find it had been opened before. The packet bore the legend "best before March 2006". A still-unopened packet of Columbian will have to take its place: its best before date is under three years ago, and it tastes fine.

2006 was once unimaginably far in the future. Now it is too long ago for a packet of coffee to have remained drinkable.

The Park

2011-10-09T15:41:00.000+01:00

Fourth Park Run, and my best time yet - 23:45 officially, a whole 54 seconds off the previous best. Four more weeks and I will be under 20 minutes. No, I know life's not like that.

Arriving - unlike last time - early for the start, I had a classic conversation with an old running friend I hadn't seen for a while. While I waited for a break in the conversation he was having with another clubmate, I heard all about a litany of injuries which sounded remarkably like mine, so when finally I was able to speak to him I only needed to say "I was going to say long time, no see, how are you doing? - but I don't need to now."

I got to the front of the start - forty-odd participants (not competitors - this is not a race!) to avoid being stuck behind youngsters along the narrow riverside path - and slowed a little after the first couple of hundred yards. Gary, Andrew and some others came past, but I wasn't bothered, except that I have become accustomed to Andrew suffering from injuries that allowed me to outpace him. Clearly he's better now. And that was it. One photo shows me just being passed by Gary along by the lock, another in good shape along the road section, and another looking anxious about the finish. The compression tights do a great job, although I am concerned with the rate at which the stitching is coming out of the waistband. Maybe it's a problem with my waist - I have resolved not to eat flapjack unless I have run at least 5K already that day, which might help. After all, it's runner's food - that's the whole point.

My huaraches, as always, attracted some comments, and John was fascinated enough to add a photo of one of them to the photostream. Thanks for omitting my other foot with the big black toe nail ...

An excuse to revisit one of my favourite albums, and favourite songs from it, from my teens. It's really rather a good piece of music, especially coming back to it after 40 years.

October

2011-10-04T12:07:00.000+01:00

That run in Moscow on Saturday has started something. Yesterday I cycled to and from the station, and ran between Paddington and the office both ways (but recorded only the first cycle leg, and then only in part and it isn't very interesting). Going in I followed the canal, and took a meandering route through Regent's Park: coming home I left myself only 20 minutes to catch my train, so took the most direct route - which got me there in under 13 minutes. A useful piece of intelligence for future use, but I'd prefer to go via the park and canal when I can.

Песня о Друге

2011-10-01T21:15:00.001+01:00

I had to work hard to persuade myself to get out for a run this morning, especially as it had rained overnight. Yesterday I had travelled from London to Moscow, to give some tuition in intellectual property to Russian students reading for external London University LLBs (and doing Russian law degrees in parallel), and my old friend Viktor had met me and taken me for a typical Russian dinner followed by a short tour of some Moscow sights - particularly Red Square.

He had suggested that a suitable route for a run would be the Bul'varnoe Kol'tso, which is an inner ring road comprising a series of boulevards. I had been sceptical, which further increased my inclination to stay in bed: but having forced myself to run it, I can say that Moscow is one of the best cities in which I have ever run. Most of the distance was in the middle of the boulevards, which resemble elongated parks. Traffic free until you come to the end of one and the beginning of another - and there might be an extensive open square to negotiate between them. Russian drivers have an extraordinary attitude to traffic lights - red is not even regarded as advisory - and speed limits, although come to think of it I have seen none indicated. It seems that if you have a collision you must leave your car where it is, placing a warning triangle behind it (but so close as to afford no advance warning). You can then wait hours for the police to show up. If you have contrived to connect with another car side-to-side, a very difficult form of collision to engineer but one at which Muscovites appear to excel, this means two cars in the middle of the road, two triangles, and huge disruption. Still, it wouldn't bother me if I was trying to run through it. The drag down Tverskaya was less impressive: perhaps it lost its central reservation a while ago and became a 12 lane road - but any road that leads to Red Square has to have something to commend it. I was in fact off course here, and realise I should have gone past the Kropotkinskaya metro station - there is a name to conjure with! - but I wanted to do Red Square in the morning light. It did not disappoint, but my Blackberry did, refusing on account of damp (that is, sweat) to take photos.

After several hours talking intellectual property to a very switched-on and impressive bunch of students, I rounded off the day with a theatre trip. Two hours of which I scarcely understood a single word, but it was magical and exuded a real sense of occasion. Billed as a spectacle, it was the show put together by Yuri Lubimov as a memorial to Vladimir Vysotsky, which the authorities banned in 1980 after Visotsky's death (they also prohibited a public funeral, anxious that it would empty out the Olympic stadium: I believe it did anyway). They tried to put it on in 1981 and the letter from Andropov, then head of the KGB, telling them not to do so was reproduced in the programme.
The cast sang and recited poems, and stood or sat while recordings of the man himself were played from the back of the theatre: the only thing on the set was a block of theatre seats, suspended from chains so they could be raised and lowered and on which the cast could when appropriate sit, as if at a Vysotsky concert, and also a very large sheet which could be used to cover the seats and on one occasion many of the cast too. There's more about the evening here if you are interested, including the cast list at least one of whom is a very famous Russian actor - and a great political mimic, it seems. Even I recognised his Medvedev and Putin.
When the cast came to the front of the stage to take their bows, having been sitting on the floor leaning against the back wall, they left a guitar standing against the wall. Attendants and (I think) members of the audience handed the actors bouquets, which is not in itself unusual, but in greater numbers than I have ever seen: and the actors took the flowers to the back of the stage and piled them by the guitar, which it became clear was there to represent Visotsky. It soon disappeared under the pile, and I could hardly imagine a more touching tribute. Thirty years on, too. Combined with a memorable run, it made it a day on which to be glad to be alive.
To round off the day, the evasive lens fell out of my glasses as I set off to cross a Moscow street on the way back to the hotel. Viktor recruited three local lads who obligingly moved their car so the headlights illuminated the area, and eventually one of them fished the lens out of a puddle. A memorable end to a very memorable day.

Run run run

2011-09-25T20:28:00.000+01:00

A mile or so into my run this morning, I was mentally planning a language course. Although I am a poor linguist, I am rather addicted to language courses. My problem is always that the subject-matter isn't sufficiently interesting. How about teaching languages using running vocabulary? Courir, correr, laufen ... je suis blessé - mes genoux, mes pieds, mon (ma?) plantar fascia.

Thoroughly distracted from the matter in hand, I suddenly realised that I was heading down a slight hill, heel-striking with my arms flapping loosely by my sides. Better leave the language courses to those better qualified to create them, and keep my mind on running. Or find a language course and use it as a model, adopting running vocabulary - and running situations: you can still do all those directions, food, relationships, etc., stuff in a running context, can't you?

I was pleased with myself to be running for the second successive day, following yesterday's Parkrun in Abingdon. Not a great time: 11 seconds slower than the last one I did, partly because of congestion along the single-file riverside path, partly because I was there merely to get round without worrying about my time. Not worrying about my time? What rubbish. What runner has ever done a timed event without worrying about how long it would take? Still, after my chaotic year of running and injury it was pretty satisfying. I was even predicting to friends that this time next year I'd be in sight of 20 minutes. I had my tongue in my cheek - but who knows?

Then yesterday evening Chris McDougall, author of Born to Run, my second favourite running book (no-one can come close to Murakami, I'm afraid) posted You don’t stop running because you get old. You get old because… . I'd heard (recently: therefore too late) of John J Kelley, but never heard of the Dipsea Demon, Jack Kirk - who ran the Dipsea Race 67 consecutive times, from 1930 to 2002 (the missing years accounted for by war and depression - economic, not mental). A man to admire, I think: one should avoid having heroes (which for some reason that I have never understood is the first noun the Penguin Russian Course throws at you: but I digress, although it might be useful to remember for the Runner's Russian course), and anyway they often prove disappointing - pace Bob Dylan, who seems to take a cavalier attitude to others' images when producing his own paintings (but that's a matter for another blog). I'm trying to come up with a similar handle for myself to the Dipsea Demon, which will have to be Ridgeway R... Any suggestions? Or too presumptuous? Yeah, probably.

So, inspired by a 96-year-old trail runner, and the NYT story linked from CMcD's blog (Marathoners in their late 30's - mere striplings), I dragged myself out for a trot round my regular loop this morning. Just as well I got it done, because this evening the news is that Radcliffe and Gebrselassie, about whom the NYT was talking, both missed out on winning in Berlin. But I know I am not in their league - hardly even on the same planet. I am just so happy to find that I can still run. I wore my NYC Marathon 1998 vest for the Parkrun yesterday, to remind myself that I could once run, then proved it this morning, even if Mr Garmin ran out of juice at about 3 miles so there is no record of most of the run. Let me tell you (not that you're interested, really, are you?) that I kept up a good clip along the Ridgeway and burnt up the road down to the village school, then blasted across the A34 footbridge which is the second steepest (but shortest) hill on the route. No idea about pace or total time, though.

And returned home very satisfied, with more left in the tank, and feeling like a runner again. Oh, and the pains in my left heel and my right Achilles tendon are responding very well to running therapy: they have almost gone. For now.

No Parkrun next week, unless there's one in Moscow.

Awesome

2011-09-23T19:46:00.002+01:00

Lazy Girl Running asks what the collective noun for three PBs in six weeks should be, and answers her own question: an awesome. She's trying to do one, and good luck to her. I'd thought about suggesting calling it a PB cubed, which is hard to put in a blog owing to the lack of superscript, and while I was thinking about that my mind went back to the days when I did PBs: and a look through this blog confirmed that I had done three, in about a month, aided by achieving two in one race (5K and 10K). Crazy. Perhaps also aided by some erratic record keeping. And anyway my triptych was an easy one: 5K, 10K and half, whereas she's a stage ahead of that having started with a Marathon PB. So mine's a minor awesome, perhaps, and hers will definitely be a major one.

White Horse

2011-09-21T12:56:00.001+01:00

It's a rare thing, I suppose, to have a book written about you without having any input into it. But essentially Born To Run is about Micah True, aka Caballo Blanco, although there's a lot more to it than just him. He is, in a small way, a legend: indeed, to many of the locals in that part of Chihuahua that he has made his home he was thought of as a ghost, if I remember the book correctly.

On Monday he certainly wasn't a ghost: he was in London, speaking to a hundred or enthusiasts, most of whom - surprise, surprise - had read the book. It was his opportunity to tell his story himself - though he admitted he's writing a book too - not that he seemed to have much argument with Chris McDougall's work, which he described as a "really nice book".

The audience was distinctive, recognisable by their running backpacks, drinks bottles (those whose backpacks didn't pipe their refreshments to their mouths), serious oversize GPS watches, heavy-duty trainers (one pair of Five-Fingers and one of Huaraches: mine were in my backpack, and I didn't think they'd look good with pinstripes), Gore-Tex outer layers, and ultra-runner stubble. The national tendancy to obesity had clearly passed this group by, and my marmalade flapjack habit (but it is classic runner's food) probably meant that I had more excess weight than the rest of the audience put together. My concessions to the dress code were my Livestrong band (after a couple of breakages this one has been on for five years) and a Jerry Garcia tie, although geography aside the overlap between Deadhead and ultra culture is probably vanishingly small.
Three of those present were wearing suits, but I never found out what excuses the other two had. The sound check found one of them: "In the suit, at the back - can you hear?" "Yeah - what language is that?" Nice.

Kes, who had put the whole thing together, asked for our indugence to enable a few missing souls to find their way to the venue: "If you can find your way around the Barbican, the Copper Canyon will be a breeze." Micah introduced himself as "the lone wanderer of the London wilderness", not for the time being of the Sierra Madre. He turned out to be an engaging and fluent but not polished speaker - much as you'd expect. I learnt years ago not to drink water close to a microphone (thanks, Ray Snow, in that recording studio on Abbey Road - no, a different one) and I can tell you that from a plastic bottle with one of those spout things on the top it is even worse: maybe it's part of Micah's charm - and I can understand that he is keen to stay hydrated. Just not like that while using a public address system.

He started by telling us about the tarahumara, so called because the Spanish invaders heard that instead of "raramuri" (which means running people): being a non-confrontational people, they said (according to Micah) "whatever - just don't call us late for dinner." We saw a short film about them, and he told us that in the 2006 Coppoer Canyon Ultramarathon - the one featured in the book, but actually the fifth, not the first as widely thought - the first four places were taken by raramuri and him. Later he explained how he had come to the area and become a race promoter - not, I think, that he'd give himself such a title.

The race is sponsored, he said, not by a big corporation but by "korima" - the raramuri concept of sharing. Great idea, but it doesn't pay the bills, does it? In Urique the bills are small to start with, so sharing gets you a long way - and the communal (perhaps even communist) ethos certainly has its appeal. Caballo also gave us another raramuri expression, Norawas de Raramuri, "friends of the running people" - he told us, gratifyingly, that by turning up and paying our tenners for the evening, we'd all become friends of the running people. Surely all runners are friends already: I certainly like to think of other runners as friends, although that puts me in mind of the difficulty I've remarked on before of making eye-contact with other runners in central London.

As I have been slow to post, the Lazy Girl Running blog beat me to it and with much more style - there's not much point in repeating what she has to say. But I will note a few points that Caballo set me thinking about ...

He spoke of "the romantic notion of practising self-propulsion." Fantastic. The lady on the coach yesterday evening with the Brompton liked it too.
He mentioned the point at which "I started taking myself too seriously." I did that too. About 40 years ago, and I haven't stopped yet.
The raramuri greeting "Kuira ba" which literally means "we are one". More hippy nonsense. I love it.
He described the Raramuri language as "a mixture of Chinese, Martian and a flock of birds." Memorable. I'll probably recycle that one day (with a footnote to attribute it).
He described us as "human two-legged confused ones" who appreciate what no longer exists. I suppose you can say that sort of thing if you're a horse. Food for thought. Does that include listening to the Grateful Dead?

Asked by an audience member whether anyone could run an ultra, he said yes, anyone who wants to do it badly enough (I paraphrase because I didn't note it down). I've said that about marathons before now, and I believe it's nearly true - there are some people who just couldn't even with a superhuman effort of will-power, though they might be able to practise some other method of self-propulsion. An ultra is just somewhat longer, so it needs more willpower, perhaps. One day I'll find out. Thanks, Caballo, for the inspiration.

Not in our Time

2011-09-12T09:44:00.000+01:00

In common with many people people to whom I have spoken recently, I find it hard to believe that the destruction of the World Trade Center was ten years ago. It is an event of such magnitude that it will probably always appear a recent memory. Yesterday, the actual anniversary of course, was marked by many ceremonies and events, including the première of \n oratorio entitled Not in our Time by Richard Blackford.

I was introduced to Richard by a mutual friend earlier this year – earlier in the summer, which today has confirmed the joke that I heard a few weeks ago: Hurricane Irene, which was downgraded to a tropical storm before it hit New York, has now been further downgraded to English Summer. \we might reasonably have hoped for an Indian Summer , but we seem to be deprived of that consolation.

That said, yesterday was pleasant, although I spent much of it indoors. Richard’s work received its première in a bolted-on extra concert which nominally formed part of the Cheltenham Music Festival, which had in truth finished in July. The first half of the programme was an entirely predictable, even hackneyed, selection of American works: Fanfare for the Common Man, followed by another of Copland's top five, the Lincoln Portrait, and finished off with Barber's inevitable Adagio. But in fact, the programme was extremely well-balanced, and therefore well-thought-out: a workout for the brass and percussion to start and a showcase for the strings to finish, and although we hear those works (as I said to Gerald) too often, so we take them rather for granted, they are great pieces. The Fanfare, which I have never heard live before, took on a new, mind-blowing, dimension, and the Adagio was performed with such a light touch as to seem weightless. Both seemed impossibly fresh for works that we hear so often.

As for the Lincoln Portrait, which everybody and anybody in American public life (and Margaret Thatcher) seems to have narrated at one time or another, we had the privilege of hearing the Shakespearean tones of Simon Callow. Does it need an American accent? I think the work takes on a lot of the personality of the narrator, and as an English tribute to an event which was primarily (though by no means exclusively) an American one, it seemed entirely in order.

I guess it benefits from the fact that we don't hear it so often, not as much as the works that bookended it. I'd have rather liked to hear the choral version of the Adagio, which seemed perhaps a missed opportunity with all those singers sitting through the first half with nothing to do (I wonder why they came on at all? Did they sing a little in the Lincoln Portrait, unnoticed by me?) which would have given the programme a little more novelty: but I have no complaints. If it the programme was a bit of a cliché it was nevertheless a brilliantly executed one, and very moving.

I was able to attach myself to the representatives of Richard's record company, a meeting with whom was anotehr purpose of my trip to Cheltenham: we lunched in Raymond Blanc's Brasserie, then made our way to the Town Hall where the chorus were leaving the stage having completed the rehearsal of the new work. That wasn't quite as we had planned it – especially as I was keen to reprise my long-lost career as a performing arts photographer. But if I were unable to get an shots of the rehearsal of Not in our Time, I was fortunate to be able to photograph perhaps the country’s greatest practising actor venturing into what I imagine might well have been new territory for him – I should have asked: when he joined a group which included me at the interval, he told us that his preparation had included listening to Katherine Hepburn's recording, which he estimated from the sound of her voice might have been made minutes before she died. His research had not included the Thatcher version – which I suspect is worth hearing, though this is a piece for occasions, not for daily listening.

The first half, even Mr Callow, were little more than a warm-up for the main event. After the interval (in which we were instructed to present ourselves at the patrons' bar, where we enjoyed a glass and a chat with the Narrator as well as meeting some other new people – to whom I was, to my embarrassment, introduced by the country's most highly-regarded composer of art songs as a leading authority on intellectual property) I had the pleasure of listening to one of the most intelligent, humane pieces of work I have ever come across. Richard had taken part in an interesting panel discussion earlier in the day, which helped to set his work in context. The discussion took us back to the Crusades, perhaps in greater depth than we really wanted given the time available but certainly it was very interesting: and it is the Crusades which inform Richard's work, starting with President Bush's extraordinarily insensitive, ill-informed, destructive reference to the war on terror as a modern version. Did no-one pause for a moment to consider where that word comes from? One of the panellists recalled how Rageh Omah, the BBC's man in the middle east at the time, had reported the gasps when people heard the word. It must be something like threatening the Jewish people with a new holocaust, imagining that it is a neutral expression. I too remember thinking it was an ill-chosen word, though I don't think I realised quite how significant it was at the time. (The panel discussion also produced the interesting insight that Barbara Bush, asked whether her son was dumb, had said: Yes, dumb like a fox. I beg to differ, at least on the basis of this evidence - and notwithstanding my sense of association with President Bush whose personal best for the Marathon was the same as mine for many years - until I took a few minutes off it six years ago.)

So, the music was atmospheric and tonal, the choral parts were excellent, and the concept was inspired. Some of the texts set were, however, a bit weak - they were the rights texts to use, but they weren't up to the job, in my opinion. President Obama's speech at Cairo University was not composed with a view to being set to music. The Falling Man, great in parts, has the same shortcoming in this context, and frankly I found it inappropriately dispassionate. I think I can see what the journalist was trying to do, and in places he succeeds magnificently, but some of the description of a victim's final seconds is simply too clinical. And, like the obama speech, it lacks the rhythm needed to work as a libretto. To my mind at least.

Ian kindly explained to me a little about "recit", and mentioned how Balshazzar's Feast succeeds with this sort of vocal writing - A Child of Our Time too - so I must go and listen to them. I would much rather have listened to Mr Cowell declaiming those passages rather than singers battling with the conflict between the rhythms of speech and those of the music - but that's my taste, and I'm afraid that always grates on my ear. But as the piece ended - ended in what struck me as a highly original way - I was in no doubt that I had witnessed a significant musical event - and not just musical, I hope. Not enough to get me to my feet, as most of teh audience did, and that wasn't entirely because I had spent so much time on them earlier in the day, as I am allowed reservations - but I congratulated Richard when I saw him afterwards, and, musical ignoramus though I might be, all the accolades were richly deserved.

Time is on my Side

2011-09-08T08:05:00.000+01:00

Reassuring information about the benefits of running from Jim's always interesting "Meditation on the Run" blog here, and I should properly give you a link to the original article by Henrietta van Praag in the Australian newspaper site The Age which I suspect doesn't feature in your regular reading.

Thanks, Jim. That will help get me out of the door to break my current running drought (or would "fast" be a better word? Probably not) - so long as my feet will withstand it.

Obscured by Clouds

2011-08-22T14:23:00.000+01:00

A cloud of cold mist had descended on Hagbourne Hill this morning, and it seemed to get thicker and thicker as I cycled into it. I reached behind the saddle and switched on the rear light, then the front light, as I began the climb, getting up early out of the saddle to power my way up the hill without changing down. It's the only way.

By the time I reached the top, oncoming vehicles without lights were emerging suddenly from the fog, until I realised that it was almost entirely on my glasses. After my right turn into the downhill stretch towards Upton – the point at which the GPS told me I had done a mile – I pulled over and wiped them thoroughly on my tee shirt. The improvement was enormous, and very temporary – I had to repeat the exercise quarter of a mile later. Autumn is definitely coming (though as I write this, trundling slowly through Old Oak Common, the sun is bright), winter probably not far behind. My birthday has always marked a watershed in the seasons, and it comes up on Friday.

The ride took only about 25 minutes, which may or may not have something to do with the time I spent adjusting the brakes to ensure they did not bind as the wheels rotated, and perhaps getting the wheels to track more accurately. But there's still some wobble in the wheels which might require some more technical adjustment – I wonder whether I will be able to find the tool for doing that, which I bought years ago when the wheels on my racing bike were bent out of shape at the merest hint of an Oxfordshire road surface?

Dancing Barefoot (again)

2011-07-28T20:59:00.000+01:00

Here I go and I don't know why ... I have spent three days this week thinking about running, reading other people's running blogs, and failing to get out and run my self. This had to change. This morning began with a thick fog, but the sun burnt it off by about 9 o'clock and it turned into a perfect running day. I couldn't find any excuses.

Two things stick in my mind about it. First, the pain when I landed on a stone, especially as the ball of my left foot struck it. That had my screaming out loud. There's something wrong there, and I wonder what it might be - perhaps just a bruise that keeps being aggravated. Solution: try running in shoes with some cushioning - 6mm of Vibram clearly isn't enough, and indeed Barefoot Ted says that these sandals are fine for paved surfaces and moderate trails. Some of these trails are distinctly stoney. Alternative solution: a pair of Leadvilles perhaps. That'll probably be the closest I get to the great event.

The other thing: after 6 miles, doing a spot of fartlek between the telegraph poles, and sprinting over the footbridge, an unprecedented feeling of lightness and springiness, leaving no sign that I had been there ... The sense that I could run like that for hours, even that I could fly. Dancing across the footbridge ... and I managed quite a good pace for short distances too.

July Morning (again)

2011-07-24T12:15:00.000+01:00

My target for the near future is to run to the White Horse at Uffington and back one Sunday morning, a distance, I reckon, of 10 miles each way. Not yet, though: I need to build the mileage a bit more gradually - and taking most of this week off has set back that programme badly.

So today - an absolutely perfect summer morning, with blue sky, warm sun and a cooling breeze - I determined to get part of the way there. I thought I would head west and turn round when it felt like I had gone far enough, bearing in mind that every mile I ran added two to the total distance. I've gone seven miles wearing my huaraches, and I didn't want to add a lot more to that in one go. Plus, given the irregularity of my running just now, I didn't want to overdo it.

I have run to the Wantage Memorial before, and three miles out that seemed like a good place to turn around. By the time I reached it, at 4.5 miles, I had decided I should add another half mile, but concluded that a ten-miler before breakfast (I had left a pan of porridge on a very low heat) was perhaps a little too much - I was feeling hungry.

Opposite the Monument an inviting footpath led off towards Lockinge (which the Garmin map places on the wrong side of the Ridgeway). I resisted it.

I'm not up for tempo runs or anything exciting like that. My concern at present is to explore my limits, see what distance I can comfortably manage, perhaps build endurance into the bargain - and get my feet accustomed to the huaraches. The feeling of freedom is wonderful - but now my feet are sore. Not blistered, though, and I am sure they are getting tougher.

John Wesley Harding

2011-07-22T22:53:00.000+01:00

Too many days slobbing around, reading other people's running blogs and not running myself. Excuses? None. no injury. A shortage of time, sure, but not one that couldn't be overcome. So on Wednesday evening I finally headed out when there was a window of opportunity before dinner. Not far, not fast, but running ....

On the way out I spotted a small hawk floating around, and on my return journey it was there again, landing on the overhead wire then taking off as I drew close, landing on it again a little further on, repeating the exercise five or six times - all along the telegraph, in case you hadn't spotted the reference.

Working class hero

2011-07-18T13:56:00.000+01:00

The Daily Mail online, which surely knows all about street cred, tells us that Glastonbury is so middle class and extols the virtues of the Proms. I'd certainly like to think of the Proms as classless - epitomised, perhaps, by yesterday's concert: a symphony by an untrained working class composer. But I don't think the proletariat was well-represented in the audience - even promming tends to be a bit middle-class. But as a music festival, it wins by having no mud and no-one spoiling the music by talking through it.

I'd have liked to have given you a link to the only piece by Schulhoff in my record collection, his mad setting of The Communist Manifesto as a cantata. I don't know about his working-class credentials but he was certainly a Party man, with a tragic life story. Parallels between the Communist Party Manifesto cantata and the Gothic Symphony spring to mind - both seemingly crazy ideas, but each with its own logic for the composer.

Gothic Symphony

2011-07-18T09:38:00.001+01:00

I was shocked to realise the other day how much I learnt from The Guinness Book of Records when I was a child. Back then, it was a "must have" Christmas present, and when eventually I was given one (I think it was the 1968 edition) I read it avidly. What an appalling way to learn of the Holocaust, Stalin's purges and the Cultural Revolution: man's inhumanity to man as world records.

It also told me of Havergal Brian's Gothic Symphony, the world's biggest piece of music - mainly, I think, because of the forces it requires, but perhaps also in sheer number of "dots", or of bars ... As soon as I knew it existed, I wanted to hear it, and last night at the Proms I did. I had already heard it, thanks to what I am coming to think of as the modern curse of CD technology - it's too easy to hear music these days, too quotedien (ha! presumptious - moi?), although using the Gothic as aural wallpaper is even by my standards eccentric ... How much better to hear it straight through, live, with nothing else to think about. No multitasking required.

It had been performed a couple of times by the time I learnt of its existence - so the composer did get to hear it before he died at the ripe old age of 96. There have been a couple of performances of the first, orchestral, part since, which overcame the problem of finding 700 or so singers to make up the three choruses needed, and I think you could also get away without the four off-stage brass bands, so all you need is an orchestra of just short of 200 people. Brian (the "Havergal" was an addition he made: his forename William hardly ever seems to be mentioned) was not content just to write the biggest piece of music in the world, using forces Mahler would have considered large: he also decided to include every type of woodwind known to humankind, so the 200 will have to include contrabass clarinet, obe d'amore, basset horn and other exotica. Hard to find the instruments, let alone the players, I suspect.

And as for the players, Brian bowled a few googlies there too. He included what seems to be regarded as the most difficult xylophone solo ever written, and (perhaps on account of his being a self-taught composer) made the horn-playing tricky, unlike Strauss who understood the mechanics of the instrument (this from Ian Fisher, one of the 17 horn players involved in last night's performance, at the Pre-Prom Talk). I snapped an illicit photo before the conductor Martyn Brabbins came out to lead his army, and it hardly does justice to the size of the gathering: several choirs are lost in the gloom.

Seats reportedly sold out in 2 hours, though curiously there were many spaces down below, in the expensive parts of the hall. That reflects the attraction of what someone I know referred to as a "freak show", as well as the sheer rarity of an event like this, but more than either of those factors it reflects the fact that so many seats were unavailable to paying concertgoers and the Arena was reduced in size too - with the water feature taken out as well. Only a few hundred Prommers downstairs: we were on the Balcony, my favourite location for promming (literally: it's possible to stroll round most of the circumference of the hall when one grows tired of standing still).

Brian started writing this first symphony (it has been called immature, although he was already 33, and certainly he seems to have learned later that brevity can be a virtue) in 1919, only nine years after the first performance of Mahler's 8th (which wasn't performed in the UK until 1930). Mahler used Faust as the basis, or a basis, of his work, and so did Brian, so it strikes me that the formula for the Gothic might be expressed as Mahler 8 plus World War 1. Certainly the war influenced Brian's work - and working, as he did, as a clerk dealing with the effects of Canadian casualties must have been awful, if nothing like as bad as a combat role.

So what of the music? Well, 40 years of anticipation could have spelt disaster. I went to the Royal Albert Hall fully expecting to be disappointed, and I wasn't. The music was constantly engaging: there was always something happening. As my companion pointed out, nothing to whistle on the way home, except perhaps that jaunty march from near the end - scored, naturally, for nine clarinets. The score was inventive and very listenable, as well as having a lot of profound things to say, and there was never a dull moment. The clamaxes towards the end were fabulous - as was the quiet ending. An arduous evening - about equal in time to a half-marathon, and no less tiring than one run at that pace (when I'm fit, at least).

At the end of the Pre-Prom Talk we were told that one listening might not be enough, and we'd probably have to come back to the next performance, in about 30 years. Thankfully, I can now listen to a recording - even "listen again" to R3, which might be worth trying. Which makes me think: what motivates a composer to write something virtually impossible for many reasons to put on? Brian can't have had much realistic expectation of hearing it in his lifetime, and he certainly didn't have a chance to revise the score when he heard it played. So it was a purely paper exercise to him, essentially a private matter for which he might not even have imagined there would ever be an audience. Nowadays, one might imagine him sitting down to write his way into the record books, but it seems clear (going by the programme notes) that the flame of creativity, of inspiration, burned bright. Not just a freak show but a fantastic piece of work by a man who had taught himself to use the tools of composition and therefore produced a less polished end product than others - but one that perhaps demands greater admiration for the way in which those drawbacks were overcome.

Naturally, reactions to the concert have been mixed - Ivan Hewitt in the Daily Telegraph very positive, though a review of a length not at all commensurate with the piece ... Edward Seckerson in The Independent likewise ... David Nice of The Arts Desk (the what?) not. Come to think of it, none of those pieces really amount to criticism, they are merely reports of the Event (I think it merits a capital) with some impressions. And an interesting piece on Salon des Oubliés which I will mention because I want to work out how trackback operates ...

The Gift

2011-07-13T11:18:00.000+01:00

Every morning, I eagerly read the "kick in the butt" that comes by email from Runner's World. Sometimes it's disappointing - often because it comes from someone who might be well-known in the USA but remains unheard-of here. This morning was a good one, though:

Running is a gift I give myself almost every day. Even on those days when things haven't gone great, I can come home and give myself the accomplishment of a 30- or 40-minute run.

It comes from Arthur Blank, co-founder of the Home Depot, who I do know about as Home Depot was the subject of a presentation at INTA a few years ago - in Atlanta, I think, which would figure.

So, whatever goes wrong in a day, you can make one thing at least go right. An excellent idea.

The day already feels better for having listened to Velvet Underground. It's decades since I last played my copy of White Light/White Heat (which was very secondhand when I bought it) and I'd almost forgotten this gem. One or two lines came back to me though, and I realised it hadn't completely slipped my mind. The octopus bit, for one. "That schmuck" for another. But I had to listen to the end for the punchline, which I'd forgotten. I found myself wanting to know how the story ended.

I hadn't realised that Waldo had been in transit for about three days - and I'm sure that the money he spent on the staple gun, let alone all the other stuff he needed (and which nowadays he could get from Home Depot), would have got him from the unlikely-sounding but real (though vanishingly small) Locust, Pa, to the even-less-likely-sounding Clarence Darrow, Wi, named after the great civil liberties lawyer, a distance of at least 600 miles but surely not that expensive by Greyhound. But then Lou Reed would have had nothing to write about, would he?

The Rain

2011-07-06T07:04:00.000+01:00

I aborted my run from Paddington to the office this morning, and jumped on the tube A couple of hundred yards was all it took to show me that, although I would probably get there, it was not shaping up to be a great experience. Who knows, it might have been fine after a couple of miles, but it would be tough to get there.

The return journey was another matter, and although I took it easy it was feeling very satisfying. Round the south of the Serpentine to add a little to the mileage, a few spots of rain developed into quite a downpour. Suddenly I found myself running on an almost deserted path, as everyone else sheltered under trees or under the bridge. If they were waiting for the rain to pass, that might not be until next summer.

The rain, of course, played havoc with the watch, which started pinging and changing function. I couldn't make it pause when I stopped at road crossings, nor did it reveal any useful information - until it came to the end of a lap, when the display popped up - and showed me that what I'd confidently expected to be 10K was well short. Still, it was far enough in the circumstances. Green shoes today: huaraches are not ideal for cycling, and I did nearly ten miles of that too, and I think they might be tricky if I'm tired.

Your latest trick

2011-07-04T21:50:00.000+01:00

What could be a better end to an evening of sublime music than a hour-long drive through a warm summer late evening, roof down, music loud? My hunt through the CDs in the car produced only one I felt like listening to - and following Tabula Rasa with Dire Straits is eccentric by any standards, but it was just right for the trip home.

No run yesterday, and almost no run today either, but I took myself off this evening for a regulation Murakami 10K at a gentle pace - almost a rest-day. Green shoes and compression socks rather than Luna sandals and tights, that sort of run. I felt so good for it, I am furious with myself for not doing it earlier in the day - I spent the time working myself up by reading other people's running blogs ...

Tabula Rasa

2011-07-04T21:32:00.002+01:00

The Morris Marina, of course, holds a particular place in the affection of of all English intellectual property lawyers of a certain age, because of its key role in BL v Armstrong. I haven't seen one on the road for years: but on Saturday evening I was stuck behind three on the way to Cheltenham, where I was uplifted by the oeverture to Die Meistersinger, enchanted by Amanda Roocroft's rendition of Four Last Songs and stimulated by Brahms 4 - all played by the LPO under Vladimir Jurowski, who from where I was sitting hardly seemed to have to raise a finger to get what he wanted out of the large band. Someone told me at the interval that Strauss had been present at a rehearsal for one of his operas, with singers competing against a typically huge orchestra. "Louder!" he insisted of the orchestra. "I can still hear the singers!" Amanda Roocroft (in a spectacular velvet dress) had a hard time in the first two songs, but made herself heard just as much as was needed, and in the second two the singer has an easier time. Gerald, in the next seat to me, dozed off appropriately in Beim Schlafengehen.

I was back in Cheltenham the following evening for some Bliss, something that never goes amiss of course - missing the screening of the film of Checkmate, unfortunately, but hearing an interesting talk by Terry Barfoot about the man and then a concert including the Music for Strings played by the Festival Academy - who, Meurig had told us the previous evening, had thoroughly enjoyed themselves rehearsing it. Their enjoyment showed. They were joined by pianist James Rhodes in a Bach concerto, which itself was preceded by a Richard Rodney Bennett piece I hadn't heard of before but which showed very nicely how versatile a composer he is. The second half was taken up with Tabula Rasa, after which I was pleased I had a flask of strong black coffee in the car to get me home. Hypnotic.

Mad Dogs and Englishmen

2011-07-02T15:29:00.002+01:00

Not the Noel Coward classic: an altogether different song, by a band I remember oh so well from my youth. I suggested to one of the marshals out on the course of today's Compton Canter - during a lengthy stop for a drink at the first water station - that the title of the race should contain a reference to mad dogs and Englishmen, given the noon start time.

I ran this a couple of years ago, when it started at 2 o'clock - which might have been slightly worse. I associated it on this blog with a classic Ray Davies piece, Sunny Afternoon, which tells you all you need to know. Today wasn't quite so sunny, but the temperature was uncomfortably high - and it was pretty humid. A cooling breeze moderated things, but at one point I was assailed by a blast of warm air that reminded me of opening the car door in Death Valley - that was like opening an oven door. Nothing like as extreme in Compton today, but the same idea.

My Luna sandals attracted a lot of attention, of the "are you going to run in those?" variety. Yes indeed, and my feet were cool (but pretty dirty by the end). They did not, however, enjoy the rocky bits - there were some very uncomfortable stretches of track and a footpath through a cornfield that, unsurprisingly given the geology of the area, was littered with flints. It's only necessary to pick the spot where you're going to plant each foot very carefully, but that doesn't make for fast running.

Never mind, because I wasn't going to be running fast anyway. My first race since the Pud Run at Christmas, and that was the first in a long time. What mattered was to prove that I could complete a race, and second to do so in the Luna sandals. I reckon the running time was 47:46, which is not great for 10K and of course even less great for 9.1 which was the distance today: my time was boosted by the stops at the water stations, where I was not going to risk chucking water down my throat as I ran. Multitasking is best left to the female of the species.

Even so I was delighted to pass others on the climbs, just as I was two years ago. I've still got the right mindset, and the fitness, to make hills work for me - though there's always room for improvement. Here's a link to a photo of the finish. I completed my daily target 10K with a few laps of the playing field. Now there's the prospect of hearing Amanda Roocroft singing Strauss's Four Last Songs in Cheltenham this evening with the LPO and Vladimir Jurowski (plus Brahms 4 and the Meistersinger overture). A nice long run in the morning to look forward too, as well.

Out-bloody-rageous

2011-07-01T22:15:00.000+01:00

First commute in Luna sandals, and what a great feeling. Even cycled to the station in them (and back this evening). My feet feel so free. Stopped to cross The Mall and an Antipodean couple on Boris Bikes pulled up and she asked me a load of questions about my footwear, which I answered at probably greater length than she had wanted. She even volunteered that I'd seemed to be going very well in them.

A hot day, so I had the cooling headband on: and to minimise the risk of damage to calves or Achilles I also had my compression tights on. And shades. Plus backpack with full bladder - since that drinking fountain is out of action. I had to apologise for my appearance. She said I looked very serious.

Nearly six miles running and ten miles cycling today: that does sound serious. A good day's work too, and a job interview that was nothing more than a formality, so I should be starting a new part-time job soon to go with all my other part-time jobs. Portfolio working. 10K race tomorrow - in the Luna sandals, I hope. That'll be the acid test.

Set Me Free

2011-06-30T12:57:00.000+01:00

Needing to spend a long day in London, I took the coach from Oxford and alighted at Notting Hill Gate. It was a real summer day and even at 9 o'clock it was getting warm. Past Kensington Palace Gardens, with all its embassies, and into the park, I headed east towards Lancaster Gate with a view to picking up the Last Friday course at the end of the Long Water - the extension of the Serpentine. Lots of other runners out, all seemingly plugged into their own musical worlds and studiously avoiding eye contact. Gaggles of foreign tourists or language students too, with no idea that spreading out across the entire width of the path really isn't acceptable. And random hazards too, like the woman who, seeing me approaching, still turned sharply to her right into my path to head for a park gate.

A day for seeking out the shade. Along the path parallel to Rotten Row I passed a slim, long-legged girl, ears plugged, but at Hyde Park Corner I stopped for a quick breather and she passed me again, with not a word of flicker of acknowledgement. I didn't see her after that. Down Constitution Hill I took to the horses' pathway, for the shade and the soft sand - though it was packed pretty hard.

By the time I gained St James's Park, three miles in (and therefore half-way to my destination), I was hot and thirsty and looking forward to getting to the drinking fountain. I'd completely forgotten that last time I'd needed it it had been out of action, and although it had a new tap fitted (replacing the sawn-off copper pipe that used to spout water when a button on the side was depressed) that produced a tiny trickle. It was also still surrounded by bollards and tape, though the tape had been broken and didn't act as much of a deterrent - but without water there was nothing to be deterred from anyway.

I backtracked to the refreshment kiosk, deciding to invest an extravagant pound or so in a bottle of water. Three people behind the counter, one serving another customer and taking a long time to do it: neither of the others saw fit to serve me, so I pocketed my money again and figured I'd get to the office without expiring. Indeed, leaving the park there was a pleasant, cooling breeze from the direction of the river.

Ahead of me on Horseguards Parade a man on a Boris Bike was making for the arch - through which stern notices tell cyclists not to ride. He showed no sign of dismounting, but when I reached the arch myself and could see in the shadows he was pushing his bike - I wonder whether the Guardsman in his ceremonial uniform with sword in hand had persuaded him to abide by the law? Could this be a more general solution to the problem of anti-social cyclists?

The Embankment could usually do with a few sword-yielding Guardsmen to keep the cyclists off the footway, but today there was no need, and as I counted the miles and looked ahead to Blackfriars it seemed to me that the stretch along the riverside was shorter than I remembered. Onto the footpath under Blackfriars Bridge, and I put in a quick few hundred yards before coming to a halt outside the City of London School, at the foot of the steps under the wobbly bridge.

Another runner, heading west with a bigger backpack than mine, a man with the air of an ultra-runner, makes some jokey comment which has gone from my mind before I could note it down. Did he call me "young man" or something similar? Was it irony? Did he sympathise because it's hard, or tell me it wasn't really hard? Who knows? Maybe I should use poetic licence and put words in his mouth. What does it matter? After being blanked by all the other runners I'd seen, this friendly exchange was very welcome. I bounded up the steps, jogged to the pedestrian crossing 50 yards further on, crossed because the traffic was waiting, paused again for breath on the other side, then bounded again up to St Paul's - featuring in several tourists' photos of the landmark, I bet.

And so, eventually, to the office. A bit of extra distance, a touch of speed (pretty slow, still, but faster than it could be) and a fantastic feeling of well-being, of ease of movement, for the rest of the day. Set free, indeed.

Why Are We Sleeping?

2011-06-27T17:29:00.000+01:00

The important thing isn't the pace, but that I have done the same loop two days in a row. And today for the first time I ran a real distance in my luna sandals. Not easy, especially along some particularly stony tracks, but my legs stood up to it. This is the second day of the forecast heatwave, and it was hot - and humid - when I set out. I must have looked every inch the professional runner with compression tights, minimalist footwear, vest, shades, and clever cooling headband. Or a complete idiot. Take your pick: I prefer the former. I've got a new profile photo, at least.

About mile five I passed a couple running in the opposite direction. His music was so loud I could hear it as he passed, without acknowledging me as far as I could tell. She was also plugged in, but at least had the courtesy to say hello. To me the song of the larks was all the music I could ask for.

I had to get in a good run today because this afternoon I gave blood, so I won't be doing anything strenuous for 24 hours or so. In fact after donating a pint I came home and fell asleep. Happy to give it, though, and this time while it drains out I can remember a friend who probably made a lot of withdrawals from the blood bank over the last year, and in the end didn't make it.

My Friend the Sun

2011-06-26T19:00:00.001+01:00

A two-day heatwave, we are promised by the Met Office. So often apparently wrong (though my experience of them tells me that they have an extraordinary ability to show that whatever the forecast says, and notwithstanding the actual weather, they were right: when running a training course for them years ago, I joked about the famous hurricane of 1987 or whenever, and I was told in no uncertain fashion that they hadn't got that wrong, though it is generally regarded as the epitome of an inaccurate forecast), today they seem to have been spot on.

A wonderful morning for a run, so I set out fairly early with the intention of doing perhaps an hour and a half, perhaps more - still building towards running 20 or more miles on a Sunday morning. It was still a little dull as I left home, so my shades were superfluous - though not for long.

I wore my green racing shoes which are less likely to cause injury than the old Mizuno Waves, partly because I couldn't remember quickly enough how to tie the luna sandals. They might have been pretty uncomfortable on some of the stony tracks, anyway. It takes a while for me to get into the groove of my modified footstrike, but once I get there it feels good (especially with compression tights to keep the gastrocnemeus happy). I called in to feed the ponies, and ended up having to corral them in part of their field because they were tucking in to the straw bale field shelter we put up a couple of years ago. I also had to water the tomatoes, chilies and cucumbers in the polytunnel. Then I was off again.

I can't remember a more satisfying run for many months, if not years. The weather was perfect for running, the condition of the Ridgeway has improved enormously since vehicles were banned from the stretch I run and the grass wasn't too high, and I felt in great shape. However I did decide I'd better limit myself to 7 miles (about 1 hour) having spent half an hour at the field and still not having had breakfast: and it probably wasn't a bad decision to keep my increased mileage within bounds. Down the road to the school - the sixth mile - I tried sprinting between some of the telegraph poles, and was delighted to see 5:30 pace on the Watch.

I didn't get out for a second run, as I had intended: instead I planted more brassicas in the cage (tip: make sure you make a cage with a removable top, so you don't have to crawl in on your hands and knees), watched the European Grand Prix and cut the lawn. Not a bad way to use a sunny day. I'll be out running in the second half of the heatwave tomorrow. After my morning porridge.

RVW Symphony no 5

2011-06-25T21:36:00.001+01:00

The Leiden Toonkunst Orchestra under conductor Jeppe Moulijn played a free concert at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford this afternoon - for patients, staff, family and friends. It's a big hospital with many patients and many staff - and they mostly have families and friends - so it was a shame that the orchestra outnumbered the audience by two to one.

The Orchestra was in town - Oxford is twinned with Leiden, as well as Bonn, Perm and who knows where else - to play at the Town Hall which they did the previous evening. This afternoon's concert repeated two of the three works in that programme.

First came the Concertante for Flute and Oboe by Ignaz Moscheles. No, me neither. But he is in the Penguin Dictionary of Music - my oracle, until I know everything in it and have to graduate to Grove, which Oxfordshire County Council thoughtfully provide online for their library members. in fact, "A New Dictionary of Music", third edition, 1973. It's a long-term oracle. Moscheles was a friend of Beethoven and teacher of Mendlessohn, was German-Bohemian in origin, lived from 1794 to 1870 and spent the years 1826 to 1846 in England. He wrote eight piano concertos - the Dictionary adds "etc., now never performed", so the Concertante must count as an "etc" and the "never" is no longer true. It was a delightful piece, reminiscent of Mozart (unsurprisingly) and available here on YouTube along with loads of other Moscheles stuff, some of it played by York Bowen. Do listen!

Then there was a short interval, just long enough to eat a Snickers bar, followed by Vaughan Williams's fifth symphony. It's a piece I must have heard sometime, but RVW's symphonies are not as familiar to me as I would like - and this one will bear a lot more listening. The band didn't sound perfect, partly because the acoustics of a hall that appeared to be designed mainly for sports left something to be desired: but I noticed a few mistimed entries and bum notes, which didn't detract a bit from the enjoyment, or from the players' evident commitment to the piece. A great afternoon.

Up Where We Belong

2011-06-24T08:45:00.002+01:00

I found this inspiring short video about top ultrarunner Geoff Roes, by Joel Wolpert, on Anton Krupicka's Riding the Wind blog. How come all these ultra runners have blogs? Where do they get the time?

Interesting to note that Geoff has never lost a 100-miler. Well, I have that in common with him. The difference is I've never run one, either.

Beware of the Dog

2011-06-23T16:49:00.002+01:00

In the course of a morning's work, or more accurately a few digressions from it, I realised that I am already in the 16-week period marked out on a chart in front of my eyes, culminating in the Kielder Marathon on 9 October. And actually I'm doing OK: Monday 4 miles easy (I did about 3.5), Tuesday the same with a few gentle strides (I did 6.5), Wednesday 5M slow (I did 10 on the bike - can I count that?). Today 3 miles steady, so I laced up my Luna sandals for their first serious use and ran round and round the playing field about 10 times.

I didn't want to go too far from home in case I did my Achilles in or the PF came back, so laps of the field seemed a good idea. Nice grassy surface, too. I found I was keeping up a surprisingly decent pace, until I stopped to see if I could help a neighbour's two young boys control their dog which had decided to go after a bird. They didn't need my help.

Great break from working - and interesting to try meditating as I went, concentrating on my breathing and footstrike and trying to exclude everything else from my mind. But I kept finding I came back to the idea for a story about a legal author putting the finishing touches to his life work, for which the publisher has patiently waited 40 years. I am allowed to let my mind wander: the meditation techniques need to be taken up in small doses, rather like barefoot running. I think I have made good progress with both.

Ghost Town

2011-06-20T19:11:00.000+01:00

Thirty years old - it hardly seems possible, but the BBC news website has a lengthy piece about one of the defining songs - no, probably the defining song - of its era. I wonder what happened to my copy of it?

It's hard to remember how the world felt that summer, what it was like living in Hackney which was the scene of some pretty unpleasant rioting (though far enough away not to affect me). More than half my lifetime ago. It's a very powerful reminder of how music occupies a leading position in one's memory, though it's a very powerful piece of work. I was already almost too old to be into the latest popular music at the time, and the comments on the BBC piece about how mourning the fact that music isn't like it was in one's youth strike a chord. I have no doubt that there are musicians doing highly political and also highly musical work - the difference is probably that the industry wouldn't touch them now, and there's no route to the top of the charts as there was for The Specials. But a latter-day Ghost Town could reach a lot of people through YouTube - perhaps there's no reason to bemoan the fact that it's not like it used to be. I can't imagine the sheer excitement of that time (no, not the excitement of throwing petrol bombs on the Front Line, I'm only referring to the music) ever happening again.

Long hot summer

2011-06-20T14:13:00.000+01:00

The weather was looking quite benign at noon today, and as I had an errand to run I decided to do so literally. Just a trip to the bank to remove some cash, a mile and three-quarters each way, but better to run than to get my bike out - a fortiori the car.

It's not a bad trip to the bank either, taking in some nice trails on the Harwell site.

I kept up a decent pace and didn't heel-strike: hard on my calves but they will get used to it - won't they? Yesterday my attempt to run was aborted when my knee complained - complained, I think, that I was running in three-year-old shoes, which will have to go. I got out my racing shoes today, and suffered no ill-effects.

My marathon training for October will have to start soon, according to the chart that I have had stuck to the wall in front of me since this time last year. It will be a long hot summer. Well, long. I can only hope for hot too.

Poppies in the Field

2011-06-20T13:55:00.000+01:00

The countryside - large parts of it, anyway - is a beautiful shimmering light blue - contrasting with the sky, which is usually some shade of grey, often with rain pouring from it. We are surrounded by fields of poppies, but not red ones - there are plenty of them, but they are interlopers in fields of wheat. These are opium poppies, and are being grown to make morphine. They brighten up what would otherwise be an unbearably dull summer, but a moment's reflection on their purpose, or rather on the need for their product, might bring back the clouds, especially as I think of a friend currently dying of cancer ...

Coloured rain

2011-06-05T17:02:00.000+01:00

A mile in the rain of a typical English June day is worth two under more agreeable conditions, so today's run was nearly a Marathon. My feet are tired and my leg muscles are sore but the sense of achievement is enormous.

And did I find the Traffic Cottage? Not sure ...

Blue

2011-05-30T21:38:00.000+01:00

A long weekend with no runs - too wet, too windy, too tired, too busy, or just completely lacking motivation. Finally the weather looked not too bad, and I could feel a now or never sort of sensation - the vague fear that if I didn't get out of the door and do my mandatory 10K I would never be able to call myself a runner again. There must come a point in one's life when it's clear that an activity, perhaps a very enjoyable, even an essential, one, is never going to happen again. Of course: there are activities that have gone that way for me already. I can't allow running to go that way too. Can't risk that it might happen.

It was still raining, a little, but it stopped within half a mile. I got off my heels and onto the midfoot for a while: it always feels very awkward at first, when I am doing it with an effort of will, but then I get into the groove and it becomes more natural - still awkward, but a lot better. However, I am not going to risk wrecking my Achilles or calf muscles again, so a short distance is enough. Downhill to Rowstock I pick up speed, let it keep building, though without getting up on my toes and sprinting: the Watch registers 4:51 pace before I slow again, coasting the rest of the way to the roundabout. Marathon-winning pace. I kept it up for perhaps 26 yards.

Turn round at the telegraph pole and back home, a slight negative split - to my great surprise, especially since the return leg is uphill. But when I reach home the Watch has just beeped to tell me of the sixth mile - and at teh doorstep it's 6.02, not 6.25. Near enough though.

The end of this blue period - I hope.

Wouldn't you miss me?

2011-05-30T20:12:00.005+01:00

A long weekend with no runs - too wet, too windy, too tired, too busy, or just completely lacking motivation. Finally the weather looked not too bad, and I could feel a now or never sort of sensation - the vague fear that if I didn't get out of the door and do my mandatory 10K I would never be able to call myself a runner again. There must come a point in one's life when it's clear that an activity, perhaps a very enjoyable, and essential, one, is never going to happen again. Of course: there are activities that have gone that way for me already. I can't allow running to go that way too. Can't risk that it might happen.

It was still raining, a little, but it stopped within half a mile. I got off my heels and onto the midfoot for a while: it always feels very awkward at first, when I am doing it with an effort of will, but then I get into the groove and it becomes more natural - still awkward, but a lot better. However, I am not going to risk wrecking my Achilles or calf muscles again, so a short distance is enough. Downhill to Rowstock I pick up speed, let it keep building, though without getting up on my toes and sprinting: the Watch registers 4:51 pace before I slow again, coasting the rest of the way to the roundabout. Marathon-winning pace. I kept it up for perhaps 26 yards.

Forever Young

2011-05-24T13:25:00.000+01:00

The Guardian editorial has a tribute to Bob Dylan on the occasion of his 70th birthday, including the observation - pretty obvious when you think about it but worth saying in case you haven't thought about it - that while Paul McCartney has become an establishment figure (did so, I think, in the mid-seventies) and Mick Jagger is trying to convince us all that it still is the mid-seventies (though he is amazingly well-preserved), Dylan has continued to develop his art and remains relevant - perhaps by virtue of his growing old at the same rate as his fans.

John Harris in the Grauniad wrote - as others have done before him - of how he nearly met Dyaln. I have never come close to meeting him, but I can understand the comments in the article about how it feels to be in the presence of greatness - though the great people in whose presence I have found myself have typically been politicians. It's good to find that someone you admire is actually, in real life, exactly as you'd wish them to be, and perhaps not quite what their public persona would lead you to expect.

The Guardian chose Forever Young as the apposite Dylan song, and who can argue with that? It has been one of my greatest favourites ever since I bought a copy of Planet Waves - reinforced by hearing it on Budokan, too, a superb arrangement. Of course the man himself has been removed from YouTube, but Joan Baez will do - given that we don't seem to have Robyn Hitchcok performing it ...

Publish Post

London Calling

2011-05-24T13:05:00.000+01:00

To run twice in two days, that's a really big step forward. My commute to the office yesterday wasn't fast (the data are all mixed up because I forgot to restart my watch after stopping to read an incoming email) but it was immensely satisfying. And I could be achieving my target mileage this week - though that might be further than I should run at this stage.

A lovely day for a run, though there was rather more wind than I would have liked. Along the Embankment I fell in with a guy visiting from Baltimore and enjoyed a short networking exercise as we ran - not enough to discover his line of work though. I imagine he would be a lawyer - aren't most Americans lawyers by now?

I spent the evening at a networking event, organised by that well-known Rhubarb Thrasher Mike Southon. Held in a vaulted cellar that was too small for the number of people in it, as a networking event it lacked one essential ingredient - the ability to converse, not just comfortably but at all. Having met a few new people and collected some business cards, I decided to leave, but encountered another refugee who'd opted for the peace and quiet of the bar - as it happened, one of the attendees that I had most hoped to meet.

A great run and a great evening's networking: all in all, a very satisfying day.

The Wind

2011-05-22T16:38:00.000+01:00

"You're mad!" exclaimed one of a group of a dozen or so hikers this morning as I passed her on the Ridgeway. "In this wind, perhaps so" I conceded. It was blowing from nearly exactly the direction I was trying to run in, and as the splits show miles 4 and 5 were pretty slow. So were all the others, with the exception of the sixth: once I turned off the Ridgeway, so I had the wind almost at my back and the path heading downhill, the pace improved. A bit.

Who cares? I was running again. I had little discomfort from my left foot, no asthma, no problems with Achilles. I was heel-striking, but maybe a little less than my habit has been so perhaps my technique is improving. The sun was shining, the summer stretches ahead with the prospect of extending my runs in the coming weeks - perhaps for the Ridgeway Challenge, certainly with the Keilder marathon in mind. After the moment of inspiration that I mentioned yesterday I was in the perfect state of mind to embark on a training programme. A small step, but every journey begins with one.

I covered my seven miles this morning at about Marathon pace, which shows that I have a lot of improving to do. Neither intense nor long, I guess: not a genuine Italian espresso, but not an insipid grande latte either. More like a Caffe Nero cappuccino - tasty, satisfying and a major boost to the system. I have been walking taller, moving more fluently, feeling better all round, ever since. I think this coffee-related approach to rating experiences has a lot to be said for it!

Had we but world enough, and time

2011-05-21T22:10:00.000+01:00

Not the title, but the first line of Andrew marvell's "To His Coy Mistress" - the theme for the excellent Harry Eyres's "Slow Lane" column in today's Financial Times. Always thought-provoking, this one is a delightful reflection on length, of time. And perhaps a little paradoxical, for it seems in some ways to argue against the leisurely pace usually advocated in the column.

From musing about coffee - genuine Italian espresso compared with Starbucks latte - he draws wider lessons:

Length as opposed to intensity, volume rather than flavour: here we have not just two ways of making coffee but two philosophies of life. Is it better to draw something out as long as possible, or, as the poet Andrew Marvell put it in another, erotic, context, to “roll all [its] strength and all [its] sweetness up into one ball” so that we can “tear our pleasures ... thorough the iron gates of life”?

Fortunately, intensity and length, volume and flavour, can be combined in a long run - which I am now itching to have in the morning ... well, as long as I can manage after my irregular running over the past few months.

April Come She Will

2011-04-22T15:17:00.000+01:00

A glorious day, although I imagine the people running the Maidenhead 10 were a bit warm. I completed my monthly IP podcast for March and rewarded myself by going for a short run - my first for a long time, and my injured foot stood up to it. I was worried that I had set back the recovery last weekend with my six-hour walk, but it seems to have recovered. Not a fast run, and I stopped a couple of times to receive and send emails and to take a phone call. A good feeling, to be a runner again. But I will feel unhappy tomorrow when I see the Compton 40 competitors coming through the village - I was so looking forward to giving it another try.

Also a very good feeling to be up-to-date with the podcasts, with the new marketing deal set to be launched very shortly.

Don't sing no more sad songs

2011-04-01T13:53:00.000+01:00

Yesterday we spent the evening at the launch of the programme for the Cheltenham Music Festival, followed by an agreeable but slow dinner with a group of people who have become our good friends in the last twelve months. Somehow I find myself discussing Mahler symphonies with two people who are far more knowledgeable than I am - one of them, indeed, a professional composer.

They have recently been to a performance of the Sixth in Symphony Hall in Birmingham - I check with them that it is indeed the one with the huge mallet in the last movement. I saw this performed at the Proms, I don't know how many years ago - and who was conducting? Rattle? Haitink? Perhaps someone else altogether.

The Eighth comes up as a topic of conversation also for the good reason that it's teh BBC Music Magazine cover disc this month - and I am trying to persuade the others that the magazine gives its readers challenging listening. The Eighth is however dismissed as unrepresentative of Mahler's output - the only one of his symphonies that can be called "life-affirming". He was, I suggest, having a good day when he wrote it. And the opening "Veni, Creator Spiritus" certainly gives me a lift - I tried it this morning. On reflection, though, the Fifth - the Mahler symphony I know best - might plumb the depths in the first movement (and perhaps the second) but everything gets resolved by the fifth movement, doesn't it? I must listen again - BBC Music Magazine obligingly gave me the Fifth a few years ago, so I don't need to dig out my 2-LP version by Karajan and the BPO on DGG. One thing about Mahler though: you don't play his music as background.

So, I am asked (with the rider that it's a really banal question), what composer's music to do I most like to put on? When I consider it, this has changed over the years - and the CD in the player isn't necessarily by whoever I'd call my favourite composer. Whose music I want to listen to changes from day to day, hour by hour - minute by minute, even. The other day Dvorak's Serenade for Strings came on the car radio: I played the LP (with Tchaikovsky's on the other side) daily in my last year at University, hardly ever since, although I could still remember it almost by heart, humming along as I drove. And there was a time when Dvorak would certainly have been the first name to come to mind when asked who was my favourite composer.

Perhaps this just demonstrates that it is indeed a daft question. There are so many possible candidates. Bliss? Mahler? Debussy? Ravel? Venables? I heard Bantock's Sappho on Radio 3 this week and loved it, but Bantock isn't going to become my favourite composer just because of that, not even for a few minutes. Neither is Messaien ever likely to be my favourite composer, although the Quartet for the End of Time is likely to be the work I'd like on my desert island should I ever have to declare my preferences on that radio programme (failing that, Turangalila) - and for similar reasons my book would be by Solzhenitsyn, either The First Circle or, to keep me going longer, The Gulag Archipelago. Great art coming from awful circumstances (which is why I'd go for the Quartet rather than the symphony). But perhaps those are not my favourite works, either.

The one thing that matters is that I have something uplifting, life-affirming (if that's not exactly the same thing). Which I think a Mahler symphony can be. Where's that CD of the Fifth ...

Between blue and me

2011-03-20T19:22:00.001Z

My whole week centred around the book launch party on Thursday. Drinks, glasses and ice were delivered first, so we were putting ice in tubs and bottles in ice. I hadn't shaved in the morning, thinking I'd leave it until closer to the start of the party, so about half past four I went to shower and shave - the bathroom is off the meeting room we were using for the party. To avoid overheating when the room filled with bodies we'd turned off the heating, and it was only when I got in the shower that I found it wasn't only the heating that was off. Fortunately there was hot water for a shave in the other toilet, but my shower was curtailed ...

Then Arthur turned up with the canapés, which had to be unloaded from his car on a yellow line outside the office and carried up to the first floor - an interesting relay job. The first guest appeared half an hour early, to add to the confusion, but then all went very well. Had all 100 or so acceptances turned up we might have had problems, but about half stayed away and we had ample food and drink and a most enjoyable evening was had by all. My publishers even sold about 7 books!

En route back to Oxford afterwards, the coach broke down and we crawled home very late. I was due at my publicist's birthday party last night but realised when I got myself to the office that I wasn't really in any shape for a third party in three days - especially one that began at 8 o'clock and could have continued until goodness knows when. Shame, as I was looking forward to it. To make matters worse, I reached the office - at about 2 o'clock - to find my BlackBerry missing. I'd taken an incoming call at 1.23, just before I bought lunch at The People's Supermarket, so it was probably on a 55 bus to Leyton.

On Saturday, having received and set up a replacement BlackBerry, I was good for nothing but watching three rugby matches on the TV, dozing through some of them and through a perfect running afternoon. But Sunday was also good for running, and I managed the seven-mile loop before lunch, meeting Louis at about 2.5 miles - coming the other way - and fixing to meet him next weekend for a run. Took over three minutes off the previous time too, though it is still taking over an hour. On the other hand, it's a slightly longer route than the one I ran for years which took under the hour. Not a bad pace, and not much stiffness in the PF this evening. I hope that bodes well for good runs in London this week, when I commute every day.

Diminished but not finished

2011-03-15T22:30:00.000Z

When I set out to feed the horses this morning, the car stuttered before I'd even got out of the cul-de-sac, so I turned round, parked it up and found a lead for Boston, intending to give him an enjoyable walk for three miles to the field - and back, too. If I could have trusted him I'd have taken him for a run, but his approach - constant stops, lots of sniffing around, doubling back - reduces my pace to 20 minute miles plus.

We managed even less distance than in the car before he felt the need to make several small deposits on the footpath, and I had refrained from bringing a plastic bag with me because I had no intention of carrying it around for a couple of hours if it had to be used. So it was back home for one, then back to the scene of the crime, by which time the window of opportunity for a walk had closed (was deemed, by me, to have closed). I changed into running kit (long-sleeved top, in deference to the fact that it is still March) and left Boston snoozing at home.

I hadn't gone more than about a mile before I was distinctly warm and wishing I'd selected a short-sleeved shirt. The sun was high in a beautiful blue sky, not quite so bright that I needed shades, and it was arming the countryside very nicely. The hedgerows still looked bare, the trees too, but they'll be budding soon, and the ground underfoot was good and firm. It was, in short, a perfect morning for a run, and I was delighted to have taken it.

I had conservatively chosen to run in my Mizuno shoes, which although old - they were pretty old when I ran the Capital City Marathon (the souvenir timing chip from which still adorns them) nearly two years ago - still give a reasonable amount of cushioning and the motion control I need. The Luna sandals will have to wait - perhaps in the coming couple of days I'll get them out. It wasn't the day even to practice pose running or any other alternative to my regular heel-banging, but it got me to the field without discomfort and after throwing some hay at the ponies I felt absolutely good enough to continue up the hill to the Ridgeway instead of doubling back. The difference, at the end, would only be a mile anyway.

I paused when I reached the ancient road and untied my shoes, even took one off, but they thought better of stripping naked (from the ankles down). My left foot was taped up to keep the plantar fasciitis under control, and it seemed to be working: the tape wouldn't last long with nothing to protect it. So I trotted along the lovely grass, so much better since vehicles were banned from it.

And so I eventually returned home, in a bit over an hour - I have varied the once-regular route to make it a little longer, but even so I should be well under an hour for this. Never mind, it's the first run of my latest comeback, on a perfect day, and very, very satisfying.

I threw it all away

2011-03-05T15:46:00.000Z

I wrote in my notebook - with some irony - "another great day". Rushing to catch an early (for me) train, to make a client meeting, I begin by taking a slice out of my ear while shaving. I staunch the flow of blood then hurry to collect together what I need for a day in London with a cycle ride at each end, then head off to Didcot on my bike.

The sky is clear and the sun bright enough to make me think that I will need to get my shades out soon - but the temperature has plunged, no doubt because of the clear skies, and there's a slight headwind, so the weather might look nice but it's not great for cycling. I wonder whether I will be able to climb Hagbourne Hill without changing down a gear or few - such a hit-and-miss affair, especially under load, that gear-changing is best avoided. By dint of getting u out of the saddle earlier than usual, I struggle to the summit, speculating about what I might do if the handlebars break as I pull against them.

Turning right towards Upton, a Citroen Picasso passes me where the driver has an inadequate view of the road ahead, and oncoming traffic forces him to cut in sharply. I shake my fist at him but I guess he's oblivious.

Passing through the Orchard Centre car park, I am balked by a middle-aged couple (much older than me, that means) strolling down the cycle path, stopping to talk to someone. My horn has become too feeble to attract anyone's attention - perhaps time to invest in a whistle.

At the station it takes me precious minutes to free the lock I leave there and secure my bike (I forget to pass a lock through my helmet, and leave that just fastened round the cross-bar) while I listen anxiously to the announcement which concerns my train but of which I can only hear part. Buying a ticket from the machine, I dash for the platform and discover that the announcer was telling of a delay, putting my 11 o'clock in considerable doubt (I eventually make it just a few minutes late).

When I get out my BlackBerry to call the client, it immediately dies through lack of juice, and I have to travel to London without telecommunications. But, on points, it's still not a bad day ...

The day remains OK throughout my time in the office, though there are a few stressful moments: the good vibes even survive my attempt to run back to Paddington. Feeling confident that my plantar fascia would cope for at least a few miles, I remained ready to dive into one of the several tube stations on my route should the need arise. At Temple, although there have only been a few twinges, I decide enough is probably enough, and it would be prudent to let the train take the strain from here. In any event it will get me to Paddington in time for the 1930, which running won't - but it doesn't anyway, so the tube fare was a bit of a waste.

By the time I reach Didcot and unlock my bike it's freezing cold again - probably literally. I ram my helmet over the famous green hat and pedal hard - but the fantastic number of stars visible as I ride home mean there's nothing to keep any heat from escaping - from me as well as from the world at large.

I ice my foot as I eat dinner, as the effects of the run are beginning to make themselves felt, but when I wake after a fitful night's sleep the PF is really painful. Back to square one - all that tedious rest and the attendant cabin fever thrown away - though that was never previously what I thought of when I heard this song. Sorry the fantastic Dylan rendition from the Rolling Thunder tour isn't on YouTube, but Elvis is a pretty good substitute - maybe even better than the man himself on a Johnny Cash TV show which is on YouTube.

Runnning Blue

2011-03-02T12:15:00.000Z

Still crocked by plantar fasciitis - it's improving, with ice, rolling a massage thingie under my foot, and resting - I've had to find another way to get my running fix. A substitute for something that's already a substitute, perhaps ... My local (to the office) bookshop, the excellent Camden Lock Books, procured a copy of The Coolest Race on Earth (the coolest title ever for a book, too) by my new online friend John Hanc, which proved a pretty good second-best to going for a run. Unfortunately it leaves me with an irresistible urge to run the Antarctica Marathon (as my old friend Charles Stewart did a few years ago, immediately after his retirement), as well as to tick off the five continents on which I have not yet run a marathon and get to the magical 100 mark, all of them pretty unlikely when "rest" is the only running activity on the agenda.

I'd recommend John's book to all my running friends - which is most of my friends now - and probably a lot of non-running friends too. It's not just about running the Antarctica Marathon - the Last Race on Earth, as it was originally billed - but also provides a great deal of interesting background about the geography and history of the continent. And it's written in the wonderful, almost breathless, style that seems to me to be fairly typical of American authors of this sort of book - full of colourful similes, nice turns of phrase and cultural references - which I thoroughly enjoy. Being a teacher of writing as well as a practitioner, he knows what he's doing. Well worth getting hold of, even if it has to be imported from the US.

Every day I write the book

2011-02-27T16:34:00.002Z

At last, I have a copy of my book in my hands. Not that it matters that I have it: what matters is that other people have it ... At least I know it really exists.

Nothing is easy

2011-02-06T19:46:00.001Z

It all seemed to be going so well - but I started the year going too far, too fast, too soon. I should have listened to Nancy - a gentle 10K doesn't constitute a rest day. The result was a painful plantar fascia - the left one. A rest, a visit to Sharon for a massage, ice, stretching and even ibuprofen gel, and it felt OK enough to venture out to run back from the office on Friday.

I further handicapped myself by eating a large Indian lunch with a client in Brick Lane, washed down with a couple of bottles of Bangla beer - very nice, but not something to run on even allowing three hours for it to go down. Still, the run felt OK, and the foot didn't complain much. Not until next morning anyway.

I also got my bike out for the first time this year, blew the tyres up and rode it to the station. In Didcot a Waitrose delivery driver had cleverly parked his van opposite a parked car in a narrow road and left a gap too small to ride a bike through: I had a well-justified rant at him, which was like water off a duck's back - he'd saved himself a walk of about 2 yards with his antisocial parking - all he had to do was park on the other side of the road - and had his first words to me been an abject apology it would have been a different matter.

I had two locks secured to the bike racks at the station, but they'd been lying on the ground all winter and were seized solid. I broke one key and gave up on the other: it was big enough to squeeze it over the saddle and make the bike fairly safe that way. And I still caught the train.

On the way home, another technical problem: the rear light on the bike had no juice in the batteries, so I had to rely on another which I clipped to my backpack. The front light wasn't enough to show me the way, either. Preparation is everything ... a bit like the running, I suppose.

Fools

2011-01-31T10:19:00.000Z

The New York Times reports that state legislatures in the US are turning their attention to "distracted pedestrians", the foot-travelling equivalent of idiot motorists who imagine they can safely use a mobile phone and drive at the same time. Not that legislation seems to have stopped that over here - there are always people who don't think the law applies to them, for some reason. And as for distracted pedestrians - even if race organisers tell competitors not to block their ears, there's always one who chooses to ignore the instruction, and then can't hear the marshalls' instructions - or the car bearing down from behind, or the faster runner coming through ...

Dancing on Air

2011-01-15T18:43:00.000Z

It's been a bad week for running, with a trip to Cambridge to present a training course getting in the way of my own training, so this afternoon I got in only my second run of the week - a simple Murakami 10K along the usual route, it being too dark to go anywhere else - and returned elated. The same extraordinary sensation of running with all my running buddies going back years, on which I remarked on Tuesday, was there again - a transcendent experience. It was fast, it might have been stylish (I can't see), and it was hard work but effortless. I still have a lot of training to do before I start achieving goals this year - and even this 10K only reached my five-year-ago Marathon target pace, which I did manage to sustain for about 24 miles - but it's a long, long time since I felt so good about my running.

Great to have an excuse to include this extraordinary appearance by the greatest band in the world (arguably) on the Old Grey Whistle Test - where did Andy and Keith get their suits? I think I could do with one ...

My Back Pages

2011-01-14T11:33:00.000Z

There's work to be done - of course - but I always need to get my head into the right place first - AIG - which might explain why I stopped to make a cappuccino and found myself dancing round the kitchen singing along to this great song on the Dylan 30th anniversary album - a high-energy alternative to this original Byrds recording but sadly not to be found on You Tube. Dylan with Tom Petty, Neil Young, George Harrison, Eric Clapton - sublime - it would be great to be able to see it.

I was so much older then - I'm younger than that now.

I didn't feel lonely til I thought of you

2011-01-11T22:17:00.000Z

Club run this evening, and I was certainly ready for some fresh air and exercise after two days at my desk. I forgot my watch, though, so what follows is a figment of my imagination - no way of proving it ever happened. And I have no idea of how long it took - somewhere in the low 50s - although I know it was 6.35 miles, so it meets the Murakami criteria.

I started off conservatively, trying to be sociable, but soon found myself passing others and ended up with no-one in sight in front or behind. After the long route left the medium route there was an occasional glimpse of someone ahead, proving that I was heading the right way, but that was all until I reached the end. And to my surprise I was perfectly content with my own company - knowing that others would vicariously enjoy these miles as I would vicariously enjoy theirs, running buddies in absentia. No need for someone physically to run with, no need for encouraging words, no need even for encouraging tweets: for 50 or so minutes I was in my own world, listening to my breathing, concentrating on my running action, accompanied by a bunch of running mates from whom I draw strength and inspiration even when they aren't there. Brilliant!

But how much better if they were with me ...

Slip Sliding Away

2011-01-09T18:43:00.002Z

The Club's annual Christmas Pud Run didn't take place in two feet of fresh snow last month - if anyone had been able to get to the start they would probably have been wiped out by an out-of-control car, as this event is entirely on roads. But when the sun came up this morning (which seems to be a rare occurrence) I saw that the cars bore witness to a heavy frost - I had been at my desk since 5 am but hadn't noticed the weather at first. I drove to the start of the race without incident, but on climbing out of the car I found myself sliding around helplessly on the tarmac.

There were reports of cars having been seen in ditches, and one competitor had walked her bike for three miles, but that wasn't going to cause another postponement. We were cautioned abut the ice, and instructed to walk at one point, but that was all, so we lined up and headed off, seeking out the best grip in the circumstances. My feet slipped on the climb up Boar's Hill, and some wit suggested switching between spikes and road shoes. Some of the road surface was already ice-free, but in many places the grass verge offered better traction.

Ice apart, it was a glorious morning for a run,, as John Harvey's photo (below) shows. I contrived to run it alone - a brief chat with Dave at the first water station being about the only talking I did for the duration. So my account of the race goes puff, flap, puff, flap, puff, flap, puff, flap ... It did me good to concentrate on my breathing (especially as it was cold enough for asthma to be a problem), but the revelation of the day was the compression tights that appeared the preceding day as a late Christmas present - wow, did they do the job.

It wasn't a day to skimp on the cold weather gear - there was still ice on the road on a shady stretch at mile 12 - so the famous green hat and gloves stayed on throughout. I'm concerned about the way my front foot is turning out in the photo, though: must try to deal with that. I felt hell-banging was the best approach when it was really icy, but at about mile 8 I managed to get in a couple of miles pose-running, or something like it, and later a little more, but I imagine that looks even uglier. It certainly put some strain on my Achilles and soleus, so I clearly have a long way to go before I can run far like that - before the luna sandals are going to work for me.

A satisfying day, then, and reassuring to prove to myself that a half-M is not only do-able, but comfortable, albeit over 20 minutes off my PB. I'm ready to start entering races again, I think, and maybe a PB will be on the cards later in the year? But I managed only half my target mileage this week, less in fact, so will have to pull a few double sessions to catch up again. Too many distractions, too much work to do!

Sloth

2011-01-01T16:18:00.000Z

12 miles this morning, to complete my target of 40 for the last seven days. I'll count this as the first day of the new week too, so as to get the New Year off to a great start. I headed off east, past Alden Farm, out to Salt Box, the long gentle climb on knee-jarring concrete to where the railway once ran.

Then more concrete, heading for the junction with the Ridgeway, at which point my Blackberry decided it didn't have enough power to do anything more, so I carried its useless weight (OK, not a lot) for the next nine miles or so. On reaching the Ridgeway I carried on further to the east, leaving the Ridgeway to my right, pursuing my search for the Traffic cottage - though I realised there wasn't quite as much point in finding it if I couldn't take a photo - then taking a link south to connect with the Ridgeway again. The sign there read "Bury Down 4 miles", and I guessed I had the best part of another three miles from Bury Down before I reached home, which seemed like a reasonable distance in total.

I stopped to capture not the scenery - which leaves just a little to be desired at these points, unless you like straight concrete roads - but the overcast sky, which I thought Alex, with whom I ran this route, oh, about a million times, would appreciate seeing if the sun isn't shining too brightly on his computer screen over in California ...

Later the damp weather turned to drizzle, which only made me feel better about this crazy New Year's Day run - crazy considering the lack of miles in my running log over the past few weeks. A few dog-walkers out, who didn't seem too startled when I wished them a happy New Year - often people look at you as if you're a dangerous psychopath when you do that sort of thing (are there any psychopaths who aren't dangerous, I wonder?). One group of three walkers jumped out of their skins when I greeted them as they hadn't heard me approaching from behind (puff, slap, slap, puff, slap, slap), and later on I fell in with a Geordie cyclist who seemed to be making heavy weather of a climb, so with a bit of acceleration I could stay level with him (and still talk!) for a short distance. At least he caught and eventually passed me, unlike two cyclists I caught a little later who questioned the sense of riding bikes along the Ridgeway if running were faster. I do like to overtake cyclists ... carrying around all that useless metal.

So, the choice of title and song is heavy with irony (just in case you didn't notice) and I'm still holding Paper Sun in reserve for when I find the cottage, if the weather justifies it - and I'll have to hope I don't end up being forced to choose Hole In My She, or perhaps Mr Fantasy if I never find it. It's something to keep me going!

New day yesterday

2010-12-31T23:59:00.001Z

I started to write this blog because I thought it would improve my literary skills. I keep forgetting that. Looking back (as I have been this evening, waiting for this damned year to finish) I found some really quite good writing. I also found this posting about a previous, very strange, New Year's Eve (I wonder whether she succeeded in finding a husband): and I read my Premeditated Notebook, a kind of ink-on-dead-trees precursor to a blog, which I think I stopped writing in about 2005. It is full of gems, mostly about commuting. I should do something with it - like publish extracts in this blog. Perhaps dating them to coincide with when they were written.

I was also impressed, reading that old blog entry, that so many people including me seemed so keen to see an end to 2007 - just like I feel about 2010.

This morning I got out shortly after daybreak for a 10K run down to Rowstock. It was a shame to run along a busy road when there are so many wonderful trails to use, but it was the right thing to do at the time - and I wanted to measure out a 10K course for future use, so I can follow the Murakami prescription. In fact, my New Year's Resolution goes on from his 10K per day, to include a target of 40 miles a week, a half-M distance once a week (a Sunday long run - nothing particularly unusual about that) extended to a Marathon once a month. Or more. Nancy pointed out on Facebook that I have omitted rest days, but I'll simply run slowly once a week.

My fingers were cold when I started, but eventually warmed up, and while it wasn't scenically anything to write home about it was a pleasant outing. To make up the 10K distance I had to go a surprisingly long way past the natural turn-around, but I know now exactly which telegraph pole marks the 5K-from-home point.

On the return leg, I started thinking about poetry - as one does - and in particular, for some reason, The Lords and The New Creatures, the slender volume of Jim Morrison's writings that I bought, by mail order, when at school. I considered it the height of sophistication, though I didn't like most of the poems, which didn't read like his songs sounded and which contained insufficient sex for my adolescent taste. It struck me, however, that what I am interested in writing is a form of poetry - I am keen to (I have in the past managed to) write in a manner that's as satisfying for the way in which it uses words as for what it says. And if I am writing about running, the possibilities are huge. I have, somehow, even succeeded in producing what seems to me to be very satisfying prose about intellectual property, in my Dictionary. So I'd better keep on practising. See if I can't match the quality of some of those early blog posts about runs. I think my imagination is letting me down.

That said, my Runner's World article has generated some very flattering comments - one professional novelist, when I remarked to him that it made me feel as if I were a writer, saying "You are a writer - and a bloody good one!" - and a friend expressing admiration for a few paragraphs I dashed off about a piano recital. I need to give my creative writing muscles some exercise. I have so much in my head to write about, but I rarely get round to doing much about it. Perhaps a New Year's Resolution is called for - to write a little each day, which I might add to learning a little German each day (can anyone tell me what "dann fang schon mal an" means?), making a serious attempt to learn Russian, improving my French, and learning the piano. Maybe a busy year - which means it will be all the more important to learn from this posting I read earlier about the "not-to-do" list. What am I going to resolve not to do? Procrastinate, to start with.

Happy New Year!

Cadence and cascade

2010-12-29T15:52:00.000Z

For no apparent reason I started humming this to myself this morning - no reason apart from it being a lovely piece of music, that is. I might equally well have chosen one of Colin's orchestral versions of Debussy's Preludes, which I have been listening to pretty well to the exclusion of everything else since Christmas Day - but that's another story.

There's hardly even any yucky slush left now, but I bet that means my regular running trails are quagmires, so I chose to stick to the road today. It was one of those days when you just have to run - I needed to burn off a lot of excess energy, partly because I didn't get out yesterday. I thought about running into Didcot to pick up a replacement radiator cap for the Subaru, but ended up driving that - 5 miles each way was perhaps a little more than I needed. And I do need to work today too. So I ran down to Rowstock and back, a tedious route and only a little over 5 miles. However, Garmin intervened and deemed me to have started in the middle of nowhere about 2 miles east of home, recording also that I had put in some impressive miles at the start - one of just six seconds. I'll have that - and the extra miles, although I'll only claim 5.14 towards my weekly total. That means I've slipped from the Murakami Average - 10K per day, as in What I Talk About ..., but I should be able to claw that back in due course, and I should still be able to make it to 40 miles this week. Probably a bad idea for a first week of serious running, but so long as I feel good ...

And indeed I do feel good. I took a few breaks on this run, including at the turn to which I had descended from Ralph Schumacher's allegedly one-time house at a cracking pace - not that the Garmin was much help in measuring it, as it still thought I was 25 minutes ahead of where I should have been. A break at half-distance seemed reasonable - and it took a while, and a couple of false starts, to get going again after that. The snow has given way to mist, one of those appalling wet grey days that so often come along in December, but at least there was no need for extreme weather equipment beyond a long-sleeve top. The p[ace was conservative for most of the way, but I managed to maintain good pose-running technique (felt good to me anyway) and when I concentrated on it to put together arms and legs (swinging the arms straight forwards and backwards) so as to look quite stylish. I lengthened my stride a bit, too, and found that felt good - so perhaps when I have been trying to pose-run I have been taking too-short strides, which might account for the curious movements of my feet as I run.

Moral: pay more attention to running style. Tune out other thoughts - difficult though that might be! A great run, though, which has left me feeling pretty tired but content. If I keep up the miles I'll be fit again fairly soon.

Break on Through

2010-12-27T17:50:00.001Z

A little voice, my own private running daemon perhaps, was pointing out to me that it was cold, grey, windy, and generally not a great day to go running (even if the mercury was above zero for the first time in days and the snow was starting to melt). Another daemon had already intervened when I expressed the intention to go running, and I had spent half-an-hour of valuable running time hanging pictures. I wanted to resist, but the second daemon was persuasive, and I was tired and still sore after yesterday's unexpectedly long run.

Then another voice joined the discussion - via Twitter, which is so useful for this sort of thing - and told me to get my AIG. It was exactly the guidance I had been waiting for. This, of course, is why we have mentors and coaches - so it was on with the same strange ensemble in which I had ventured out the previous day (thank goodness no-one but other runners is around to see me) - it can all go in the wash later - and off for another lap of my regular 7-mile route (recently slightly amended, making it a true seven miles).

What a difference a day makes. Where there had been hard-packed snow and ice there was now at least something for my shoes to grip on, and in many places to splash through. There was even some mud, a substance I haven't seen for a long, long time, and grass poking up through the white stuff. I still had to pick my way very gingerly along some of the paths, the ruts being filled with snow and every step a potential twisted ankle. I made it through the tunnel without falling over, and later managed the descent from the Ridgeway to Upper Farm without incident. So, not a great session - but not junk miles either, and a very important willpower exercise.

Of course, I know very well that had I maintained my resistance the AIG fairy would have been on Twitter again for sure, to call me a wuss - which can be amusing, but I wasn't going to let it happen today. No, this afternoon I was determined to break on through, and now I'm on the other side and intending to stay there ...

Mr Cool

2010-12-26T17:01:00.002Z

Why did I think a few inches of snow was any sort of excuse not to run? I set off this afternoon for a gentle exploratory effort - a jog, even, given the conditions, though I usually only ever jog before or after a race - and as Mr Garmin told me he was out of battery it was only ever going to be an ephemeral run: here today, gone tomorrow.

I wrapped up well, as the temperature was a couple of degrees the wrong side of zero: green hat and gloves, of course, as immortalised in Runner's World, but a fleece too, and tights (which might have been tight 12 years ago, but you know what I mean). The road outside the house is hard-packed snow along which (in a car) I crawl, foot off the accelerator, low ratio if in the Subaru (though it is suffering from the notorious Subaru overheating malaise just now, so going nowhere, hence the exciting blast to Bristol airport and back by MG this morning, the return journey with roof down and heater on full - the best way to travel). I definitely jog on that. But past the church and through the village hall car park, I thought maybe a few laps of the playing fields would meet my running needs for the day. The snow, though, was too lumpy to run on, the product of much dog-walking I suppose. So over the footbridge to the road up to the Ridgeway for some 1,000m reps, though not at the pace Rach once suggested I should be doing.

The surface gave just enough grip to enable me to run fairly confidently in my trail shoes, so I went up and back, stretched a bit, then went up and back again, and was taking another rest and stretching my soleus muscles when a couple of runners appeared from the direction of the tunnel. I invited myself to tag along with them, to which they raised no objection: they were heading for the Ridgeway, from which they would descend by our field, making something very like my regular route but in reverse. I thought I'd accompany them to where I'd already turned back twice at the end of 1,000m, but when we reached that point it felt so good I had to carry on.

The hill becomes much steeper after my turnaround point, and the surface goes from good tarmac grotty ruts, and I laboured up the climb, but I'll cope better with it after a few weeks' practice. I reached the top last of the three of us, but my new friends waited for me and we trotted along the Ridgeway exchanging notes. Then we picked our way down the slope to the tunnel - a feature lacking on this course years ago, one of my companions told me, which made the A34 a test of sprinting ability - I recalled one of my glamorous running mates in London showing an impressive turn of speed across Hyde Park Corner in similar circumstances. I was just saying how much I enjoyed the climb when I felt fit, when my feet went from under me and I ended up lying on the hard ground, laughing despite my right knee feeling rather sore.

I walked the next hundred yards or so, then we all jogged down the hill where the snow was still powdery enough to give us enough purchase, and back to the village. From the point at which I'd had in mind to do a couple more 1,000m reps I'd put in about 6 miles, proved that except for one stretch it was runnable in the snow, and made a couple of new friends. A good afternoon's work - and a great feeling of well-being.

Why can't I be satisfied?

2010-12-17T09:03:00.000Z

Learn something new before breakfast. I don't do it deliberately - perhaps I should go through the various foreign words of the day that come in by email or something - but there's always something new to pick up, and it will be a black day when it stops. Head fake, today: thanks to GB Trudeau, so rich a source of things that are new to me. Where would I be without Doonesbury to keep me grounded? Today, "head fake" - which turns out not to be a counterfeit West Coast psychedelic musician, but the American equivalent of a dummy, as in rugby - or in association football, I guess. Well, if the word "dummy" is available to me I won't be making much use of the American term.

Which brings me, by a route known only to myself, to "pixie dust". There's a lot of it around, and a text message from a new client, referred by a former student of mine, reminds me. It fell with the snow a couple of weeks ago, although that particular sprinking seems to have gone the same way as the snow did - got to go after that prospect again today. But, just like with head fakes, I'm in an uncomfortable zone somewhere on the western side of the Atlantic. Like most copyright lawyers, I have more than a passing acquaintance with Peter Pan - indeed, even had a client who'd written a musical version, and knew the ins and outs of Schedule 6 to the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act which was very interesting. And when I was a bairn [I'll throw that in so maybe someone somewhere else in the world will learn something before breakfast too] I used to go to the pantomime in Newcastle - about this time of year - so I had a fair knowledge of Barrie's play. Even so, it only hit me this morning that pixie dust is the Disney equivalent of what Barrie, in a different, more innocent and (in some ways) gentler age, called fairy dust.

Which I think goes to show that, as with so many other aspects of life, the pace at which the meaning of words changes has accelerated. More than that: it's not just the rate at which speed increases, the rate of acceleration itself is accelerating. That exhausts my A-level applied maths, and perhaps explains how I once scored one mark in an exam - though I think my teacher was trying to convey a message, because I recall that I had a couple of other things right too. Come to think of it, he was also the school's careers master and it was his suggestion that I should do maths A level - after he'd given me private tuition (meaning, my parents had paid him for private tuition) to get me through O-level. Nearly 40 years on, the thought suddenly occurs to me: did he hope to create more private tutoring work for himself? Unlikely, as he was a fundamentally good and decent man, unlike many of the weirdos who taught there!

Song from the bottom of a Well

2010-12-16T22:48:00.000Z

I felt this evening that (in the words of the song) I hadn't moved here, I just fell - into a comprehensive meltdown of the railway network - but the title was intended to refer to the announcements at Paddington station, which were utterly incomprehensible. They always are. The messages echo around Brunel's great shed, and it seems that the announcers merely shout more loudly into the microphones to try to overcome the deficiencies of the equipment. Years ago, there was a female announcer with a delightful soft Irish accent, who pronounced everything with perfect clarity: now it is not merely useless as a means of disseminating information, it is worse, because it drowns out attempts to engage railway staff in conversation.

Not that there were many railway staff in evidence at Paddington today anyway. Two on one of the customer information desks, besieged by passengers ("customers") trying to find out where they might be able to get a train, and when. The reason was a power failure in the Didcot area which had put out the signalling, from about 2.30 this afternoon. I eventually asked a gentleman in railway uniform whom I found on a platform, and he was remarkably forthcoming: his colleague was even able to translate the words of the man down the well, and guide me to platform 13 where a train was about to leave for Reading. There I changed to an Oxford train and eventually arrived at Didcot - not quite four hours after leaving the office. At least once ensconced in a railway carriage (even a cool one) I could doze, and (again in the words of the song) indulge in pleasurable fantasies. Thank goodness I got a good day's work in first.

A trip like that would have been bad enough on a summer's evening. Today the east wind came blowing back in, not with Siberian temperatures but bringing the thermometer crashing down and swirling snowflakes around - which haven't settled anywhere. Nowadays railway stations are not spaces in which people are encouraged to sit and wait, of course - the train operators believe their own information about late running trains, which no-one in the real world does. No, passengers are expected to spend their waiting time engaged in that most important of modern occupations, shopping. At least at Paddington there were the options of eating and drinking: at Reading most of those places were closed, and the waiting room bursting while a coffee bar stood empty and locked next door and refugees huddled on the platform wrapped in whatever they happened to have with them.

And it seemed such a promising day. I'd even thought I'd have to run to the station this morning to deal with an excess of energy that had me bouncing off the walls and ceiling. In the end, I put on a suit (needed for the party I was due to attend this evening but which eventually had to be sacrificed in the interest of getting home), then found that my one pair of black shoes at home were still in need of a clean after an evening in the slush of Westminster a couple of weeks ago, and that they shared a single lace between them. On top of that, I didn't merely cut myself shaving, I slashed my chin, and left for the station wearing suit, tie, trainers and sticking plaster. So maybe by that stage the day had started its descent.

Shouting in a Bucket Blues

2010-12-12T09:29:00.000Z

I have a lot to smile to myself about at the moment, but Twitter has given me one that needs to be shared. An account that I administer: I had a few requests to follow it, which I granted, and politely (I believe it's the done thing) followed them back. One of them a philospher ... a real living, breathing, thinking philosopher - and he replied:

So you're following me... and I'm following you? Does anyone know where we're going? Never mind, let's enjoy the journey for a while...

Twitter came up in conversation several times yesterday at the Writers in Oxford Christmas party. Why use it? One of our colleagues in that organisation has done fantastic politically important work with it, but I know of only that one example. A series of Tweets yesterday involving two of my friends mystified me, and my Social Media guru explained that it's all about the number of mentions one gets (or, more importantly, gives) - Twitter Juice, I guess, like Google Juice. The ultimate triumph of media over message, then. It doesn't matter what I put in the Tweet so long as it mentions @someone. I now understand - within its limitations - what #ff is all about. A formula guaranteed to create far more traffic than one can ever read? Just a numbers game?

At least when someone asks me what Twitter is for, I now have the perfect philosphical answer. Perhaps I'm wrong to call it futility, and I am indeed enjoying the journey - enjoying a few journeys at present, wondering where I'm going ... not a bad state of mind.

Some beautiful and poignant turns of phrase in this great song ...

Blackberry trackball stuck? Try this simple solution

2010-12-03T09:16:00.000Z

My blog post on how to replace the water pump drive belt on a Nissan Micra has proved a remarkable success, so here's another technical tip that might help someone. Yesterday my Blackberry (a 9000 Bold, I think, though I don't bother myself about details like this - it's not something I could get attached to, like a sports car) stopped scrolling down. Not for the first time - but on this occasion it wouldn't come free no matter how much I tried to move it.

I called in at the Orange shop at Paddington Station, where unusually I received little practical assistance (they have happily charged my phone for me a couple of times). I was simply advised this time to phone customer service, which I did, and they sent a new one which has just arrived ... but I'd already fixed the problem, at least temporarily, and this (after that long preamble) is what I want to share with you, gentle reader.

If you can't move the trackball with your finger, use a bit of sticky tape. Not only didt get sufficient grip on the trackball to move it past whatever was making it stick - it also picked up some of the junk that was causing the problem in the first place. I'll never know now how permanent the fix is but when this new phone does the same trick I'll know how to fix it.

Ce qu'a vu le Vent d'Est

2010-12-03T08:23:00.000Z

On a cold December night - the heaviest early snowfall for some 30 years - the pianist stepped onto the stage. The applause, as he took his bow in his evening suit, white shirt and black bow tie (made up, not tied, the adjuster gleaming in the audience's sight) was thinner than he might reasonably have expected, but as the staff member behind the bar - where did his accent place him? It seemed German - explained, there had been many cancellations because of the weather.

Being an English audience, they had carefully taken their assigned seats in the hall, so the fifty or so hardy souls present were scattered across the hundreds of chairs at their disposal. He lowered himself onto the piano stool, endeavouring to extract what dramatic effect he could from this mundane act, and the stool squeaked under his unexceptional weight. He raised his hands, and borought them down on the keyboard: the audience might have found the dissonances remarkable in such a piece, but if they did they didn't let on, and John Ireland's London Pieces unfolded in front of them. At the end, they applauded as convention dictated (though even without convention, they would have recognised the brilliance of the playing and the quality of the composition), the pianist stood, turned to face them, smiled, bowed, and resumed his seat (squeak!) To play a Chopin sonata.

At the end the same protocol was followed, and the audience made its way to the bar, from whence it returned twenty minutes later for the pianist to recite five of Debussy's Preludes. The Submerged Cathedral was further engulfed by what sounded like the wine bottles emptied at the interval being consiged to a nearby bottle bank, and the piano stool's protests continued from time to time throughout.

The audience, careful not to applaud inappropriately, lacked the collective confidence to mark the end of the fifth of the Preludes, so the performer had to launch into Poulenc's Suite Napoli without the encouragement of an ovation. Having added the Improvisation No XV (Hommage à Edith Piaf), he received the applause that was his due, and duly encouraged returned for a couple of encores.

Now be Thankful

2010-11-25T09:03:00.000Z

An obvious choice for today: best wishes to all my American friends. I'm thankful that I've had several occasions to hear and see Fairport (and, back in the mid-seventies, Swarbrick, Pegg & Nichol, who might appear as a fictional law firm in some piece of writing in the future) perform it. Oddly enough, I've never reflected on the lyrics before, and having started to do so I'm not going any further. They could be a bit of a downer - although attributed to Swarb and RT, I sense the lyrics were mostly Thompson's work. The melancholy gives it away ...

My 40 mile per week target remains just that - no running this week so far, the pathetic excuse being toothache. It wouldn't help it to be out in this weather, drawing large volumes of cold air through my mouth - would it? But it's better now - the weather and the tooth. A strange dream last night, in which I was taking part in the Broloppet (a long-standing ambition, as I want to get another of the five longest bridges in the world under my belt to add to the two I've already run, though an ambition that's hard to realise when it takes place at ten-year intervals) but with ten minutes before the start I was eating omelette and a large helping of roast potatoes without having even entered the event. Strangely, given that in real life it is fully subscribed months in advance, I was able to get an entry on the day, when finally I found the registration desk. At least I find that I was wrong about another troubling element: I thought I was on the wrong side of the bridge, but it does indeed start in Denmark. My dream ended with me finding the money for entry fee, and I have no idea what happened in the race. Nothing unusual there.

One for the Road

2010-11-12T13:27:00.000Z

Another 2.66, unencumbered by my canine coach. Purpose: to collect car from garage. Average pace 7:45 - which doens't sound great but when I've had only an hour's break since my last run, of 8.46, I'll call that a good result.

Nice to find a Ronnie Lane song to put in here. I remember meeting him back in about 76, and I also rememebr the rather good photos I managed to get of him and the band, back in the days when I thought maybe I could make a living out of that sort of thing.

If Tomorrow Wasn't Such a Long Time

2010-11-12T11:59:00.000Z

My personal trainer - the canine one - made sure I got the miles in this morning. We set off to go to the field to feed the ponies, then rashly decided to take the long route home - up to the Ridgeway, completing the regular 6.7 or so, one hour, run. Today it was 8.46 miles and 1:53. Coach Boston made sure I got the miles in by cleverly doubling back the way we had come along the Ridgeway, so I had a half-mile diversion - then had to cover it again. Eventually we agreed that I could put him on his lead, and although the pace didn't suit either of us at least he didn't stop at every interesting smell.

I think he's trying to get me accustomed to running at an appropriate speed for ultras.

Out there in the Night

2010-11-09T22:07:00.000Z

How quickly the nights draw in at this time of year. Club runs are now limited to well-lit roads in town, not the most interesting prospect but a necessary evil.

Arriving just in time for the start, I attached myself to three people who seemed to be going at about the right pace. Somewhere I overlooked two important matters: first, I was very, very stiff in the lower legs after Sunday's poseur effort, and second, I gave blood yesterday. Not very successfully, it has to be said: it dribbled out too slowly to fill a bag in the allotted 15 minutes, and a partly-full bag is no good because the measure of anticoagulant that's in the bag at the start doesn't become sufficiently diluted by the short measure of blood. The - what was he? I think his badge said "donor carer" or something, but let's call him the Man with the Needle, or better still, call him Shaun, which also appeared on his badge - so, Shaun asked whether I'd drunk much during the day (he was trying to take blood at 5.30pm) so I said, yes, and itemised it: three coffees and a cup of tea, plus a pint of water while I waited to be called. "That's not what you want to hear, is it?" I added, and he confirmed that I should avoid the diuretic drinks and concentrate on water and juice. Especially as it seems I have thin veins.

Anyway, an abortive donor session meant that I felt OK to run this evening, and to mark the occasion I forgot completely about taking it easy. For starters I was determined to do the long route, 6.35 miles or something (in the end I did a modified version which came in at 6.1, so not quite the target 10K per day like Murakami). The three with whom I was running in propinquity (a word I am using to amuse Graham) turned off where the medium route diverged from the long one, and I was on my own for a lonely mile or so before the two met again and, exhaling every lungful loudly enough for most of Abingdon to be following my progress, I caught Andrew and Ernie, out for a gentle run and a chat. I thought I might join them, but the craziness took over again and I left them to their reminiscences - beside them, my running history is hardly worth remembering, my running future is what matters.

I didn't think my pace slackened appreciably - the data show a bit of variation in my split times, inevitable in an urban run I suppose, but I hit a great pace half a mile or so from the end as i found myself mixing it with another club's elite group. Well, I think they were elite, and I didn't recognise them: but they did seem overdressed (jackets and hats: my concession to November was a long-sleeved top) and I did manage to say with them for a hundred yards or so, before tapering off on the climb back up to Tilsley Park.

The feeling at the finish was quite brilliant: stretching near another club ember, we remarked on how fantastic it is to finish. I need to codify that inspirational message so I can recall it when I need it - rather like the leaflet about my forthcoming book which I have pinned on the wall so I can read the endorsements from Bob, Dave, Tony and Jonathan - it's nice to be able to ask friends to say how much they like one's book! Apart from a good run, I haven't found anything quite so uplifting as that leaflet for a long, long time.

Another clubmate remarked on my Runner's World article, which he said he'd enjoyed reading: I enjoyed writing it, and I enjoyed the running, but the black dog that haunted me for months after revisiting my old school has caused immense damage this year. A few years ago a professional in these matters was impressed by how much my schooldays had scarred me, and I should have realised that I would take that assessment with me when I went back to the place, and prove to myself just how right he was. But now I've confronted that, and put the black dog back in its kennel: next year looms, with the prospect of some great runs - and I have announced on here my intention to get perilously close to the border between enthusiasm for new challenges and utter madness. The next step is to get RW to take the story of those races, when I do them.

Lucky man

2010-11-07T15:18:00.000Z

A perfect autumn running day, though whatever the weather I was determined to go out. Ini fact, the worse the better - it would bring out the Warrior in me.

It seemed cold enough to need a long sleeved top, and at first my hands were cold. I felt comfortable using pose technique, landing on my midfoot and allowing my heel to drop to the ground, but as the end of the first mile came up I realised I had settled into a brisk pace which was not going to work for nearly seven miles. I turned the speed down a couple of clicks and tried to concentrate on my running - to listen to what my body was telling me.

As I reached the end of the track to climb up by the A34 the sun broke route the clouds and the first beads of perspiration appeared on my brow. Whatever the temperature, I've never not broken sweat out running.

I don't want to overdo it at the moment, after such an extended period of injury, and I don't have the cardiovascular fitness to do this hill the way I'd like to. Nor can I manage the sort of scramble up from the tunnel under the A34 that I usually relish, but that will come back with time. As it is, I got up on my toes and made a respectable effort, although I was pleased to stop to admire the view at the top.

The panorama from this part of the Ridgeway is not the most beautiful sight in the world, but it is spectacular. But the spectacle is a result of human intervention, including - hard to miss - the village synchrotron. A little further along, two cyclists pass me and as they approach I hear them discussing it. "It's big, isn't it?" said one. The other said something about how it's used for testing atoms, and I hear him mention something about France - no doubt a reference to our synchrotron's larger cousin.

Along the Ridgeway I was pleased to see my shadow stretching out in front of me, a rare sight this year. Beyond the Harwell site, Didcot Power Station was shrouded in cloud, perhaps of its own creation, so the biggest blot on this landscape was missing. On a clear day, I might be able to see past it to Oxford in the distance, although having left my glasses at home today that might be a bit optimistic. It would be nice to do so.

The run was a great head-clearer too - I didn't manage to concetrate entirely on my running, as my thoughts drifted towards a challenging client problem I am trying to deal with, and happily I came up with an idea on that. My thoughts also drifted further along the Ridgeway, as I have just finished reading Eliza Graham's "Jubilee" - set in Kingston Lisle and Uffington, ten miles or so west from here, to where I entertain thoughts of extending one of my runs. It will be good practice for when I essay the Ridgeway Challenge - and now is the time for laying plans for runs next year ...

The End

2010-10-20T08:28:00.001+01:00

The BBC reports that the Cardiff half-marathon at the weekend was 211 yards short. It quotes one participant who wasn't pleased - and I can imagine lots of ordinary people thinking that perhaps he should get a life. I hope I'm wrong - and that everyone who reads it will be impressed by his commitment and achievement, as they should be by the commitment and achievement of all long-distance runners.

I'd feel miffed if I found a half-M was short, by any significant amount. I don't compare my Garmin miles with the mile markkers, but I can understand those who do - although given the Garmin Glitches I have experienced since I started using mine, I wouldn't rely too much on it measuring accurate miles. Over 26 miles and 385 yards (or 42.195 km, which is in fact the official distance, metricated in 1921), or even over half of that, I expect a GPS device would be pretty accurate - rather like an atomic clock: no good for measuring fractions of a second, but extremely accurate over longer periods.

No such complaints about the Abingdon Marathon, which I marshalled on Sunday morning. A perfect running day - meaning a cool day for standing by the side of the road, appluading the runners partly because it kept my hands warm - and a great bunch of runners, though perhaps fewer than usual found the breath to thank the marshals. Never mind, I know they appreciated it, or at least most of them did. Only one had blocked his ears, a bad idea as he approached the most dangerous junction on the route where the ability to hear the marshals' instructions was essential, and contrary (I believe) to express instructions from the organisers.

One might feel miffed if a race is short, but worse still is marshalling when one ought to be running. I had to defer my place in the inaugural Kielder Marathon on Sunday - the time saved being put to good use by turning out to marshal, I think, but the old motto "I'd rather be running" certanly applied. On Monday, I was: about nine miles round Regent's Park and up Primrose Hill with a new running mate, Dominic, which should also have included a long-standing (I so nearly wrote "old", which would be highly inaccurate) one but she was delayed in a meeting ... the lot of a City lawyer. At least we managed a quick dinner and a drink, not this time in Bloomsbury Square - the weather was less conducive to al fresco drinking than it was a few months ago, and not being dressed in sweaty running kit enabled us to go to a pub.

Before my course for CLT yesterday morning, I tied on my Luna sandals and headed slowly towards Regent's Park on an experimental outing to test my calf muscles with the radical alternative to cushioned shoes. I didn't get very far: I'm being prudent now, making sure I don't overdo it, and when I felt just a slight twinge in one leg I turned back to my hotel, but even a mile or so of soft running is a good start - and I will build up gradually.

Whole Wide World

2010-10-12T09:13:00.001+01:00

The perfect running day in London, and recklessly (which is what prompted my to borrow this title, and embed the video) I continued my comeback from injury by running both ways. I read somewhere about the benefits of runnig twice a day - and realsied that I did precisely that back in the mid-2000s, sometimes three times a day, and I was fitter then than ever before, or since. I took it easy, and made it to the office in the morning and back to Paddington in the evening without the slightest problem (save for the need to stop for a breather a couple of times).

One good excuse for a breather is to take a photo - and Horseguards looked stunning in the sunlight, backed by a clear blue sky. I'd left the train feeling like doing anything but running six miles, but a little way into the run I was pleased I'd made the choice. I thought the time was slow but it looks respectable: the distance, though, is 5.35 and I thought it was just short of 6. Far enough, though, for returning from injury, and certainly far enough twice in a day.

After the Embankment stretch, which I didn't think to photograph - I should collect some shots, and assemble photographic records of my regular runs - St Pauls looked pretty good too, although the sun was too far round by then to be at its absolute best.

I had another webinar to present yesterday, and after completing that I headed back to Paddington by much the same route, though I always set off from the office and turn right at the end of the street, which I only realised yesterday. I found a slightly better route to St Pauls, paced myself even more gently, forgot to restart the Watch a couple of times, and at Hyde Park Corner fell in with a runner who'd passed me at Blackfriars. "I've been seeing you of and on for four miles" I said. He admitted to having slipstreamed me for a while - and apologised for it. I told him he was very welcome, flattered by the idea that I might offer a worthwhile tow.

Back at paddington, the bike ride from Didcot didn't have much appeal - being quite dark by then - but I don't think asking for a lift from the station counted as cheating.

The Morning of our Lives

2010-10-05T08:38:00.001+01:00

It was a classic morning for transport problems yesterday. One of the all-time greats. Cycling to the station was fine, although I was two trains later than I wanted to be, and had I been on an earlier I'd have been through Maidenhead before a truck driver contrived to hit one of the railway bridges there. A bridge strike halts most of the trains, in both directions, until the bridge is judged to be safe: yesterday, a down train went across and, presumably on the simple basis that it didn't collapse, it was deemed fit to use. So a delay of only about 20 minutes - extra preparation time for my webinar on the Bellure case for CLT.

At Paddington, a lot of people were standing around forlornly outside the gated entrance to the underground station. I don't care whether the RMT strike: if I use public transport I take the bus, and if I don't do that I run - which I was dressed to do, but lacked motivation for - after all, this is my first day back to running after a lengthy lay-off and several months of very irregular running. A 205 came along Praed Street pretty soon, and I jumped on - along with a considerable number of other people.

An hour later, we reached King's Cross and the young lady in the adjoining seat, who'd told me she had five hours in hand for whatever journey she was on, left. That takes about 20 minutes on a normal day, by bus or running: I could probably have walked it faster than the bus could manage yesterday. Things improved after that, but I was stuck on the bus for so long that I had to eat my lunch. At every stop, a vast press of people crowded round the doors - if we even stopped, that is, because we went straight past several stops where no-one wished to alight.

The seat next to me was taken as soon as it was vacated, by another young-ish lady who proved to be much chattier than her predecessor. She enjoyed people-watching - and like me wondered what all these people trying to take a bus in the middle of the day were up to. "I wonder what sort of job you dress like that for?" she mused, looking down from the top deck at no-one in particular in the scrum outside the bus door. "I'd like to work there." We remarked on the sight of so many people on the streets - usually so many of them are travelling many feet below the surface. A lot of walking (and quite a lot of running) being done, though hardly any Boris bikes in use: we discussed the merits of the mayor's pet scheme, which I am inclined to dismiss as a token, perhaps a gimmick. What if you're the only person who's taken out one of the bikes? How are you going to dock it when you reach your destination? And with a charge of £45 to get access to the things, buying a cheap bike of your own (and an expensive bike in London is probably just a more effective thief-magnet) and keeping it somewhere handy has attractions.

My stay in the office was brief but fairly intense, so I could get to CLT's offices to present the webinar: by the end of which it was time to head for Paddington, and fortunately I felt much more like running it than I had in the morning. An inordinate number of pedestrians made it tricky to get along the Embankment, and there were plenty of runners out too, one of whom I spoke to briefly - he'd been on my shouldder for some distance, so I asked whether he was waiting to outsprint me at the finish. His destination wasn't mine, though: he admitted to running with a back pack for the first time in a long time, so I reckon he wasn't a regular running commuter.

I faded a bit in St James's Park so I used the excuse of the drinking fountain there for a pause. I had to mix it with a large number of cyclists down the Mall and up Constitution Hill, but they were well-behaved and I deliberately chose to run in the sand, well away from the cycle lane, which I thought would be pretty congested on a tube-strike evening. At Hyde Park Corner there was a long wait for the traffic lights, during which I cursed the New Zealand war memorial which necessitated the closure of a very useful subway: they deserve a memorial that engenders only positive feelings. I exchanged a few words with the runner next to me, of about my age, and it turned out that he too was heading for Paddington. We headed off side-by-side through Hyde Park, me trying to chat at first but finding the pace too much for that. I settled for a fast tempo and limited conversation: my companion seemed comfortable at that pace, and perhaps in a week or two I will be too. Once across Bayswater Road, I told him I'd use the rest of the run for a warm-down, and he excused himself and headed off for his train, which I saw him catch when I arrived a few moments behind him.

After stretching for a few minutes - something I need to make a fixed part of my routine - I phoned home to confirm what time I would arrive, then while I waited I attended to my 42 single leg squats on each leg. After about 20 on the second leg, the status of my train on the departure board changed to "boarding", and the ticket inspector came over from the barrier to draw my atttention to this. "I heard you telling someone you were taking that train", she explained. This is the sort of service level you receive from many - most - railway employees: it's the management who've lost sight of the fact that their task is to run trains on time and give their passengers the best possible experience. "I was just finishing my exercises", I explained: she urged me to do so, but I'd stopped by then. "No, the moment's gone!" I had to tell her, thanking her very much for her attentiveness.

Those were the days

2010-09-30T21:35:00.001+01:00

It's been a long wait - but finally Runner's World has hit the newsstands with a horrifying four pages of me, including one full-page photo. I have eclipsed Rachael and Mark, to whom I couldn't get close in competition. Six months after the event, it all seems rather distant.

If you buy Runner's World once in your life, make it November 2010 (yes, in the world of magazine publishing it's already November). You're unlikely to have such a laugh again!

I should add that I am rather proud of the prose (which my editor has modified just a little, mostly to tighten and improve it, but also to substitute "borstal" for my carefully chosen "institution". Maybe I need to learn not to try too much subtlety - after all, this was not literature, it was just an article in Runner's World - or do the two overlap?

Concertino

2010-09-30T10:16:00.002+01:00

I've surprised Chris, quite unintentionally, before, somehow managing to show him parts of London that he hasn't seen before. Last year he was amazed by Hyde Park and the Serpentine - to me, little more than a pleasant running route. Today I introduced him to Wigmore Hall.

Well, Wigmore Hall is rather surprising by any stretch of the imagination. To enter under that interesting-looking canopy and pass down the corridor to the box office and the entrance to the auditorium is odd in itself - it strikes one as a waste of prime London real estate, although presumably the street frontage is profitably occupied by shops. The corridor is merely the prelude to the most surprising part, the auditorium itself which you just have to go to see for yourself, if you haven't already. The arts and crafts cupola is nothing less than spectacular.

There's also a surprise or two down the stairs, where the reception I attended last week was held, in the Bechstein Room (with Clive Barda's best photographs hanging round the room). There's also a bar and restaurant, where we took a glass of wine and a bowl of crisps and Chris contrived to drop a wad of rail tickets and other small pieces of paper behind the bar. And to leave his programme.

We were there to hear, and watch (because virtuoso piano pieces are as much a spectacle as an aural experience), Mark Bebbington run through an eclectic (to my mind) programme, from Haydn, by way of Schubert, to Liszt, with a premiere performance of Ireland's youthful rhapsody along the way. Being no technical expert, all I can say is that it was uniformly superb, although the piece I looked forward to most, Liszt's transcription of the Liebestod, seemed to me to have rather more notes than it really needed. Even so, a sublime piece of music. Mark was called back for two encores, a piece by Castelnuovo-Tedesco (another premiere, perhaps, as it was unpublished and he told me he had discovered it while studying in Italy) and Feux d'Artifices - not that I recognised it, but someone said that was what it was. I really should know my Debussy better.

I've sometimes felt that Wigmore concerts were put on for the benefit of a closed circle - one member of the group playing for the enjoyment of the others, and perhaps moving round for the next event. To call it cliquey would give the wrong impression, as I didn't feel excluded, but it was a strange sensation - as if they weren't really public concerts. This evening seemed different, somehow, and anyway I am only going on the experience of three visits over a period of some 15 years, so I am probably talking complete rubbish: and each time there have been people there I knew, including the pianist in each case.

A satisfying way to end a very interesting day: a positive (though whether productive remains to be seen) meeting in the morning, and an afternoon of frenetic activity including an hour-long transatlantic conference. Unfortunate that a lunch with an old friend and client had to be dropped, but we'll get back to that soon.

No time to run in the middle of all that, but it's good to know that once again I can run when I want.

Youtube didn't have a lot of relevant choice to offer, but this is worth watching.

Room to Move

2010-09-29T22:46:00.001+01:00

The train jolts to a halt shortly after the train manager announces Reading as the next "station stop". But this isn't a station stop - it's one of those random ones that trains execute when the signals tell them to do so. Nevertheless four passengers have leapt to their feet and vied to be first to the door.