Not a Jogger

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.

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.

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.

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.

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…