July 2011 – Not a Jogger

Hills, hills, hills

I live in a hilly part of London. I know runners often disagree about what counts as ‘hilly’, but I would say that last night’s 6 mile circuit of Highgate, East Finchley, Muswell Hill and Crouch End was hilly.

I walked three times. I am not proud of this but it has been a long week. I tried to push myself over the first (and hilliest) ten minutes but I could tell my lungs weren’t up to the task. The legacy of giving blood is still there – I feel much less fit than I did a month ago.

I want to test myself, push myself harder again. Today I’m heading up to the Yorkshire Dales for a week’s holiday, with my trainers. I have a feeling I’m about to find out what ‘hilly’ really is, and it won’t look like this:

Gloom and doom

As I write, I am sitting at my desk watching the man who lives in the penthouse apartment across the canal sunbathe on his roof. I hate him. I have two days left at work (well, one and a half now) before a week off but, as I am heading North, I don’t think there will be many opportunities for sunbathing.

This morning’s run was not sunny, literally and figuratively. I was tired. My legs were tired. The sun was tired, hiding away until I was shut up in the office.

It’s hard not to get disheartened on a run like this. Every step was a trial, every incline a mountain. The body was weak and the spirit un-willing. I walked four times in four miles and even stopped at the gym on the pretext of doing a few arm weights, but really because it meant I could have a rest and watch TV for a bit.

When I rounded the corner of my street after running back from the gym, a sinking feeling pushed my heart still lower in my chest. All that hard work and now I had to go to work.

Camden Town

Running home from work, I used to loop through Islington’s leafy backroads – the quiet squares of Barnsbury, the faded terraces of Canonbury, a peek into the shop windows of Essex Road. Lately though, when I am spat out of the revolving doors of my office building onto the King’s Cross pavement at 5.30pm, I have been drawn towards Camden Town.

I think my love of Regent’s Park has crept slowly east; I used to hate going to Camden. Arriving late at night, I would scurry from the tube to the Electric Ballroom or a late night bar, trying not to catch anyone’s eye. The heady mix of chancers and drunks selling their souls down by the Lock never seemed romantic to me. I never went in daylight.

Last night I ran a circuit of Camden back-streets, breathing in dust and fumes as I ran past council estates and faded townhouses, grandeur and squalor. I braved the wandering chaos of the High Street, dreamed of New York on Delancey Street, and had to rewind my podcast on St Pancras Way, too busy people-watching to pay attention.

At the corner of Camden Road, two girls were photographing the street sign. A fading bunch of flowers was tied to the railing and I turned to gawk intrusively. “AMY” was written on the sign.

It’s odd how an area can be so inextricably bound to a person. I am just waking up to the tawdry romance of Camden, but Amy Winehouse is its pin-up girl, now forever tattoed to its arm. I ran on to Tufnell Park and Archway, back to the quiet hinterland where I live, anonymously, happily. Luckily.

It’s not a Competition

It has been mentioned (once or twice) in the past that I have a slight tendency towards competitiveness. Sadly this is not matched by a similar level of self-belief or natural talent.

I am only competing against myself, but I am a rival who never retires. I’m not just talking about achieving new personal best race times. Even on days when I don’t run, I make sure I am there to remind myself of past glories and serve up an extra helping of guilt, just in case I am not feeling lazy enough already.

I only ran twice last week. This was partly due to feeling faint, but mainly to going away for a hen weekend where running wasn’t an option, but staying up until 3am eating chips and dancing to Meat Loaf was.

Whenever I left the house or office last week runners swished by, trailing shame and envy in their wake. Every morning Mr Notajogger bounded in from his run, dripping the sweat of the righteous, as I groped blearily for the kettle. In York for the hen weekend I watched a runner run the length of the river bank in the time it took my hungover brain to work out how to get the coffee out of my takeaway cup.

Last night I joined the ranks of the runners again and my guilt was silenced. I ran 6 miles around Regent’s Park from the office and it was a lovely run. Slow, very slow, but steady. Compared to last week’s effort, this week is already winning. Not that it is a competition.

Good Day!

Yes! Today merits an exclamation mark. I finally managed a good run, outside, on a sunny day without feeling faint.

As runs go, it was far from perfect. Half way up the first ascent of Crouch End Hill my chest started to feel tight and by the summit I was gulping breath into my lungs in painful gasps. 25 minutes and a few trembling ascents later, I decided to walk up the last two hills.

Usually I feel guilty about not running (or even jogging), but today I felt like walking gave me more time to look at the gardens, to listen to This American Life and to feel the sunshine on my face. I was bright red, sweating, out of breath and exhausted. I felt weeks away from being able to run a good 10k time, but I didn’t care. Running races and training for them is something I enjoy, and miss, but after a few days of feeling like I couldn’t run at all, a bad run on a beautiful morning was good enough for me.

Treadmill Blues

I didn’t run on Monday and Tuesday after feeling so terrible on Sunday. When I don’t run, there’s no reason to write a blog. Yesterday I realised that, whenever I don’t run and don’t write, I have started to miss both.

When running, I’ve begun to mull over what I might write once I finish and think about ways to express what I think or see. When writing, I have the time to ponder why I run, and what I want to achieve. Writing about running makes me look forward to the next run. Running makes me look forward to writing.

This is great, as long as I am running. When I’m not, I feel twice as bad as I used to when just not running was the issue. Last night I cracked and went to the gym. If I fainted in the gym, the logic ran, my head would probably hit a piece of equipment before it reached the floor. In the gym, however, no-one can hear you scream. If they don’t have headphones in, they are deafened by the soundclash of bleeping machines, whirring treadmills, thumping zumba music and announcements for 20 free sunbed sessions. Did you know they are more effective after a work-out?

I’m glad I went, but 3 miles on a treadmill are not the stuff of inspiration or meditation. One of my headphones is broken so I had the New Yorker Fiction Podcast in my right ear and cacophony in the left. I did some cross-training, 10 minutes on a bike, a few weights, and scurried home into the evening rain, so uninspired.

Too much, too soon

Or, “when will I learn?”

Yesterday’s rain-a-thon was a 7 miler, so I could have gone for a short run today; a 5 mile trot around Crouch End would have been fine. Me being me, however, I decided it would be a good idea to run to Regent’s Park (4 miles away), run round it and come back – 9.5 miles in total.

I didn’t manage it.

Waking up this morning I didn’t feel dizzy or faint. Things were back to normal, I was convinced. I was fine on the way down to the Park, some stiffness from yesterday’s run, but my head was clear and I was happy to be out dodging puddles. Then I set foot on the soggy grass and knew that things would be going downhill as soon as I started the uphill return leg. The woozy dizziness had returned and the horizon started bouncing around oddly in my peripheral vision. It was a strange feeling, not like I would keel over at any minute, more an uncertainty about what might happen with every step. I had to marshal every part of my brain to land each foot on the ground. As I rounded the final bend in the Park I entertained a brief fantasy of flopping face forward into the welcoming wet turf and lying there until lunchtime.

I didn’t. I dropped the pace but kept running until Tufnell Park, then walked the rest of the way home. With an “out and back” route there is no shortcut, walking is the only way forward. I’m glad – at least I got the miles done, slowly.

Rained On

The good news is I made it out for a run, the bad news is so did the clouds. They were so happy to see me running again they cried. A lot.

The only people out on the streets today were running, mostly to their cars or for the bus, but some were running to run. We grimaced at each other as we passed. No-one had been caught by surprise, it had been raining all morning and will continue all weekend. We knew we would get wet but we went out anyway.

I usually like running in the rain, if it’s not too cold. The streets are quiet and as long as I have a cap on and can actually see through my glasses it doesn’t bother me to get wet. I have an expensive gore-tex running jacket I could wear but I don’t usually bother. It’s too swishy. And pink. Why do all women’s running clothes come in pink? Grr.

I am wondering why I didn’t enjoy this morning’s run. I think it’s due to still feeling a bit dizzy after giving blood and worrying about that. That and the relentless rain. In Alexandra Palace Park the street lamps were still lit against the darkening sky – at 11am.

When I got home I had to take off my dripping clothes in the hallway before i was allowed in the flat. I should probably go and pick them up…

Vampires ate my trainers II: this time it’s serious

I gave blood on Monday night and Thursday finds me only just capable of walking without feeling faint, so I don’t think there’s much chance I’ll run this week.

I don’t really understand what’s going on with my body. When I gave blood in March I felt fine afterwards; my running wasn’t at its best in the following two weeks, but I didn’t feel faint or sick. Giving blood is an important act, and a small amount of wobbly headedness is a small price to pay for saving a life so this shouldn’t put anyone off donating, but I would quite like to feel normal again now please.

I managed to walk to work this morning, which was made interesting by a couple of serious head-spins when I looked up quickly from the pavement or my i-pod to the street. It reminds me of the winter when I had labyrinthitis or, as Mr N called it, David Bowie Disease. Sadly this didn’t involve hanging out with the Goblin King, rather constant dizziness and nausea. At its worst I couldn’t walk without falling over because I wasn’t able to tell whether my feet were hitting the ground or the walls. Fun times.

This faintness is nothing like labyrinthitis dizziness – I know it would stop if I lay down – so I’m trying to treat it like a trippy addition to my commute. It was a little bit like walking on a bouncy castle at times, but most of the pavements stayed where they should be and I managed to remain upright. Concrete is no soft rubber pillow, as my smashed i-phone screen can testify.

Wake-up call

Back to work today, and to rising at 6am for a run.

I was tired, but after the initial shock of the alarm and a fight to open my eyes, a smile started to wake up my face. Into the kitchen to feed the weaving cats, back into the dark bedroom to pull on my kit, a quick brush of the teeth and out onto pavements dark with last night’s rain, glittering in the sun. It was a beautiful morning, even on the Holloway Road. I passed several other runners who looked deep in thought, pondering the day, the week, or perhaps just breakfast.

I myself have eaten two breakfasts and am about to go for my second lunch, as it is time to give blood again and after last week’s croissant festival, I will take any excuse to fill my face.