Category Archives: winter

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

107. Don’t it make a bad run good ?

Posted on 8 January, 2006 by | Leave a comment

wey-valley-winter-guildford.jpgThirteen for me today. Cold, wet, grey. Rain spreading from the west in the second hour.

I’ve felt slow, sluggish and lack-lustre in this worryingly intermittent campaign. I wasn’t sure of the reason, since my weight appears to be under control.

Nevertheless, the inability to squeeze into 36L trousers at the sales this afternoon tells its own story. I do need a bigger size than 5 years ago, mostly because my thighs have grown with all that power muscle (ahem) so that I appreciate a more roomy cut. However, this does not usually extend to not being able to do the darned things up.

The truth revealed – that my weight has recently found a new home just above my belt.

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Posted in 2006, training, winter

106. A Highland reel – Pitlochry, Perthshire

Posted on 6 January, 2006 by | Leave a comment

pitlochry-mountains-snow-perthshire-scotland.jpgTwo 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.

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Posted in 2006, music, Scotland, winter

79. In sickness and in health

Posted on 28 February, 2005 by | Leave a comment

One of the great benefits of taking up running is that I rarely get ill. Touch wood.

formigal-spain-and-edinburgh-scotland-winter-2005.jpgIn years of yore, winters were always long, drawn-out, snuffly affairs. I seemed to go from cold to cold. Handkerchiefs were in almost continual use, and it seemed like I was permanently tired. From October to April.

After taking up running, I still was permanently tired, of course, but at least there was good reason, and it was a different kind of tired. And most of the zillions of germs that knock around our offices and schools during the winter months decided I wasn’t worth meddling with. Not only was I fitter, and at times even perhaps slightly thinner, but I was also more resistant to the coughs and sneezes that serve as unwelcome bedfellows to many of us for throughout the darker half of the year.
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Posted in 2005, life and times, winter

77. The most miserable day of the year

Posted on 26 January, 2005 by | Leave a comment

An article on the radio this week said that 24th January was officially the most miserable day of the year. Apparently the combination of bad weather, dark nights, post-Christmas debt and broken New Year’s resolutions serves to make this the depressive lowpoint in our calendar.

The fact that it was a Monday can’t have helped much either.

ranmore-common-wiinter-guildford-flames-ice-hockey.jpg
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Posted in 2005, life and times, winter