Category Archives: the marathon journey

109. Happiness, more or less

Posted on 30 January, 2006 by | Leave a comment

river-wey-navigation-and-newark-priory.jpg

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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Posted in 2006, history, life and times, music, Surrey and Sussex, the marathon journey, winter

108. The moonlit door

Posted on 15 January, 2006 by | Leave a comment

guildford-parkway-the-listeners.jpg‘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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Posted in 2006, life and times, poetry, the marathon journey, winter

100. Half a million steps

Posted on 12 October, 2005 by | Leave a comment

adidas-london-marathon-poster-second-thoughts.jpgIt 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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Posted in 2005, the marathon journey

97. Only scars carved into stone – a summer 20 miles

Posted on 12 August, 2005 by | Leave a comment

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.

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Posted in 2005, music, the marathon journey, training

76. A year of running, rainily

Posted on 11 January, 2005 by | Leave a comment

running-london-rain.jpg2004. A year all about rain. And one glass of grapefruit squash.

It’s a year since I wrote about the first long run of my 2004 London Marathon campaign. A wet and miserable winter run which uncovered some forgotten history on a wooded bluff above the River Wey. A line of tank traps forming the last line of defence for London against a Second World War invasion which never took place.

It was an unexpected and thought-provoking find, and I’ve learned a lot more during my running year of 1 000 miles since then. A year unlike any other I’ve run through.
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Posted in 2005, the marathon journey, training

60. Dual marathon decline

Posted on 13 July, 2004 by | Leave a comment

river-wey-guildford-paul-hetherington.jpgI’m hardly running at the moment, having more or less completely exhausted myself by running two marathons in quick succession.

It was a controlled risk, not without benefit and certainly not without consequences.
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Posted in 2004, the marathon journey

57. Blackpool Marathon: Welcome to the Pleasuredome

Posted on 21 June, 2004 by | Leave a comment

I know it’s out of fashion and a trifle uncool
But I can’t help it, I’m a romantic fool
It’s a habit of mine to watch the sun go down
On Echo Beach, I watch the sun go down.
Martha and the Muffins – February 1980


It’s a cold and blustery June evening, beside a deserted beach somewhere in Northern England. Far out to the west, the sun is setting beyond the receding tides, as the Irish Sea is whipping itself up into a swift herd of white horses. The weather doesn’t look that good for tomorrow, but it’ll be far too late to worry then. For when I see this spot again in the morning, it’ll be at the 23 mile mark of the Blackpool Marathon.
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Posted in 2004, music, racing, the marathon journey