roads of stone

1. London is Olympic – 21.04.2006

The London 2012 film and music were playing at the Expo last night, reminding me that Sunday will see the first marathon in this newly Olympic city of ours.

And inspiration for the marathon start line just doesn’t get any better than this.

I look into the window of my mind
Reflections of the fears I know I’ve left behind

I step out of the ordinary
I can feel my soul ascending

I’m on my way
Can’t stop me now
And you can do the same

Heather Small – May 2000

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My winter’s journey of 18 weeks and 499 miles is over. Only four more days and 26 miles to go.

From the bleak beginnings of a frozen, snowy Christmastime in Scotland, through fifty Crawley lunchtimes and Guildford nightfalls I’ve wandered.

Along pretty Surrey towpaths and under pitch-black Houston skies, I waved those winter months goodbye.

I’ve seen the North Downs slopes from every side, gasped breathless in the Alps, and loped lazily down last weekend’s Warwickshire lanes and the Avon riverbank, too.

It’s been a long way, this year.

I’ve felt no real promise, honest aspiration, or even false pretence of quicker feet or swifter legs, this time.

Just run through winter, until you reach the spring, I said.

So I just got through it. And now I’m here.
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(… continued)

As I turn left off the main A25, uncharted territory lies ahead. The narrow lane rises in front of me, and I neither walk, nor confidently run, but somehow cobble together an unheroic if effective mix of both until the gradient flattens.

The ancient pasture land of Abinger Roughs lies to my left, that name describing quite well my personal symptoms of oxygen deficit and lingering virus.

It’ll only get harder from here, and so it’s just the ideal time to spy a couple of puzzled walkers standing by the roadside with their map.
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A drizzly morning, the last Sunday in March. And so, it’s come to this.

All those freezing January lunchtimes, seemingly endless February slogs into that slowly lengthening winter dusk, and forays into the primaeval darkness in the rain.

Looking back, it was nothing more than preparation for what lies ahead today.
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The glass of the second bottle felt moist and cool in my hand. Inviting.

5.30 pm at an exhibition in Earl’s Court, London’s very own suburb of Melbourne. It wasn’t an Australian beer in my hand, this time, even if three of those had slipped down effortlessly the evening before.

One more had disappeared just a moment ago, subsumed in seconds and without a thought. As they always are, at the witching hour which closes any trade show.

It was hard to believe my eyes, really, but it was happening. The bottle, so helpfully handed to me just a moment before, was moving back towards the table. My papers were gathering themselves into my bag.

Time for a decision. I collected my coat, mumbled a few feeble farewells, and headed out into the dusk and the rain, raising my collar and shuffling forwards along the wet pavement towards the tube station.
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Happiness – more or less
It’s just a change in me
Something in my liberty
Oh my mind

Happiness – coming and going
I watch you look at me
Watch my fever growing
I know just where I am

Well, how many corners do I have to turn ?
How many times do I have to learn ?
All the love I have is in my mind
The Verve – September 1997

The runner’s high. Goodness knows, I’ve sought it long and hard recently. I’ve waited long enough.

Some would argue that it’s exercise-induced narcosis which keeps us running in the first place. But I know that’s not true. Because whilst I appreciate the benefits of running, and a certain post-run clarity of thought is up there on my list, there really is much more to it. You can’t manufacture those moments – they just happen.
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‘Is there anybody there?’ said the Traveller,
Knocking on the moonlit door;
And his horse in the silence champ’d the grasses
Of the forest’s ferny floor.
The Listeners
Walter de la Mare (1873-1956)

It’s unusual to find a poem on the side of a building, especially picked out in brick and 15 m high, but that is one of the unique attractions of the Guildford Travel Inn.

It may be one of the few, actually, since its location right beside the booming A3 dual carriageway is nowhere near as lyrical as the inspiration adorning it. But it cheered me to learn that its author Walter de la Mare was born in Maryon Road in Charlton, just a short sprint from mile 4 on the London Marathon course.
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It takes half a million steps to train for a marathon. Around 500 miles, more or less.

And if I haven’t managed quite that distance this time, in those 18 weeks, it’s because for quite a few of those, I didn’t know that I was training for a marathon. Even now, I’m not certain that I was.

It was a slow and injury-bound winter which forced me to jump on my bike last Spring. Hills, more hills and harder hills fell behind my forks in place of long runs beneath my feet. Frustrating in a way, and yet somehow refreshing, too.
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