The Running Man and Beats per Minute

My ‘shuffle’ is trying to kill me. On my last run it gave me Foo Fighters, Foo Fighters, Foo Fighters and, just as I was beginning to feel that something had gone radically wrong with it, Muse, more Foo Fighters, Led Zeppelin, Seasick Steve and Wishbone Ash. I am no aficionado on BPM, but I do understand what happens to my heart rate when my loping run is spurred on by the kind of tunes that have no place in the ears of a sixty-year old in the advanced stages of hyperventilation. Don’t get me wrong here, I love all of the tracks it gave me, but it does normally mix them up a little here and there. There are currently only four Foo Fighters songs on the entire playlist, because they tire me out. I can accept that I may get more than one per run, but back-to-back? It had a few Muse tracks to choose from, but it chose Stockholm Syndrome; Led Zep, it chose Rock & Roll; Seasick Steve, Back In The Doghouse and Wishbone Ash Runaway. You cannot tell me that it was not being wilful; it has Bryan Ferry and Elbow lurking about on there somewhere for goodness sake.

I have plenty of plodders on my list: great tracks, but with a beat that eases me along rather than driving me on. They give me the opportunity to get my breath back to some extent (that being the extent that I do not actually expire) and ensure that I do not melt my bobble hat from the inside. The weird thing about the tracks I got today is, although they exhaust me, they do not actually speed me up. My pace is metronomic. If running were a dance it would be slow, slow, slow, slow, slow. Like the ancient couple you see at Blackpool tea dances, but without the twirling. I’m not good with time signatures, but it feels like my running playlist songs are all the same. If they’re not, I find a way to make them so. Somehow they all fit in with ‘plod, plod, plod’.

My brain, no longer filled with ‘fifty reasons why I shouldn’t be doing this’, has decided to take in the music and allow entrance to nothing else whilst I run. I don’t know where my conscious mind goes off to, but it is seldom with me whilst I run. I can feel it emptying as I take to the streets. I am a brainless man on a mission – although I’m not alone in that respect, am I? If I carry on for long enough I could end up running a country (into what, I could not say). It’s interesting – to me it is, however, you may choose to pick lint from your navel or trim the hairs in your ears instead – that something up there takes the opportunity to de-clutter whilst the sitting tenant is out. I’m not conscious of it happening, but I am conscious of the mess between my ears when it has not done so. Going for a run has become my way of allowing me to make sense of the world without my brain sticking its oar in. Unfortunately, even though my running capacity is very time-limited, by the time I get back home I have already begun to realise that, actually, there is no sense to it all.

And that brings me back to my shuffle because, whilst this piece sat half-finished on my computer, I went out for another run. (Perhaps I should explain here that pieces often sit around on my laptop for days before they get finished. Sometimes they are only a first sentence. I don’t want you thinking that, short of the house being on fire, I would ever go out running twice in the same day.) Today my shuffle gave me Bryan Ferry, Blue Oyster Cult, China Crisis, Bowie, Fleetwood Mac, John Martyn and Judie Tzuke; altogether more sedate, I’m sure you’ll agree. And yet I was quicker than my last run and less tired at the end of it. Answers on a postcard please…

The last Running Man episode, The Running Man and Lockdown, is here.
The next Running Man episode, ‘The Running Man and the Weather’ is here
The whole sorry saga started here.

The Writer’s Circle #1 – Penny’s Poem

“‘…Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows…’” Deidre paused, took a quiet breath, and gathered herself together before preparing to launch forth into her next chapter. Frankie Collins scratched his chin, uncertain. He’d heard that line before. He knew he’d heard that line before. He half-raised his hand to speak, but he just wasn’t certain, and he diverted his hand to smooth down the unruly mop of hair that swamped his forehead instead. He knew that line, he was sure, but from where? It could be a book, but it could just as easily be a toilet cleaner advert. He just could not bring the source to mind. It was no good, he would have to hold his tongue until he knew for sure. No chance to consult his phone until the meeting was over and by then it would be too late. If he called her out, she would just change it. She would deny ever having said it. Claim that he had misheard her. He knew that nobody would back him up; Deidre Desmond was, of course, the Writing Club star. A published author. Four full novels under the Mills & Boon banner and a partial review in The Times. You do not become a published Romance novelist by plagiarising the work of George Orwell… George Orwell! Of course! That’s it, ‘Nineteen Eighty Four’! Deidre opened her mouth to recommence the reading from what she was certain would be her new best-seller, ‘The Heart Full of Stars’, as Frankie leapt to his feet. “Excuse me,” he stuttered, still uncertain that he had got it right. Fourteen eyes turned towards him. “I denounce you as a plagiarist,” he intended to say, but he had barely stammered through “I” before the door clattered open and Phil Fontaine burst in, late as ever, clearly not on the outside of just his first drink of the evening and conspicuously manuscript-less. Deidre stared severely and Frankie slumped, deflated by the moment, back into his chair. His time had passed.

Phil made his way around the circle, muttering soft apologies each time he stood on toe or handbag, until finally arriving at his appointed place next to shrinking violet Penny who studiously avoided eye contact, aware that she would blush horribly. He looked around the circle, to the sheaves of paper nestled on knees, and appeared to notice for the first time, that he held nothing. “Ah,” he said. “I’m sorry, I… I think I must have left my book at home. I… I was supposed to be reading tonight, wasn’t I?” He sighed melodramatically. “And I was really pleased with what I’d written this week.”
“Yes, well…” Deidre smiled the smile of a cat stalking a three-legged mouse. “I have filled in with a little reading from my own new work so far. If you are happy, I can continue.”
Phil nodded sadly, although his eyes were smiling.
“Now, where was I?” Deidre continued.
“You had just quoted the line from Orwell,” yelled Frankie, half leaping to his feet.
Rictus gripped Deidre’s face. Her teeth cleaved to her lips. “Ah yes,” she lisped, taking a long, slow drink from her water bottle. “The quote. I’m unsure about the quote. Maybe I will remove that…”

Phil Fontaine and Frankie Collins stood together at the bar, Phil cradling a large tumbler of Scotch whilst Frankie, who was driving, slowly spun a half pint of shandy between his palms. “I know that she wouldn’t have dared to send that line to the publishers,” he said. “It would have been picked up straight away. She was just trying to impress, but just be careful what you read to her, that’s all I’m saying. Unless you want it to end up in a ninety page pot-boiler.”
“She’s all bluster. Have you ever seen a single word of what she has written in a bookshop? Those books go out of print faster than the algorithms that write most of them. She just regurgitates nineteenth Century bodice-rippers and good luck to her, I say. She wants us all to believe that what she writes is much more worthy than it is, but let’s face it, she is the only one of us with a publisher at the moment.”
“I suppose so.” Frankie drained his glass. “Come on, we ought to go back upstairs. Everybody else has gone.”
Phil looked deep into the heart of the amber fluid, feeling its pain, before swallowing it down and following Frankie towards the stairs. “What have we got now?”
“I think that our little wallflower is going to read us one of her new poems.”
“Ah, is it about a bird by any chance?”
Frankie smiled broadly, but did not reply.
“It’s amazing how many rhymes she can find for tit,” said Phil, feeling just the slightest pang of shame.

The two men bundled into the room together, giggling loudly. The chairs in the neatly laid circle were all occupied, with the exception of the two awaiting the late-comers. All eyes, except for those of Penny, who was fidgeting nervously with her papers, turned on them. They found their way towards the empty chairs as noiselessly as they could and took their places. Penny had her eyes cast to the floor, breathing quietly and deliberately; looking for all the world as though she was waiting to address an audience of thousands. Phil touched her hand lightly as he sat, and smiled apologetically. Penny smiled back weakly and took a long deep breath as Deidre rose to her feet. “And now,” she said, with a grin that played with the features of her face which released it to the world as a grimace, “Before Francis reads us the latest chapter from his new book” – she knew how much he hated being called Francis – “Penny is going to read us her latest little poem called…” she consulted a scribbled note on the back of her hand, “…‘Morning Chorus’. It is, she tells me, another entry into her delightful little collection ‘The Book of Birds’ with which she hopes to approach a publisher very soon. I’m sure I speak for us all when I wish her the very best of luck.”

After a sparse round of applause, led by Deidre, had died away, timid little shrew Penny rose to her feet, winking broadly at Phil as she did so. Shyly, she coughed and began, “I wandered lonely as a cloud…”

You can find ‘The Writer’s Circle #2 – The New Man’ here.

The Running Man and Lockdown (the Third)

So, here we go again, locked away until things improve, even as government advisors tell us that we may well still be under some form of Covid restriction as we stagger into 2022. It is impossible not to be depressed by it. The vaccine is our salvation, we are told – except that it just might not be effective against the potential new strains of an ever-mutating enemy: Godzilla, Swamp thing, Piers Morgan… In the UK, we have all become friendless hermits, locked away in pristine homes with the ever-present smell of fresh paint and Lynx Africa; staring out of the window through metaphorical net curtains (real net curtains having been removed from all glazed units except those in ‘greasy spoon’ cafes and once-trendy French Bistros, now Pizza Takeaways) and making note of any over-sized social gatherings marching by – especially if they appear to have strayed rather further from their own homes to exercise than the law permits (eg you don’t recognize their faces and their walking boots are far too sturdy for a gentle tramp around the block). The village has become like a Moscow suburb in the 1980’s: everybody is boiling up leftover beetroot and onion roots; we are all suspicious of the actions of others; everybody is prepared to turn in their neighbours for the promise of a supermarket delivery slot. Every curtain in the street twitches when the Amazon delivery van arrives.

We have a car that parks outside our house every day. The driver walks around the corner and down the road to visit whomever it is that he does not want to be seen parking outside the house of. I cannot tell you which house that might be; it is far too cold for me to follow him in a Homburg and a raincoat and, by the time I have dressed suitably for the weather – at least five cosy layers, plus hat, scarf and coat – and packed my flask of soup in case of unforeseen circumstance, he will be long gone. Whether he fears the Lockdown Police, or whether he chooses to park so far from the house he intends to visit for more nefarious reasons, I cannot say. I know only that the annoyance it causes my wife is on a par with that caused by me hanging my coat on the coat rack – it covers the radiator apparently. I’m sure that, in these times of grocerial drought, if she thought we could spare a potato, she would ram it up his exhaust, or – if he was lucky – that of his car.

We are allowed to leave the house only to shop, to go to work (which I no longer have) and to exercise (which I do daily, as it is free, it gets me out in the fresh air and it gives me space to think – although I still have no idea of where I should hang my coat). Now, those of you who have stoically stayed by my side since The First Lot, will know that in May of the first Lockdown I began to run and I published the first part of my Couch to 5k Diaries, which ran weekly for ten weeks and thence more sporadically through to the last entry, ‘The Running Man in the Dark’, in November; providing material for twenty two posts in all (I think – I am certainly prepared to be corrected on that or, indeed, anything else that doesn’t cost me money). Although the running posts have appeared more intermittently since the initial ten weeks of the ‘course’ my running has continued, predictably metronomically. Whilst the world around me has changed, I have trundled myself out onto the village streets three times a week, without fail or enthusiasm, in order to lug this ageing frame into a position on the BMI chart that does not automatically alert paramedics across three counties. The UK emerged from the first Lockdown in June and I finished the Couch to 5k regime in August – behind the curve as always. As a nation we staggered on through various levels of restriction – from the brief window of hope in the summer to the drifting fatalism of doom in the autumn – and into Lockdown (Episode 2) in November when my running thoughts became, once again, a more regular feature: it pays to have something to hang your ‘coat’ on. This mini-lockdown ended in early December – although the world in general didn’t get any better for it and my own part of it spiralled down like a tumble dryer tipped from the top of K2.

Through December, I began to appreciate the joys of running in the dark. My pace slowed as I strained to ensure that I did not trip on kerb and unlit pothole, but the streets were generally empty, save for other runners and dog-walkers. Even burglars did not venture out, as there were so few empty houses and the streets were full of people who looked as if they just might be able to chase them. I began to ladle on layers: hat, gloves, snood, running tights, and I filled in on an exercise bike when the weather was too bad for me to venture out (I am notoriously unstable on the ice). Running became a refuge from fear.

And then? Well the gentle slide into worsening fortunes turned into a breakneck plunge into the abyss. New, more infectious Covid strains, a hastily abandoned Christmas, the NHS in crisis, lead to the inevitable Lockdown#3 and the weakening of spirits more usually associated with an unscrupulous seaside landlord, a funnel and a bottle of water. I have run through it all. The reality of these thrice weekly ambles is seldom of interest to me, let alone anybody else, but then in times of crisis…

Through both previous lockdowns, my running has provided the peg on which I have hung my coat of pain and – well, I think you can guess what I am going to say…

Thursdays may well become the day of the Running Man once again. I’m sorry. I realise that things are bad enough already.

Remember – Hands, Face, Space and Open the Windows. Good times are just around the corner!

The next instalment of my running diary, ‘The Running Man and Beats per Minute’ is here.
The last instalment of my running diary, ‘The Running Man in the Dark’ is here.
This whole sorry, loping saga started in May, last year, with ‘Couch to 5k’.

The Running Man in the Dark

So here we are, approaching the end of Lockdown#2 with no real idea of what the short term future holds. 5 days of Christmas cheer (although for two of those, I personally will be at work) followed by many weeks of tightened restrictions until the vaccines, should they work, become widely available, after which we can all return to our pre-covid anti-social norm. I think. There seems to be plenty of doubt even on that score. If you’re protected, apparently, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you can’t spread the disease to those that have chosen not to be vaccinated. Well, as long as it is chosen not to, it will be hard to lose too much sleep over that. But how long will the protection last? It appears that nobody can say. Maybe Lockdown will become an annual affair – straight after Christmas. I hope not, I don’t think I can take any more DIY projects. My current list has been satisfactorily completed: nothing has yet fallen off or over. Corrective repairs on the previous Lockdown calamities have been completed (the author would like to extend his personal thanks to Messrs No-Nails and Hammered-In-Screw) and all areas of bodily damage taped. I’m not sure that I could do it all again.

I have enjoyed my running over the last few weeks; it has got me out of the house and away from the paint brush whilst the sky was still relatively light, whilst the weather was reasonably benign. When I return to work I will no longer have that opportunity. I will have to run in the evening, bedecked in something specifically designed to startle. My months of running to date have been characterised by my desire to not be seen. I set off with a dozen alternative routes in my head so that I can change at a second’s notice when I see somebody I might conceivably know ahead of me. I have worn black (although, from what I understand from the comments to my Zebra rhyme – here – I may have been better in stripes) in order to blend in; to be as inconspicuous as possible. Only the tell-tale rattle of almost terminal shortness of breath letting people know that I was stumbling by. That can no longer be the case. I must strive for visibility. I need people to see me coming.

I have to buy some new gear that will announce my presence to the evening world. I have to look like somebody who runs. Also, I have to focus my mind to the plod of my feet and not to the constantly evolving world of ‘For Sale’ boards that I will no longer be able to see. I will no longer be au fait with whose lawn is better than mine, who is extending at the back, who has just had the drive done. I’m not certain how effectively I will be able to martial the will to run without the distraction of inconsequentialities. Three quarters of an hour can be a very long time with only myself for company. I may not come out of it well.

Anyway, as I return to work post lockdown (again) you will be spared these semiweekly updates, at least until the post-Christmas Lockdown#3 kicks in. I will, in the meantime, plod on, looming out of the dark, pretending to be somebody else entirely; somebody who almost certainly never runs in a bright yellow jacket and a pair of leggings that have sufficient room in the crotch to hold the Strictly Come Dancing finals. If anything changes, I’ll let you know. Meantime, I will return to my old schedule of posting, and we’ll all be the better for it.

Today’s new plodding playlist:

The Seer – Big Country
Angela’s Eyes – Guy Garvey
Pulling Punches – David Sylvian
Bridges Burning – The Mission
Far Cry – Rush
Sowelu – Willy Porter
Scumbag Blues – Them Crooked Vultures
Cornflake Girl – Tori Amos
Big Love – Fleetwood Mac (abruptly halted by an inadvertent prod on the side of the earbud – with absolutely no idea whatsoever of how to get it going again).

The next instalment of the Running diary, The Running Man and Lockdown (the Third) is here.
The previous instalment of the running diary ‘The Running Man and Dentistry’ is here.
The first part of the running diary ‘Couch to 5k’ is here.

The Running Man and Dentistry

A single inadvertent chomp on a Curly Wurly and I was waving goodbye to my two week old filling. Just a little nibble, on the other side of my mouth; what could possibly go wrong? A second’s distraction. Should soft caramel make a crunching noise? No, clearly not. Obviously my own fault, but it saddens me to know that once my tooth has been repaired, Curly Wurlys must be removed from my diet forever and onward. Likewise the two mini Chomps I had hidden for future use. If I’m honest, I do recall that the tooth made a very strange noise two days previously whilst I was eating a roast potato – yes, a roast potato; surely not the greatest of challenges for a newly refurbed gnasher. Anyway, for now, here I am, running along with every intake of cool air twanging across my recently emasculated molar like a soft pick on a detuned ukulele. It’s depressing. Of the many things I expected old age to bring to me, I did not consider talcum powder teeth.

Running does somehow attune your head to the body, meaning that you become ever more conscious of the corrosive effects that time has upon mortal flesh. I run in my contact lenses because glasses steam up, get rained on, fall off, and I dare not go ocularly commando because I cannot see beyond the end of my nose without something to enhance focus. I would not recognise a familiar face until I had fallen over the owner; would not see the bus until I had caused it to stop in the most inopportune of fashions. I am limited, even in lenses. I have to make myself stop before crossing roads as all traffic becomes invisible to me if I am moving. Joint-wise I am okey-dokey except for the hips, the knees and the ankles. Everything below the waist aches after a run but, crucially, everything aches even more if I do not exercise. Knees and ankles have long been a problem, but the hip, although late to the party, has now joined in with a vengeance. It is the only joint that keeps me awake at night these days, although calf muscles have started to ache in the wee hours in a manner that suggests that they have heretofore been somewhat left behind in the atrophy stakes, but they are making every effort to come up on the rails now.

Anyway, my dentist informs me that I cannot be fitted in for another two weeks because I need an extended appointment that is not available until that point. What a lovely, relaxing thought, that re-fixing my recently fixed tooth will require an even more extended period of horizontal panic. I would have liked to have got this all sorted whilst I was on furlough, but unfortunately I am neither bleeding to death nor unable to eat, so there is no rush in these Covid-ruled times. I am well down the pecking order and, if I’m honest, I’m not in great pain so that’s ok. Until I cannot successfully gum on a gently wilting banana, I will live. And until the body finally decides that the downward trend of bodily vigour reaches terminal velocity, I will run – and if that doesn’t prove that the brain is going, nothing does…

Today’s top plodders:

Silly Love – 10cc
It’s a Beautiful World – Noel Gallagher
Smells Like Teen Spirit – Nirvana
Supremacy – Muse
Avonmore – Bryan Ferry
All my Life – Foo Fighters
Steel Town – Big Country
Cocaine – Eric Clapton (again – time for a new playlist)

The previous instalment of the running diary ‘The Running Man and Birthdays’ is here.
The next instalment of the running diary ‘The Running Man in the Dark’ is here.
The first part of the running diary ‘Couch to 5k’ is here.

The Running Man and Birthdays

My sister-in-law was born on the 25^th of December and I’m sure that it is sometimes hard for her to live with. However much she is loved (and she is) she cannot actually claim her birthday as her own. Somebody, with a somewhat wider sphere of influence, had it first. Let’s face it, there are plenty of people to say, ‘Oh, you were born on Christmas Day. Do you just get one present?’ but I suspect far fewer to say, ‘25^th December? Really? Did you realise that Jesus shares your birthday?’ It must shape you. Imagine, for instance, the difference between being born on September 10^th 2001 and being born one day later. Imagine the difference between being born on the day that Mandela died and the day that Hitler died. Imagine the difference between being born on Thursday the twelfth and Friday the thirteenth. Birthdays must shape lives.

So I checked out my birthday and I find out that the USSR launched a rocket on that day (Luna 1) which missed the Moon by 3,725 miles and ended up orbiting the Sun, and an Indian Cricketer (Kirti Azad) who played a grand total of Seven Tests was born – I’ve never heard of him, but that’s ok, I’m sure he’s never heard of me. In a wide, wide world of events, all other incidents took the day off. So now you know why I have become what I have become…

My playlist plodders today almost made the slightly longer run worthwhile:
Cocaine – Eric Clapton
Personal Jesus – Depeche Mode
Don’t Come Back – Wishbone Ash
Heroes – Bowie
Don’t Fear the Reaper – Blue Oyster Cult
Everlong – Foo Fighters
Black Dog – Led Zeppelin
Voodoo Chile (Slight Return) – Jimi Hendrix
Back in the Doghouse – Seasick Steve (Frustratingly cut short by untimely death of phone)

I’m not sure what’s left in the playlist before it starts again, but I’ll let you know…

The previous instalment of the running diary ‘The Running Man and his Playlist’ is here.
The next instalment of the running diary ‘The Running Man and Dentistry’ is here.
The first instalment of the running diary ‘Couch to 5k’ is here.

The Running Man and His Playlist

I have a playlist for running. It is full of tracks that have a steady beat – nothing with jarring changes that might confuse plodding feet – that approximate the metronomic thump of my 5k lope. It is probably because of the choice of my music that I manage to maintain such a steady pace: it does not vary by much more than three or four seconds per kilometre. Today I took a slightly different route to my normal, expecting to cross the local sports field and pub garden as a bit of a change of scenery. As I made my way across the sports field I was treated to the kind of stare that Hannibal Lecter might have stopped using on the grounds that it was too disturbing, by a man playing ball with his two toddlers. This is a big field. I must have been at least thirty yards away from them, but he clearly saw me as some sort of superbug. It would appear that whatever the chunk of atmosphere he had decided was exclusively his; I was intruding upon it and breathing out God-knows-what. I was pleased he didn’t have a dog. He struck me as the kind that might well set it on me. I was in no state by then to run away. Speeding up was not an option. When I say that my pace is steady, I forget to mention that it is only because I don’t have a second gear.

Anyway, having passed through the park without actual physical attack I arrived at the back of the pub to find the gates locked and chained, which meant that I either went back through the park or on through the churchyard. I felt a little uneasy about running through the graves, but I slowed slightly as I passed the most recent, which I’m sure the occupants appreciated. I would have bowed my head, but that would have inevitably ended up in me going full length over something stone and immovable, so I continued to look where I was going. The detour added an extra kilometre to my run although the pace remained unaltered, all down, I am sure, to the even beat of my running playlist. I really didn’t realise how many good ‘plodders’ I have.

Today’s running tunes:

Big Money – Rush
Bully – Judie Tzuke
Locomotive Breath – Martin Barre
White Man in Hammersmith Palais – The Clash
Fascination – Bowie
Action – Def Leppard
Seven Seas of Rye – Queen
Pretending – Eric Clapton

I have no concept whatsoever of time signatures, but a steady lope was maintained throughout…

The previous instalment of the running diary ‘The Running Man Fellowship’ is here.
The next instalment of the running diary ‘The Running Man and Birthdays’ is here.
The first instalment of the running diary ‘Couch to 5k’ is here.

The Running Man Fellowship

In my younger days I rode a motorbike. Outside of Shanks’s* it was the only mode of transport available to me that didn’t involve being shouted at by the bus driver because I didn’t have the correct change, and I loved it, even though it made me more familiar than I would truly like with my problematic relationship with the physics of gravity. It gave me a freedom I had not really felt since my early days of bicycle riding (heading off into the unknown, armed with nothing more than a penny packet of crushed crisps and a half bottle of Tizer). Provided I had the money for petrol, two-stroke oil and a good glug of Redex, I could go to the coast, I could ride alone and I could ride with my friends. Mostly, as adulthood crowded in on me, I rode to and from work. In the winter it got very cold and I went everywhere in multiple layers of clothing. Inner-gloves, under gloves, under gauntlets. I wore so many layers around my ‘middle area’ that I couldn’t drink anything, knowing that the peeling required in order to be safely able to pee could take hours. I have never felt so cold as during my 6am winter rides to work, but still I loved my bike and I continued to love it until a frosty morning face-slap into a tree which left me in hospital having various parts of my face reassembled (I always feel that asymmetry is desirable in a face, don’t you?) with, what on a cold day, feels like a child’s Meccano set. When I left hospital I learned to drive a car and dreamed about the warm freedom that a car would give me – just as soon as I could afford one. Sadly the heater seldom worked on my first car (a three-tone – gold, rust and filler – Vauxhall Viva) and the passenger side window wouldn’t shut properly so, more pipe dreams, except that I loved that car and my wife actually cried when it eventually went to the great crusher in the sky…

Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, I was thinking about the motorbikes this morning when I ran because I remembered the ‘fellowship’ that I felt as part of the bike riding community. All other bikers waved, all other bikers spoke. Old spoke to young and passed on their bikey wisdom, the young tried to grow a beard and dreamt of losing a front tooth. If you broke down, you knew that the next bike to come by would stop to help. And suddenly I realised that my new world of running was a little the same. I cannot pretend that I love running, but I do miss it if I don’t do it. It does give me a certain sense of freedom and is one of the few times when I can step outside, anytime from September to May, without feeling cold. I smile and acknowledge everybody that runs towards me: old, young, experienced, gasping, we all share a cheery, red in the face ‘hello’ as we pass. I imagine that if I break down, the next runner-by will stop to help me and if I run into a tree, well, at least it won’t be at quite the same speed. I am a member of a new fellowship, and I now have the hi-viz to prove it.

*To go by Shanks’s Pony – To Walk

The previous running diary instalment ‘The Running Man and the Dogwalkers’ is here.
The next running diary instalment ‘The Running Man and his Playlist’ is here.
This whole sorry saga started here.

The Running Man and The Dog Walkers

I have two options as a ‘runner’: I run on the path or I run on the road. Generally I opt for the path because, by and large, people are quite a lot softer than cars. I take to the road whenever I can, to give other pedestrians space and also because it is generally flatter and less rutted than the path. At the moment the roads are also noticeably quieter than normal. Mostly runners and pedestrians co-exist quite nicely, I think. I always give as much room as I can without putting myself under a bus and the walkers do the same for me. Pleasantries are normally exchanged – although mine often arrive more as a death-rattle than a thank you. Now Lockdown 2 has started, people have fallen back on the default position of crossing the road wherever possible to avoid ‘cross-overs’ – particularly with fat, gasping old men – but in the main everybody gives one another space, everybody smiles.

There is, though, one group of people to whom this ‘rule’ does not appear to apply. Some dog walkers do not move. Not just for me, but for anyone. If I move to the left, they stay squarely in the middle; if I move to the right, they stay squarely in the middle. If I squeeze myself against the wall to let them pass, they look at me as if I am about to mug them – and stay in the middle. They stare with a defiance that shouts ‘I will not move and I have a dog!’ I have to stop, plunge into a hedge or into the road, where the users of that thoroughfare are often, rightfully, much more troubled by my appearance: nobody wants a sweating old geezer smeared all over the front bumper. The dog walker will give no ground. These, presumably, are the same people who leave their dog’s shit-in-a-bag hanging from the branches of bushes wherever they go. Whatever they think I have, they are obviously concerned that I might give it to the dog. There is clearly a rule, doubtless penned at the time of the Magna Carta and never rescinded, that states that the path belongs to the dog-walker and that they do not need to cede ground to anyone. Knowledge of this rule comes with the dog.

I love dogs – I should get that out there now – but some of their owners… These are a new breed. Today, whilst I was out running, I actually saw a dog walker stand in the middle of the path and stare at a mother who had to guide her clearly afraid toddler into the road to avoid the yapping terrier, which obviously thought the child was a cat. The tit on the other end of the lead did not pull the dog back, he did not move to one side of the pavement, he just stared and then moved off when he was quite certain that his path had been sufficiently cleared to leave him unimpeded egress.

The last few months has filled the paths with lycra and dog leads: the number of brightly attired couch to 5k’ers now being roughly equivalent to those clutching a super-expensive hybrid canine (invented by a breeder who formerly mixed two-digit cocktails in a bar) at the far end of an extending leash. Civility is all that is required. Paths are normally not one way streets. There could be confrontation, but to be quite honest, those clad in lycra are generally too knackered whilst those with the leads have the honest opinion that anybody moving at a pace exceeding the saunter (which leaves me out, obviously) has no place on the flagged sward.

I’m sure that it is probably wrong to lay blame at just one door – although I have yet to witness a runner who was unwilling to move over to give a pedestrian room to walk. Many dog walkers are happy to co-exist, but many more are not. I’m at a loss to explain it. These are perfectly normal people. I’m sure they are perfectly happy to share the pavement when they haven’t got their dogs. They will smile quite congenially as long as you move into the road to let them pass. I’m sure if you fell under a lorry they would be quite concerned – although, as they would have to leave the centre of the path in order to come to your aid, you’d never know it.

Today’s favourite running track: Alright – ELO

The previous running diary instalment ‘The Running Man Plods On’ is here.
The next running diary instalment ‘The Running Man Fellowship’ is here.
The whole sorry saga started here.

The Running Man Plods On

So, back in furlough and still running. The most shocking thing? I quite like it now. I’m still in secondhand gear. Most of it fits – someone, just not me. Everything from the waist down is too long. (Alright, that’s quite enough of that!) I thought I should buy some running tights as winter approaches. It is not a good look. They are skin tight over my gargantuan calves, I can barely pull them up over my thighs and I cannot run in them unless I pull the waistband up to my chest. I keep tripping over the gusset. I tried it. I most certainly cannot leave the house like it. So, I continue to run in the gear that I have worn since I started the whole malarkey and, since most of it is black, I am grateful that I am currently able to go out in daylight hours. (The silver lining I have been searching for.) Especially since the village streets have returned to a Dodge City-like serenity. Nobody is venturing out. I cannot help but think that this is because they see me coming. All over the village dogs are crossing their legs, knowing that they will not be taken out until after I have lumbered past. Cleaning up dog piss from the shagpile is preferable to bumping into me for most dog owners.

Yet, despite my tendency to look like Harold Steptoe, I am actually running further than I used to, faster than I used to and generally feeling far less like I wish death would take me in the process. I have developed the ability to let my mind wander – to stray a little from the concerns of preservation of life – and all that I really wanted to say today is that over the next four barren weeks, I will continue to run and, should any cogent thoughts enter my head, I’ll let you know. Mind you, I’ll probably let you in on any other old tripe that washes up as well.

These extra blogs will, of course, only happen to the 2nd December. Don’t you just love a Lockdown?

Today’s favourite running track: Badge – Cream

The previous running diary instalment ‘Foot, where?’ is here.
The next running diary instalment ‘The Running Man and the Dog Walkers’ is here.
The whole sorry saga started here.