running, reading, nonsense.
Hunstanton and Heacham are the coastal towns of my youth. Would I recommend them as a holiday destination to some strapping young couple, looking for adventure and sensual excitement? No, absolutely not. But both towns, like so many British coastal towns, serve up a very specific kind of laid back leisure. My family had rented… Continue reading Running the Coast of My Youth
Image by Matt Seymour, from Unsplash.com The North Midlands Cross Country league is sort of the premier event for endurance runners at my athletics club, but I’ve never actually been involved before. The combination of recurring lockdowns and my previous job consistently eating up my Saturdays has prevented me from ever being able to turn… Continue reading MUD
The first sign that not all was right was when the first mile arrived before the first mile should have arrived. GPS is an unreliable friend at best however, so I disregarded this and trundled on. When the 4 mile sign drifted past as the watch stuck 3.25 miles I thought perhaps, yes, something has… Continue reading Not 10 Miles
Not every run is particularly good or particularly bad. Most runs are...what they are, and the more you run the more each individual run becomes more anonymous. This isn’t a bad thing, it is just a symptom of daily practise. Perhaps it sounds like a negative, but what it really speaks to is routine, and… Continue reading Eurus, God of the East Wind
I firmly believe that most of the time during training your body should feel good. You do not have to be smashing it all of the time to make progress. Space and time to recover is just as important as the sessions themselves and, a lot of the time, you want to be going into… Continue reading The Well, The Water.
No one wants to make a habit out of giving up, but it is something which I think is unfairly maligned. I recently read Ryan Holiday’s The Obstacle is the Way, a kind of practical guide for applying Stoic philosophy to your life. Suffice to say it is a book full of interesting thoughts, written… Continue reading Obstacles, Acquiescence.
I followed up the blissful smoothness of my last long run with a low volume day of run/biking, and then had an absolutely storming track session. It was one of my best, ever. I felt in full control of my stride, was able to hold something in reserve on the longer efforts, and then push… Continue reading Present Sense
I started out in the drizzle. The light grey skies were not burdened with the weight of heavy rain, just a constant, mist like, precipitation. It was a bit like running constantly through one of those fan/spray contraptions they put out in theme park queues on intensely hot days. The route was new to me,… Continue reading Back to the Long Run
The pine trees at Thetford Forest stand soldier stiff, and stifle the sounds of the outside world. They provide a green peace, an overwhelming sense of tranquility. They also seem to capture the moisture of the air and generate a great amount of humidity, as one might suppose a forest does, but I discovered that… Continue reading Relaxed Racing
I’ve had my struggles with this running and writing lark. Recently, the running has been hampered by injury, and the writing has been...well I suppose it has also been hampered by injury, but that’s no excuse really. Simply put, I’ve not been doing it. If asked for running advice I nearly always say the same… Continue reading The rough and the smooth.
run into words 