November

[Sweder]

Gasp! - a run. Not particularly impressive, yet quite an achievement in the middle of a vast amount of motorway travel and late night ear-pummelling.

I sat at my desk this morning, gazing out at high white clouds scudding across a seductively blue sky. The sun had his hat on, birds fluttered playfully in the garden and all was right with this perfect November world. I resolved to get my boots on and get out there, making my declaration public via twitter. No sooner had I reached for a running vest than the largest, darkest, most intimidating black cloud hove into view. Entering stage right it proceeded to blot out the sky, looking ominously like an Imperial Battle Cruiser from Star Wars as it filled the window. Even as I cursed my luck the bomb bay doors opened to unleash a bitter torrent of spiteful grey-black rain, slicing through the chilled air to lance into the already-sodden earth. With the saddest, heaviest sigh I let my vest drop to the floor, alarmed at how easily I'd been deterred from a run. Is this what I've come to? Two weeks on tour and I'm ready to jack it in at the first sign of bad weather? Tsk tsk, this really won’t do.

Ashamed I scurried through the house in search of leggings and my ancient Nike sweatshirt. Fuck it; I'm going out anyway. I hauled on my leggings like a petulant teenager given an early curfew, angry at myself for getting so soft. As my head popped through the neck of my RC vest a chink of light showed at the southern edge of the malevolent shroud. I pulled on the sweatshirt and the encouraging sliver became a yawning chasm as the sun fought back. Violent winds drove the Storm-bringer inland, drawing back the great dark curtain to reveal a beautiful day once more. I felt vindicated, rewarded for my about-turn.

Out on the downs I squelched through deep troughs of filthy mud. Brackish water pooled in horse-hoof grooves, splashing up to speckle my leggings and soak my shoes as I fought up the early slopes. I tried to alter my gait to encompass the Pose style introduced over in Glaconman's diary. I found this rather challenging, seeing as most of my route is either up or downhill; that, and I tend to run like Quasimodo fleeing the Parisian mob. What I ended up doing was shortening my stride whilst making a conscious effort to restrict my knee movement on the forward stride. To the casual dog-walking observer I must’ve looked hysterical, like Max Wall on acid perhaps, but I continued. Reaching Blackcap just as breathless as usual I decided this was a bad day to try to judge any immediate benefits. For one thing I was almost certainly doing it wrong; for another I was running into a force 6 headwind and was therefore always going to struggle. At least I hoped it was a headwind. Some scornful part of me suggested it might be a side-wind and I was just labouring under the weight of recent excess. I spat, relieved to see the frothy ejectum fly sideways before being whipped behind me: headwind. Good-oh.

The return leg proved a good deal easier, that familiar, welcome shove in the back helping me cover the ground in short order. I continued to maintain an upright stance, although on the downhill this felt like I was trying to snap my own spine and was far from comfortable. My knees seemed to want to push out beyond my wobbling torso and eventually I just let them do their thing, finally running free.

So, my own jury's out on Pose running, if indeed it ever sat. I'll need to take my Ministry of Silly Runs for a spin on the A27 flat-track next week. For now it's been a very welcome outing, a shade under two Farsakhs in the bank, comforting to know I can still cover that without stopping or coughing up my sop in wine.

http://www.runningcommentary.net/forum/a...p?aid=1432

Happy birthday old friend.