Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Photothon 6: iron sundae

The photothon is having an interesting effect on my runs. I no longer head straight back when I reach the furthest point. I take a few sips of water and start to look around, wandering up and down seeing what takes my attention. It is very relaxing, my heart rate drops and I love paying a different type of attention.

The break has also made me more aware of how a run by the canal is broken into bitesized chunks. There are bridges, roads, and of course locks. Sometimes I use these breaks as target and speed up to reach them, other times I just carry along in my own sweet way. The bridges and roads are clear dividers that I tend to walk. The bridges have steep gradients I used to treat with bravado but they knackered my knees, so now I am cautious and cross them slowly. The little break is a nice change of rhythm and a small recovery.



Anyway to this picture. I like the heft of nineteenth century engineering and there is something wonderfully tactile and solid about these mooring posts. The other important thing with is that you can see how things work. You only have to look at a lock gate to know how it operates With modern engineering this is gone. So much is hidden inside chips and black boxes there is little left you are able to fix. If it goes wrong you throw away and replace. Perhaps that is what I like about bicycles: they a still, basically nineteenth century machines. They are open and you can tinker with them.

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