Month: November 2011

A Very Quiet Weekend

Saturday dawned, cloudy and grey. I lazed in bed for a good couple of hours, will-I-won’t-I-ing. Eventually I scraped myself into my running shoes and lurched around the streets for 20 minutes like a zombie. The furthest I moved for the rest of the day was from the sofa to the kettle. I watched The Princess Bride, Harry Potter (5, I am way behind), and read the paper from cover to cover.

Sunday dawned, cloudy and grey. Mr N was planning an 8 mile tour of the Crouch – part of his “easy week”. I felt good, but how good? Not 8 miles good. I turned down his running chat for a solo amble with the latest This American Life podcast. In the end I ran about 7 miles, (with a minor walking break towards the end). The sun came out, the legs were steady and I even made it out of the house again that afternoon.

—

It’s hard to read about the New York marathon, or races of any kind, when you feel too tired to train properly, or you’re unfit or injured. Even on a good day, stories that should be inspirational can feel like accusations – you will never do this.

Seriously, though, running a marathon in just over two hours must involve witchcraft. It’s as fictional as Harry Potter, as much of a fairy tale as The Princess Bride. Not so many laughs, though, I shouldn’t think.

Fur Coats: the way forward

Last night’s run home from work was only my second of the week. I am finding it surprisingly easy to cut back. My bed has been particularly comfortable, the evenings especially dark.

Usually when the clocks go back it spurs me on to run. I like being out at night – there are fewer people in my way and no-one can see how fast (slow) I’m running.  I can’t run in the park any more, but I feel safe running on the roads, despite the best efforts of the odd drunken idiot.

The only bad thing about running during the winter is the washing. With two runners in the house running 4-5 times a week each, our washbasket overfloweth. It’s not even cold yet so this can only get worse. By Christmas our bed will have disappeared under the piles of dirty or drying laundry and we will be forced to run in jeans and workshirts. There will be chafing.

Yesterday’s run was filthy. It was teeming down and I landed in at least two monster puddles crossing busy junctions. Back at the flat, a very wet cat was waiting on the doorstep to greet me. I peeled off my soaking kit in the hallway, attempted to find places to hang it all, emptied the washer of its current load and hung that up. The cat shook the water loose from his fur in seconds, licked off the remaining few drops in a trice and eyed me patronisingly. Where was his dinner?

The Idiocy of Strangers

I am not a violent person. When I do get angry, it’s usually at myself or, occasionally, at more general things like racism, cheating, or people who wear leggings as if they were trousers.

When faced with someone jumping a queue, though, or a woman with visible knickers, I struggle to get angry at them personally. It just makes me sad, because I know they’re humans having bad days or fundamental lapses in judgement, and I too am a human who has bad days (though I would never leave the house in a pair of tights and a leather jacket).

This morning I got angry at a person, personally, in person. It is the 1st of November and I was running down Tufnell Park Road at 6.30am in the dark. Two men and a woman were filling the pavement ahead of me, tripping down the footpath on their way home from a Halloween’s carousing. They were young and tall and costumed, probably students with nowhere they had to be on a Tuesday morning. I ran close to the wall, annoyed that they didn’t seem to be making room when, just as I was squeezing by, the girl screamed into my face, then laughed as I jumped and dodged out of her way.

It was nothing. A split-second encounter.

I was so cross it took me the rest of the run to calm down. I wanted nothing more than to turn around, run after the girl and push her to the ground. I wanted to do it so much my fingertips ached with the longing to do it. I wanted to scare her. I wanted to show her I wasn’t scared. I wanted to tell her she was an idiot.

I didn’t. People love to goad or taunt runners, because they know that a 6.30am running type isn’t going to turn around and deck them. If you ever retaliate, or shout at them, they are offended, “I was only joking”, they say. Well, I’m not laughing.