LE JOG

[Nigel]

Another month in this increasingly lonely trek of mine northwards across our sceptr'd isle. Is anyone else around here still pursuing the madness of Le Jog? Who knows -- since surely the roads and keyboards beside me on this journey have been demoralisingly empty for weeks and weeks.

I left my old hometown of Stratford-upon-Avon on a fine May morning, following a favourite cycle route through Charlecote and on to Warwick. Past the black and white 17th century house where I once lived in that fine town, resting up overnight before a lap of my old seven mile school cross-country route.

As luck would have it, I dispatched these symbolic miles (Google Pedometer tells me, all these years later, that they were only six) on an unseasonally cold and wet afternoon. If it hadn't been for the depressing arrival of unpleasant industrial parks along the route (it were all green fields round here, when I were a lad) my day would have offered an exact recreation of so many times when I ran home last but one, not caring in the least for cross-country but keen to avoid the frozen rugby field. So are the habits of a lifetime unwittingly begun.

On northwards through leafy Warwickshire, to share a pint with an old schoolfriend in Kenilworth. Simon de Montfort convened the first English Parliament near the pub (or possibly even inside it?) in the time of King John, and the town's magnificent red sandstone castle -- where centuries later the Virgin Queen, Elizabeth I, entertained her (alleged) lover Lord Leycester. Kenilworth is still my favourite castle in all of England. The castle remains all the more dramatic for being ruined -- it was wrecked in the English Civil War.

From Kenilworth my route took me past the pretty village of Balsall Common, where another schoolfriend's family owned the village bakery, and then into Coventry to marvel anew at the Cathedral. The city and its original cathedral were destroyed by German bombs in the Second World War, and the 1950s replacement cathedral stands alongside. The altarpiece of the roofless old church is formed by a crossed pair of charred embers in an inspiring and moving study of remembrance and forgiveness.

Around Coventry's bleak 1970s ring road, past the site of Coventry Godivas Swimming Club (named after the famous bareback horse-riding young lady who was wife of Leofric, King of Mercia) where this schoolboy used to train in the city's Olympic-sized pool on Friday evenings in his early teens. I made sure steadfastly to avoid the nightmare of visiting Highfield Road, where my boyhood birthday treat was all too often the chance to see West Ham beaten 3-0 by the Sky Blues (Coventry City FC). To say I bear an uncharacteristic lifelong grudge against the club wouldn't quite be true, even if, admittedly, the longed-for day when Coventry were relegated from the top flight of English League football still counts as one of the most memorable of my life.

A slow trek brought me from Coventry to the increasingly inaccurately named Nuneaton, and then out of Warwickshire into Derbyshire, across the Peak District near the much more appropriately named village of Hungry Bentley, then down into Lancashire and through Stockport into Manchester beyond. The month closed breathlessly reliving past glories in the streets where I set my 10 km PB in the Great Manchester Run of 2004.

May proved a fruitful running month, as I put pedal to the metal in the anticipation of busier weeks ahead. After more than a few determinedly nostalgic diversions on the long road from Lands End into the Midlands, this month's route saw me finally forsake the Softies' South for the Gritty North. And appropriately enough, May's tally may well record the most miles I've ever put behind me in any month I've run.

May 2010 distance run: 125 miles
May 2010 days run: 21

2010 to date: 512 miles
2010 days run: 85

Weight at 01 Jan 2010: 95 kg
Weight at start of May: 87 kg
Weight at end of May: 88 kg
(Is this the resumption of a worrying weight gain or a blip which can be safely ignored? We all know the accurate and preferred answers to this one -- watch this space).

LeJog 2010 - A Year of Running: May

A final PS -- with a spring in my step this month, I entered two races up ahead:
Royal Parks Half Marathon in London (October 2010, courtesy of an unexpected but very welcome organisers' invitation, no less);
Virgin London Marathon (April 2011). No confirmation received yet, but with five failed ballot entries in a row, I should be sure of getting in this time -- just before they change the rules to stop fools like me from swapping our cash for dashed hopes every single spring.