Running in anger, unhealing blisters, and other musings

So tonight I ran in anger. I was vexed, annoyed, pissed off, and generally not in the best of moods.

I was in this mood mostly because I've not been out for a run for a week. A week! I've hit a wall, I cannot be bothered to run anymore. Why should I punctuate my day off with two and a half hours of running? There's loads I could be getting on with, like sleeping and lying down a lot.

But this attitude will do a man no favors in a month from now, so I finished work and ran into the night.

The first thing I noticed that I was running much faster than I should have been, this was leading to altercations on the pavements of Holborn, I was getting far too close to people, and giving them a fright as I ran past. I didn't mean to, but I also didn't care, I wanted this to be over as quickly as possible. I found myself getting faster, my breathing out of time, and pain started shooting through me.

My legs were starting to feel uneasy and suspicious, as if the rest of me had turned 'evil' like Superman in Superman 3, when he got so evil he got pissed up on whisky, ogled some girls, and made a little boy cry.

And then it hit me, I was punishing myself for my slothful week, I was intent of teaching myself a lesson, and if that meant knocking over someone during the course of it, then so be it.

I gave myself a good talking to and no mistake for about 6 miles and my mood started to shift, and as I ran into London fields my mood was about to take a ecstatic turn.

For anyone reading in London, by the lido in London fields somebody, I can only assume a lag doing community service, has planted a load of daffodils to spell out the letters SOS in the flower patch adjacent to the lido. I've seen this done outside Cardiff city hall years ago when a couple of prisoners had planted flowers 6 months earlier that eventually bloomed the words 'fuck' and 'twat' facing the hall and crown court.

While I smiled to myself a memory popped into my head of a dear friend, who got very drunk in the Cardiff students union and walked home through the same flower patch outside City hall. I can't remember exactly why but he started to violently rip the flowers out of their bedding and started throwing them over his shoulders.

It wasn't because he was offended by the swearing by the way, this was a different year.

Anyway, this being the heavily CCTV'd centre of town, and in front of the museum, county hall, and crown court. And with the police station being just behind the court the police duly arrived. My friend tried to make his escape but his baggy and beltless jeans made him look more like a fugitive penquin as he waddled across the green.

The police gave chase and my friend managed to get across the green, over the road, and to a metal spiked fence that ran along a tiny river. He scaled the fence only to catch his massive jeans on the top of the spikes, he tried to vault over but the spikes cut into his jeans and he was left hanging off the top.

By this point the police had stopped running, and were casually wandering over towards the fence and my dangling pal, as they got there my mates jeans gave way, ripped in half, and he fell to the ground with half his jeans on and the rest stuck to the fence.

Then the police took him in, and we collected him the next day.

By the time I got home I couldn't remember being angry at all today. But I'm sure my legs will remind me in the morning.

the agony and the ecstasy..........oh, just the agony then

I can't sleep in anymore, my body refuses to. It must be the running, my energy levels are through the roof, which is a bit of a joke as my legs are so sore that I'm walking around like Stephen Hawking.

It's 7:40am on my day off, I should be dreaming the dreams of kings, instead I'm getting the body glide on and out onto the road.

I'm trying to express how painful my legs are but words wouldn't do it justice. And then there's the other little aches and pains that have started creeping in. Blisters, lower back, and weirdly my arms, I put it all behind me and get on the road.

The body glide makes me feel like I've wet myself, which is very disconcerting and puts me off, and then I start to worry that perhaps I should have gone again before I left the house but the pain brings me sharply back into focus.

I get to the park and there are lots of new mums walking around in packs. They're like gangs but with three wheeled buggies instead of Staffs.

I'm running around with a look on my face like I've got knives cutting into my feet, or listening to Lady Ga Ga, and the mums are looking at me with a look that says,
"Until you've pushed one of these things out of you darling, your 'little run' is a walk in the park"

They've got a point but right now I'm thinking it's preferable to jam a pineapple somewhere than do this run. I get round the park and out.

I get onto Mare st and I'm pondering the poor spelling and grammar that has infiltrated my blog of late. It's mostly because I'm knackered from running, but it reminded me of being in school and having to go to 'special classes' to learn how to write properly because I was left handed. They made me write with my hand directly underneath the line I was writing, because otherwise my left hand would smudge the ink. 2 years I tortured myself trying to write like this, why didn't anyone give me a biro?

I get onto Graham rd and am not far from home when the overwhelming need to have a shit pushes past the pain and to the forefront of my mind. The body glide is playing tricks on me and for a split second I think that it's broken the barrier, thankfully it hadn't and I walk home with dignity intact.

I did think to myself as I wandered past the market,
"What would happen if I was forced to push one through here, and then I left it there? Would someone stop me and ask if I was going to pick it up?"

I guess I'd just get arrested.

Book reading, flying, and a enraged woman tries to hit me with a leash

Today's run was a long, hard slog that I never felt comfortable doing. As it went on though it got better and better.

I was trying to rest a few days before doing long distance, hoping that my muscles would be ready for the challenge, all it ended doing was leave me stiff, and not bothered about running to tesco let alone 16 miles.

It started badly when I tried to push out a bogey from my right nostril within about 2 minutes of starting, unfortunately I hadn't been running long enough for it to get 'liquidy' up there, so it ended up hanging out and slapping me about the face. It was as big as church bell and kids in the backs of cars could see it as they drove past. I rubbed my arm across my face and caught the beast and cracked on.

I looked up at the cloudless sky and saw a plane descending to land and it got me thinking about how, as I've gotten older, my fear of flying has got to the point where I am petrified of getting on a plane these. When I was a kid I preferred the flight more than the holiday: 8 hours of watching films, eating pretzels, and drinking coke. A right touch. When I got to my twenties I would then try to claw back the money I'd spent on the ticket by drinking as much as I could. I'd pretend that I was in a bar and calculated the cost of it. If I could clear £75 I'd have got a wicked deal on my flight!

Now I just sit there listening to noises thinking,
"That's not meant to sound like that, what is that? the wheels? oh my god they're stuck, we're going to crash land"

It's so weird that as you get older you get more scared of death. You'd think you'd be shitting it at 10 because you have so much to live for, not once you've done a fair bit of living. If I carry on at this rate by the time I'm 60 I'll not leave the house and cry all the time.

I got massively philosophical for about 3 miles then my mind flipped when I saw a woman walking and reading at the same time. How does that work? You can't be concentrating on the book if you're trying to not walk into the road, and everyone else has to navigate around them as you wander about!

I ran across a few bridges and headed towards the park where my run took a violent turn. I was about a third of the way around when I saw a dog happily curling out a massive turd onto the grass, as its owner looked on proudly,
"She's bound to pick up that massive shit" I thought,
"Otherwise some small child is going face first into that thing, and it'll be blind by Tuesday"
She didn't, and they started walking towards me.

Now I don't have kids and don't much care but it's important that we all keep to the deal. Got a dog, pick up its shit, because if you own the dog, you own its mess. So I ran past and said very casually,
"Not picking that up then no?" then did the classic shaking of the head, with a added tut, tut, tut.
I'd past her by the time she'd turned and said something that I couldn't her, but she looked outraged that I had the nerve to question her.

I carried on running and got all the round to the other side of the park when I saw her coming towards me. She clocked me when I was about 6m away from her, her eyes narrowed, then got really big, and I could see the fury. She started shouting and pulled her chain leash and swung it me! I gave it a Shane Williams side step and started laughing. This didn't go down very well with pooh face, she went ballistic, so I turned on my heels and ran off. As I did, I saw her dog being well 'looked after' by another, much larger dog.

I ran the rest of the way with the mighty Andy C and got home in 2hr and 10mins. Turns out I'd run 16 miles. Not bad, and I still had another 40 mins in me. wicked.

13 miles in the sun, vanity, and the joy of pornography.

Now what I did this Sunday was run down to the river Thames, cross it at London bridge, back over it at Tower bridge, and then around Victoria park. 13 miles in total.

All I thought about on the way to the river was how brilliant the sunshine was, but also how cold the wind chill was on my bare pasty white legs.

It's when I got to the park however that my head started going all over the shop.

Firstly, you don't see a lot of porn mags in bushes anymore do you? Another thing the digital revolution has ruined, the incredible feeling you'd get when you stumbled upon a discarded grot mag, hidden away in a bush in the park. It was like finding Hitler's diaries stuffed inside the holy grail, wrapped up in the Turin shroud. Or to put it another way, like finding photos of naked women when you were a 14 year old boy who'd never seen a set of bristols, let alone a flange. Amazing.

Anyway, as I lamented the passing of the printed wank mag, I passed a few people jogging in sunglasses, and I don't mean sports glasses, I mean proper 'I'm on the beach lying down getting a tan' sunglasses. At first I thought it was fine, but then it started to grate on me. It's not a fashion show, nobody should be looking good doing this, you should be covered in sweat with a pained or focused look on your face. Not bumbling along acting like you're cruising down Broadway market acting like a tit.

And then! and then! I saw someone running towards me, looking focused and determined. She was also fit, and I thought
"Yes, finally, someone's who's taking this seriously. Somebody who cares!"
And as I rounded the corner and came up alongside her I could see her mouth moving,
"Oh, self motivating herself, that's brave, but fair play to her"
And then she passed me, and I realized that she was talking into her bluetooth!

The 'focused' bint was moaning about her sister, and how she'd ruined her birthday!

I nearly stuck my leg out so that I could watch her smash her face into the floor, but I jogged on.

Next up was dogs who look like their owners, or owners who look like their dogs, and which order that comes in. Does the owner buy the thing knowing that it looks like them? And if so, is that not a bit vain on the owners part? Or does the dog slowly turn into the owner? and if that's the case, does the dog look up on the first day of ownership and think,
"Oh Christ, look at the state of them, this isn't going to work out for me down the park at all"

It's a minefield, it really is.

A moment of pure joy between two men on a main road

The first thing that happened as I ran away from my still giggling colleagues (it was the shorts) was a massive feeling of positiveness, it just felt good to be on the road after a day at work.

This positive vibe continued as I ran through Holborn, down London wall, and into Liverpool st.

By this point I was doing good time, I felt great, and my music (Marcus Intalex fabric) was lifting my spirits. All was right in the world.

As I got to the junction that joins great eastern street, commercial st, and shoreditch high st I felt the urge to run through the centre of the road as all the lights were red. The drivers faces sat in their cars, bored with the traffic, and looking at me with envy, or disdain. I didn't really care which.

I got to the other side and looked across the road to see a fellow runner, he looked tired and very sweaty, but I could tell, I'm not sure how, that he was in the same good place I was.

He was crossing the road and I could see that we would 'meet' on my side, and I don't know why, but as he got maybe a metre away from me I raised my arm up and offered him a high five. As I did so he looked across towards me, smiled, and met my high five with a symmetry that, if we'd practiced, we would never have got right.

The clap was loud and celebratory, then we ran off in different directions. I was so happy about this tiny moment of joy, that I missed my road and ran the long way home.

But it was worth it.