Bad Days – Page 5 – Not a Jogger

Will run for Guinness

I have been slacking again. Not with the running, but with the writing about it. I’ve just got back from a long weekend in Ireland and now have three pieces of running to describe in words. I’ll try to keep it brief.

The first was a good run – a morning jaunt to Muswell Hill on Thursday. I believe it was sunny. I ran 5 miles and walked only once.

The second was a bad run – the first of two in beautiful Kinsale (I think that’s its registered trademark). We were there for a wedding and had two windows of opportunity for running: Friday afternoon and Sunday morning. On the Friday Kinsale didn’t look so beautiful. There was rain. There was wind. On the bridge across the Bandon river there was driving wind and rain of the horizontal variety. It was August but it felt like February. The run itself wasn’t too bad, but even I thought we were crazy for attempting it.

The final run should have been the worst of the three. It was the morning after a Guinness, vodka and wine-fuelled wedding during which I spent many hours on my feet in new high-heeled sandals, dancing to a traditional Irish band playing hits by the Black-Eyed Peas. At 7.30am on Sunday everything hurt, up to and including my eyeballs, but the sun was out and we were by the sea. There was running to be had.

I have just looked up our route on mapmyrun.com, to check the distance and record it in case I ever go back to Kinsale. It was a a truly gorgeous 5 miles, through winding town streets and along the pier wall, around the harbour’s edge, over the water to a 17th century fort. I was delighted to learn that the road we followed around the headland is called “The World’s End”, and that we crossed the river on the Archdeacon T.F. Duggan Bridge.

I didn’t take my camera, but I don’t think I could have captured the scene in any photograph. The morning sun glittering towards the headland, the ruin suddenly appearing beyond the bridge, the water calm and full of sky. None of these things had been visible in Friday’s fog and to have them suddenly revealed now, as if a curtain had been pulled back, was a gift for even the weariest eyes. One of my best runs ever.

Recovery

Since Sunday’s casual 13 mile jaunt, I have been bone tired. I fell asleep on the train on Sunday afternoon, again at work on Monday (at lunchtime, rather than the middle of a meeting), and on both Monday and Tuesday nights on the sofa after dinner.

I have been doing things other than sleeping. I walked the 3 miles to work on Monday, Tuesday and this morning, and yesterday evening I went to the gym. On hearing this was my plan, an outraged colleague spluttered, “Will it never end, this quest for fitness?”. No, I thought. That’s the whole point.

Fitness is not a goal but a state. When you’re fit, you want to stay fit, or be fitter. There is no ‘fittest’.

The gym was depressing. I haven’t been for two weeks and I haven’t missed it. The most interesting thing I could think to photograph was the treadmill speedometer, stuck at 11.5km/h (my recovery run speed). If I didn’t want to lift occasional weights to stave off the bingo wings, I would cancel my membership. My knees always hurt afterwards so paying £41 a month is literally a pain.

Can you tell I am grumpy? My body may have recovered, but mood has not.

The Smell of Death

I’m in the Yorkshire Dales, Swaledale to be precise, and the running is not easy. We’ve been out twice and the main points to note are: 1) it’s hilly, and 2) those hills are covered in dead rabbits.

On Tuesday morning we ran from Low Row to Reeth, about 7 miles up and down the valley side, and I counted 31 dead bunnies. Even the live ones (of which there are many) look unhappy, their faces rotting away in a terrifying Watership Down fashion.

Sorry if this is making you feel queasy. You can imagine how I felt after 30 minutes running along a narrow track, batting away flies, trying to avoid the next rotting corpse. Every minute there was a fresh wave of the smell of death. You don’t get that in North London.

As predicted, I was soon pining for the ‘hills’ of Crouch End for other reasons – the run we had planned was probably a fell runner’s walk in the park but it nearly killed me. I haven’t been this tired after a run in months. My face was still red an hour later. I had to walk up the last bit of the main hill, but Mr N made it without stopping. Here he is in the distance and this is me at the end in Reeth.

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.

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…

Cretins

It’s Wimbledon time, and therefore the season to get disproportionately annoyed at other people. My Dad likes to shout “Cretins! Morons!”, and “Peabrains!”, at the television whenever the audience yell “Come on Tim!” just before the player is about to serve . According to Pa Notajogger, audience participation in sport should be limited to polite applause. Apart from when Leeds Utd are losing, of course, at which point it is mandatory to hurl insults in a broad Yorkshire accent you haven’t used for 40 years.

Yesterday evening I experienced some unwanted audience participation of my own and I rather wished my Dad had been there to voice his opinion.

It was time for the 5k Challenge III so, although I was very tired, hot and really didn’t want to, I planned out a 5k outdoor route and attempted to run it as fast as I could. The route wasn’t ideal: there were roads to cross, people to get stuck behind and hills to run up and down. It was also a warm evening and I was mildly dehydrated. Enough of the excuses. Two kilometres in it was going badly but I was holding on. At the next upward stretch I ran past the open door of a betting shop, which pumped out a blast of cold stale air, along with a thickset man who started running close beside me up the slope, shouting words into my face.

I don’t know what he was saying – I had headphones in and was staring straight ahead – but it was something like, “Come on, run faster, even I can beat you!”. He was laughing like a drain. People have done this to me before, but usually the cretin pretends to run for two seconds but then gives up, but this moron kept on running, and he was faster than me. Automatically, my legs speeded up, ‘I can beat this peabrain!’, my body said. Then my mind kicked in and countered, ‘I will not alter my running plan for this loser’. I slowed down and the guy threw his arms into the air in a victory gesture, cheering.

Rounding the corner away from him, I slowed to a jog to catch my breath. At 4km I slowed to a walk for 10 seconds. I left the watch going and finished the 5k in 21 minutes, 25 seconds. Not too far from my treadmill time if you take into account the slowing and walking, but you can’t do that. The time I finished it in is the time it took. If I hadn’t slowed down to walk I would have slowed down in general.

The gym isn’t real life and the treadmill isn’t real running. Real running comes with other people.

Hot Hot Hot

Yesterday was the British summer. That was it. It was already 25 degrees by 9am and, just a few days after midsummer, the sun was high in the sky. Mr N and I girded our loins with as few items of clothing as possible and headed out for a 9 mile run to Regent’s Park.

Along with my good sense, I left my water-bottle-belt-thing at home because the belt needs to be tight and if it’s on tight then it makes me really hot. I realise that this was not good logic on a hot day. I always dismiss runners carrying drinks with scorn, “bottle w@nkers,” I judge them, “they’re probably running for 20 minutes, what are they going to do, die of dehydration in that time? Ha ha”. Well, the joke was on me yesterday, and I didn’t even have any money to buy any water either. W@nker.

It was a terrible run. We clung to the shadows of tall buildings on the way to Camden and veered from tree to tree in the Park, but I still came back with sunburn. My leg strength had been used up by a long walk on Saturday so it felt like there were swinging sandbags attached to my knees. Nearing the Park exit, we stopped to dunk our whole heads under the taps where a couple were washing their panting dog. With a soaked vest slapping against my back I forced my flailing body onwards, onwards, up the hill towards home and a cold, cold drink.

Next summer I will take the bottle, remember the sunscreen and not be so mean about other runners.

Dubious Motives II: Revenge of the Wine

So, I have been getting on my self righteous high horse about bad reasons for running, but this morning I ran for the worst reason ever: to get rid of a hangover. However, the joke is on me as it didn’t work.

I drank some wine last night. Of differing colours. And amaretto…? Ugh. It was fun, but waking up this morning at 6.48am was not. This was not intentional (both the waking up and the not fun aspect of that), but as I was up I decided I may as well go for a run as I couldn’t feel much worse.

I didn’t feel worse – I was in the fresh air, the ibuprofen were kicking in and I was taking it easy; 4 miles later I almost felt good. Once the endorphins wore off, however, not so much.

Tomorrow I will run for a good reason – just because I want to.