Two thousand miles
Is very far through the snow
I’ll think of you
Wherever you go
The Pretenders – 1995
It wasn’t all of Chrissie Hynde’s two thousand miles, not quite, but it felt like a very long way as I drove back from Pitlochry last week.
Five hundred and eleven miles. An intriguing distance – more or less an entire marathon training programme, packed into eleven hours. And covering a similar range of emotions, perhaps.
Don’t know why you’re so blue
The sun’s gonna shine on everything you do.
Ocean Drive – The Lighthouse Family 1996
The best of times, the worst of times. Well, it was neither of those. My 4:15 today places 4th in my all time top 6 (er, the only 6) marathon performances.
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Your sun so bright it leaves no shadows
Only scars carved into stone
On the face of Earth
U2 – March 1987
If I think hard enough, I can probably remember each and every one. Not just my marathons, each of which are easy enough to recall, but the long runs which go before, which form the basis of any training campaign. Those twenty-milers which lie at the far end of all those long weeks of running.
Posted in 2005, music, the marathon journey, training
We talk and we talk
Until my head explodes
I turn on the news
And my body froze
I’m going underground, going underground
So let the boys all sing
And the boys all shout for tomorrow
The Jam – March 1980
Hi Rick
Many thanks for your note earlier, as well as for your concern. It’s been a terrible day.
Fortunately, I wasn’t up in town this morning. Although I have been unaffected directly by today’s events, that is not to say that I have been unmoved. It has been quite simply the most remarkable and poignant week in London that I can ever remember.
And what did I do ? Same as I did that summer’s day, 20 years ago. I ran 10 km, and I watched a concert.
It’s not going to change the world. Or is it ?
Posted in 2005, life and times, London, music, politics
As we swoop down through a turbulent and thundery Madrid sky, the brown and dusty fields rising to meet us already tell their tale of a dry Spanish spring and the early summer heat. The weekend has just begun, and there’s no better way to leave long hours and weeks in the office behind us as we drive northwards from the city, through the busy Friday night traffic towards the looming grey shadow of the Sierra de Guadarrama.
Posted in 2005, A1 - the best of roads of stone, geology, life and times, music, Spain
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roads of stone 
