Janathon 2012 Day 22: Overheard

Janathon 2012 Day 22: Run 5.9 miles, Time - 1hr 12min, Weather - blowy

This rather rigid form of base training is odd in that your muscles feel that they are making an effort but you are not breathing heavily, so you don’t feel you are working hard. In fact breath passes so softly and gently across my lips I am hardly aware of it. 

My pace is still very slow and I haven’t managed to up it but what has happened is that I am able to run for longer with a stable heart rate around my target level. This is actually real progress. I still don’t know how much this is going to help me in the long term but as if I am seeing some/any improvement I am prepared to continue and take the future on trust.

The run itself was uneventful except that I have another fragment of a conversation to add to my collection of parts of phone calls overheard when passing.

“And he just said UUUUURRRGGGHHH and stormed out and I then said to ....”

With so many people talking on their mobile phones there are many of these: snippets floating around. So many stories so few clues.

2011 Streak Day 298 (Friday 28th October): Misty grey

2011 Streak Day 298 (Friday 28^th October): Run - 3.4 miles, Time 33min, Weather - soft grey, slightly misty

The day feels very soft and quiet as a light mist lays a thin blanket over everything. Not a fog, the visibility is good but everything is cloaked in grey. It did not feel oppressive or gloomy. The number of grey days in Hemel over August and September were much more lowering. Instead today feels  gentle.

The great pleasure of running here is feeling alone. The land is well tended - so it is not wild - but you can run on a road and not see another soul. There was just me and the bare autumn landscape, alone with the sound of my foot scuffling on the road and a heaviness of breath. In the background I can hear birdsong.

Of course my running is still rubbish - I am in no great shape and cannot expect a magical transformation just because I am in perfect running country. I have to accept that and do the best I can

Afterwards it was a day of little activities. I went to Matha to buy some bread and was again struck by the rhythm of a small French town. People were out and about, stopping to chat or quietly going about their business but all at a comfortable pace. It felt human in scale as there were not the crowds of people pressing against each other, as happens in cites or bigger towns.

Also (and this was probably a freak of timing rather than a general rule) I saw nobody walking around with a phone to their ear. Sometimes I am minded to sit on a street corner at home and survey the percentage of people using a phone. I’m sure it would be large.The consequence is that many people aren’t really present - their body is there walking about, occupying space but their mind is elsewhere. 

Here in Matha today, everybody was in Matha.