Wednesday, November 01, 2006
Training Diary – No pain, no pain
So what do you do the first really, truly, cold and frosty winter’s day for many a long while? Yep, you decide to go for a run. If you’re an idiot that is………
To be honest the training hasn’t been going particularly well this week, mainly consisting of sitting around and making excuses why it is better to stay in and eat biscuits than flog oneself to death. Despite this I find myself standing on the doorstep, lycra’d to the hilt, and noting the one really pertinent fact about the weather today. It’s very, very cold.
Obviously I’d been lulled into a false sense of security by the beautiful blue skies and bountiful sunshine that seem so out of place at this time of the year. It’s only as I move off down the road that I realise that perhaps staying in doors with my feet on top of the electric fan heater would have been the better option. What from indoors looked like a gentle little breeze to keep one nice and cool as you pound the pavement, turns out to be brisker than I thought, and contains a nasty ice-cold knife-edge to it just to make sure you don’t forget it’s there. But it’s too late to go back in now. One of my mental neighbours has been watching me stretching out as I wait, far longer than normal of course, for my GPS to lock on. What usually takes 30 seconds seems to be taking several minutes and I’m in danger of having to make conversation with the twat. After what seems like an eternity the light goes green and so I set off, managing to studiously ignore his gaze and thus having to tel him I think he's a prick.
I’ve decided that today I’ll do the Chislehurst Pub Run. It’s usually known as a crawl but that wouldn’t be keeping within the spirit of the endeavour, so it’s off at a brisk jog via the Green Chain Walk into the recreation ground and out past the first of the pubs, The Lounge. It’s used to be called the White Horse and then the Penny Farthing, but every time someone gets murdered in there they change the name. I then pass the old geezers’ pub, The Gordon Arms, the hoodies’ pub, The Queen’s Head, before heading out of the high Street and across Chislehurst Common. In the good old days you’d have had the George and Dragon to slake your thirst in also, but that has now sadly gone to be replaced by a Zizzis, whatever that may be. It’s as I contemplate the demise of this pub when a thought strikes me. Why is it that when it is freezing cold, things actually start to burn? My lungs, thighs and face are all burning red raw, and my hands are numb with pain. Walking with frozen feet is bad enough but you try running with them, it’s agony. And why, when cold is supposed to freeze things, do I find the usually quite solid contents of my nose now streaming down my face like a fat kid’s in the school playground? There is snot everywhere and more pouring forth with every snorted breath. I raise my arm to wipe my face but at the speed I’m moving co-ordination isn’t all it could be and I end up whacking myself in it instead. Great. When I do manage to get my hand there I realise too late that one property you cannot apportion to Lycra is any sort of absorbency, so I simply succeed in spreading the snot even further round my face. The fat kid again anyone?
Before you know it though I’m off through the trees and I remember why I love doing this. The trees are glorious in their turning, the sky is blue and the pavement is sparklingly in the winter sunshine. So long as you remember that the reason the pavement is sparkling is due to the thick covering of frost, everything should be fine……if only the fucking cyclists would learn the footpaths are not there for their benefit. It’s bad enough trying to avoid breaking you neck on the wet leaves, tree roots and uneven paving without having to keep a look out for these morons who think that the traffic laws don’t apply to them. Tossers.
Being quite big though does have its advantages and I’m sure he can get the bike mended, and before you know it I’m past The Bull Hotel, a not too bad Young’s Pub, and on my way towards the Courage owned The Tiger’s Head. It’s then just down, across and back up the Chislehurst Cockpit (an actual cockpit, not the name of a pub)and on to my local The Crown (Shepherd Neame), before heading off towards to the cricket club. The trip through the dewy grass has left my trainers soaked so now my feet are really wishing for the electric heater option and so it’s with some relief that I cross the road by The Rambler’s Rest and head down Old Hill past the Imperial Arms, commonly known as the Impy and possibly the smallest pub in England, being more dimensionally challenged than your average porch, and on to the Bickley Arms before turning on to Lower Camden and the steep climb home.
I have now entered what I call the Temperance Area, for between the Bickley Arms and The Royal Eltham in Mottingham there is not a pub in sight. Elmstead Woods is a pub free zone. If I’m going to collapse and receive the reviving spirits that only a good hostelry can offer, I’d better do it now. No chance………It does always surprise me that an area so generally well endowed with drinking establishments has at it’s very heart an area drier than prohibition, it's a real puzzler. This occupies my mind for a while until the pain I’m in comes to the fore once more.
My lungs are now feeling like they’re full of burning fluid and the effort to put my leaden feet one in front of the other is starting to take its toll. I’m convinced I can see a woman walking a cat and then get nearly killed by a hoody hurtling down Elmstead Lane on his skateboard. I don’t think the hug I end up giving him was quite the one David Cameron had in mind………Eventually I turn into my road and receive a cheery wave from Mr Benny Bus man, one of my neighbours. “Oo, had a good run have you?” he asks in mock friendliness as I stagger past. Prizes are on offer for the person who gets closest to my reply – and yes, it did contain the F-word.
To be honest the training hasn’t been going particularly well this week, mainly consisting of sitting around and making excuses why it is better to stay in and eat biscuits than flog oneself to death. Despite this I find myself standing on the doorstep, lycra’d to the hilt, and noting the one really pertinent fact about the weather today. It’s very, very cold.
Obviously I’d been lulled into a false sense of security by the beautiful blue skies and bountiful sunshine that seem so out of place at this time of the year. It’s only as I move off down the road that I realise that perhaps staying in doors with my feet on top of the electric fan heater would have been the better option. What from indoors looked like a gentle little breeze to keep one nice and cool as you pound the pavement, turns out to be brisker than I thought, and contains a nasty ice-cold knife-edge to it just to make sure you don’t forget it’s there. But it’s too late to go back in now. One of my mental neighbours has been watching me stretching out as I wait, far longer than normal of course, for my GPS to lock on. What usually takes 30 seconds seems to be taking several minutes and I’m in danger of having to make conversation with the twat. After what seems like an eternity the light goes green and so I set off, managing to studiously ignore his gaze and thus having to tel him I think he's a prick.
I’ve decided that today I’ll do the Chislehurst Pub Run. It’s usually known as a crawl but that wouldn’t be keeping within the spirit of the endeavour, so it’s off at a brisk jog via the Green Chain Walk into the recreation ground and out past the first of the pubs, The Lounge. It’s used to be called the White Horse and then the Penny Farthing, but every time someone gets murdered in there they change the name. I then pass the old geezers’ pub, The Gordon Arms, the hoodies’ pub, The Queen’s Head, before heading out of the high Street and across Chislehurst Common. In the good old days you’d have had the George and Dragon to slake your thirst in also, but that has now sadly gone to be replaced by a Zizzis, whatever that may be. It’s as I contemplate the demise of this pub when a thought strikes me. Why is it that when it is freezing cold, things actually start to burn? My lungs, thighs and face are all burning red raw, and my hands are numb with pain. Walking with frozen feet is bad enough but you try running with them, it’s agony. And why, when cold is supposed to freeze things, do I find the usually quite solid contents of my nose now streaming down my face like a fat kid’s in the school playground? There is snot everywhere and more pouring forth with every snorted breath. I raise my arm to wipe my face but at the speed I’m moving co-ordination isn’t all it could be and I end up whacking myself in it instead. Great. When I do manage to get my hand there I realise too late that one property you cannot apportion to Lycra is any sort of absorbency, so I simply succeed in spreading the snot even further round my face. The fat kid again anyone?
Before you know it though I’m off through the trees and I remember why I love doing this. The trees are glorious in their turning, the sky is blue and the pavement is sparklingly in the winter sunshine. So long as you remember that the reason the pavement is sparkling is due to the thick covering of frost, everything should be fine……if only the fucking cyclists would learn the footpaths are not there for their benefit. It’s bad enough trying to avoid breaking you neck on the wet leaves, tree roots and uneven paving without having to keep a look out for these morons who think that the traffic laws don’t apply to them. Tossers.
Being quite big though does have its advantages and I’m sure he can get the bike mended, and before you know it I’m past The Bull Hotel, a not too bad Young’s Pub, and on my way towards the Courage owned The Tiger’s Head. It’s then just down, across and back up the Chislehurst Cockpit (an actual cockpit, not the name of a pub)and on to my local The Crown (Shepherd Neame), before heading off towards to the cricket club. The trip through the dewy grass has left my trainers soaked so now my feet are really wishing for the electric heater option and so it’s with some relief that I cross the road by The Rambler’s Rest and head down Old Hill past the Imperial Arms, commonly known as the Impy and possibly the smallest pub in England, being more dimensionally challenged than your average porch, and on to the Bickley Arms before turning on to Lower Camden and the steep climb home.
I have now entered what I call the Temperance Area, for between the Bickley Arms and The Royal Eltham in Mottingham there is not a pub in sight. Elmstead Woods is a pub free zone. If I’m going to collapse and receive the reviving spirits that only a good hostelry can offer, I’d better do it now. No chance………It does always surprise me that an area so generally well endowed with drinking establishments has at it’s very heart an area drier than prohibition, it's a real puzzler. This occupies my mind for a while until the pain I’m in comes to the fore once more.
My lungs are now feeling like they’re full of burning fluid and the effort to put my leaden feet one in front of the other is starting to take its toll. I’m convinced I can see a woman walking a cat and then get nearly killed by a hoody hurtling down Elmstead Lane on his skateboard. I don’t think the hug I end up giving him was quite the one David Cameron had in mind………Eventually I turn into my road and receive a cheery wave from Mr Benny Bus man, one of my neighbours. “Oo, had a good run have you?” he asks in mock friendliness as I stagger past. Prizes are on offer for the person who gets closest to my reply – and yes, it did contain the F-word.
# posted by Bucko! @ 9:59 AM 
