Castéra-Lectourois

Just back from a long weekend in France - another trip involving freeloading with some very generous friends. I stayed in Martha and Matt's place once before (strictly speaking, Martha's parents' place) a couple of years ago and knew what to expect - a few days in a lovely old farmhouse hanging out with a couple of their friends and M&M's exceptionally cool kids, Hope (my very pretty god-daughter) and Ferdie. As anticipated, we also ended up eating and drinking like locals and, this time, with locals, since the village fete was on. This involved losing at boules to some grizzled pétanque veterans, followed by dinner in the school playground with a few hundred French types, who entertained themselves and us in truly inimitable fashion. God knows where they all came from - French Wikipedia suggests that Castéra-Lectourois only has a population of about 300!

Along with the other highlights, I went running. Unfortunately I was a couple of days late for the 40-degree heatwave that had just swept through the region and which had left the sunflowers looking somewhat dehydrated - though I think the flowers are so heavy this late in the season that they do tend to droop even in normal years. Still, my first sortie gave me some time running on the hills that I have been so sorely craving and my second, of about 10 miles, combined them with 35-degree temperatures. Suffice to say, the last 20 minutes or so were not an enormous pleasure but I managed roughly 9-minute miles so I was fairly satisfied.No more holidays planned for 2009, for anyone who's getting envious! It does seem as though I've been away a lot this year for some reason.

Saturday lunch

I ran to Hannah and Fraser's house on Saturday, two great people who I don't see nearly often enough. They're out in West Ken, which involved crossing Hyde Park, which it turns out I don't really know too well. Presumably this is down to my North West London prejudice against anything that isn't within walking distance of the Northern Line. Anyhow, it was a fun run and carrying a pack didn't feel too bad at 9:30/mile pace. I got to go along the little bit of sand known as Rotten Row (below), which I always thought was a corruption of the French but Wikipedia informs me there may be other etymologies behind it. A delicious lunch involving some great lamb chops was followed by a fun afternoon that took in the delights of some rather unusual Polish flavoured vodkas before finishing up in the pub.
I also went for a run on Sunday, which took my total mileage for the weekend to around 18. Unfortunately, with only 7-and-a-bit months to go until the MdS, I'm going to have to start doing that kind of thing more often, though it was a beautiful day and a very pleasant run...

Finally, kudos to my mate Riz, who has pointed out that the flowers in a previous post are not in fact wisteria at all but are buddleja. Smart-ass.

Kenwood House

Not a great deal to say about today's run. I ran back to my parents' for lunch, via Hampstead Heath. The pic is of Kenwood House, the well-proportioned Robert Adam building.

Now I'm back at home, two episodes into the third season of the Wire. Happy days.

Çeşmealtı

I am lucky to know someone as generous as my friend Refik, who invited a bunch of us out to his family's amazing place in Turkey, in between Urla Iskele and Çeşmealtı. It was a great week and, in marked contrast to my other trips this year (lots of skiing and a bit of walking), it involved doing nothing. Well, nothing except eating. He's a great host, proud of his country and keen to ensure that everyone enjoys the best it has to offer, which includes great fruit, veg, fish and beer. Turkish wine, however, is a bit less impressive.

I fitted in three runs, avoiding the hill behind the house where last year I attracted the attention of numerous working dogs who weren't too friendly. I ran along the coast instead, through Urla Iskele and beyond. The pic to the right is of Karantina (quarantine) island, past which my runs went. It's now a hospital rather than a place to send plague victims.

Things I learned: running in mid-30 degree heat is OK as long as it's not humid (it was much easier than Orlando) and there's a breeze. Oh, and P20 suncream really works and doesn't make you sweat as much as the normal ones - very impressive.

Cambridge redux

A very Cambridge day on Saturday, starting with breakfast with my friend Matt at Albion, which took a while to digest so I didn't end up running until quite late in the day. The sides of the Regent's Canal are currently covered in wisteria, which always reminds me of Tree Court at Caius, and I was thinking of my old university as I was running along. After I while, I came across another quintessential Cambridge view, that of a hapless punter in all sorts of difficulty, blocking the entire canal round about Mile End Park. Turns out you can rent them as of fairly recently...

Marco Polo

I ran my >10 miler around Chelsea Bridge last night as penance for recent excesses and over-consumption (lunch at my sister's on Saturday, lunch at Herms' birthday on Sunday etc). Forgot to wear my iPod, which was annoying given the 1.5 hour duration.

My run was my standard loop around Chelsea Bridge, taking me past what I now know to be called the Marco Polo building, just opposite Battersea Park. An unremarkable building, ugly even. However, it has a slightly bizarre symbolism for me.

Picture the scene. I've just finished my A-levels. The summer holidays and a place at university await. My best pal, Osh, decides we need to go for a drive around London, so a bunch of us piled into his old-school VW Beetle and just took off - him, me, I think the Scrimgeour twins and one other. It was, from memory, a beautiful summer evening and the feeling of freedom, driving around London, was exhilarating. At some point we drove past the Marco Polo building, which was, back then, the HQ of the Observer I think, and we got out to marvel at its shiny whiteness. I remember feeling a very clear sense of excitement, of a new phase of my life about to start - hardly surprising given I'd been at the same school for the previous 11 years and was really only just about to experience my first taste of independence. The memory of being in that car, with nowhere to be and total freedom to go where we wanted remains vivid. Somehow, the building's name, evoking exploration and new horizons, is strangely appropriate.

Why does our fifth companion in the car remain nameless? Well, he was the one who, when we ended up driving back through Brixton fairly late in the day, cowered down in the front seat of the car whimpering "I don't want to get shot". Now, whilst this was back in the day when cabbies would refuse to "go South of the river at this time of night", his concern that we'd be shot simply for being white guys in a car was pretty pathetic even considering our tender years...

Pyrénées

No running this week but plenty of exercise, courtesy of a 6-day trip to the Pyrénées with a few of the Caius lot. We flew to Pau and made our way down to Gavarnie. We then started our trip, armed with little more than a couple of maps and several tons of trail mix, cheese and local sausage. Our little wander took us up to the Breche de Roland (in the background below), round into San Nicolás de Bujaruelo on the Spanish side before wandering along to the highest peak in the French Pyrénées, the 3,298m Vignemale. The view from the top, down across the glacier, is above.

The walking was tough-ish - we averaged just under 1,000m of ascent per day, generally with a c15kg pack on, so I don't feel like I've missed out on my training. The ascent up the glacier was particularly exciting for me, never having used crampons or an ice-axe before, and it felt liberating to be doing a trip like this independently - without a guide. The other real highlight was the flora and fauna - not usually my bag. Nevertheless, the fields of flowers were really stunning and the unexpected (for me anyway) and multiple sightings of marmots frolicking in the sunshine was a joy given the number of times I must have skied a run called 'Marmottes' (every resort seems to have one). Finally, I mustn't forget to mention Dix' inspired decision, not only to organise the trip, but also to buy us all berets at the start. It really helped us to make friends.
The trip was useful in other ways too. It really highlighted again how important hill training, cross-country and training with a pack will be in my prep for the MdS - much tougher than road-running. I also managed to pick up some kind of injury to the medial collateral ligament in my left knee, which I'm currently hoping will disappear of its own accord...

Drinkaware

The blog seems to be unintentionally turning into a kind of chronicle of 'how I got my hangover last night' - like the "I see you like to recycle" Drinkaware campaign on the Tube. Last night's excuse was a visit from Kiddo, a friend who now lives in Chicago, over for the 4th July weekend. We got to watch the Nathan's competition (it turns out I can get ESPN on Sky), which produced another amazing contest - it's hard to believe how far the sport has come even since my first visit to Coney Island in 2004. This was followed up with the usual idiocy...

The pic is of some dudes fishing in Limehouse Basin, with the temples of Mammon in the background.

Farnham

I'm some way off my peak of weddings, which still stands at 11 in one year, and it's been a while since the last Caius shin-dig - out of London anyway - so it was nice to get out to Farnham for Crawf and Jen's this weekend. It was a slightly brutal schedule kicking off with the Lions test at 2pm on the Saturday (what a game), taking in a bit more cricket and then the world's hottest restaurant temperature-wise before a bit more beer for good measure. The wedding itself was on the Sunday night followed by a midnight cab back to Shoreditch, which made for an interesting Monday morning, but I think a lot of fun was had by all. It was good to see a few faces that aren't around that often - hi to the Shindlers, Big Jase, the Wilmots and the new Walmsley to mention a few...

I managed to squeeze in a hung-over hour in on Sunday morning before the main event, running up Castle Street and a big hill to get into Farnham Park. It was a very pleasant run once my headache had subsided a bit - beautiful weather and great to get out onto some grass for a change.

Apologies...

...to my three loyal readers. No post last weekend. That's because I didn't run, for a variety of reasons - partly illness (swine 'flu?), partly busyness (the Lions test, a non-christening, my mum/brother's birthday barbecue and partly because I was still a bit tired after the North Downs 30k (which doesn't bode well for the MdS).

So, as compensation, here's a mid-week write-up. Not much to say, apart from my run took me past one of the Street Pianos (right) and one of my blisters from 11 days ago still hurt. Again, not encouraging for next April. At some point I need to read my copy of the not-geeky-at-all 'Fixing your Feet'...

North Downs

Today's run was a bit hardcore - the North Downs 30k, nearly 19 miles of hilly cross-country terrain. Pleasingly, the race started from a leisure centre on Thong Lane and went through both Shorne and Lower Bush. Less pleasingly from my point of view, it was sunny. The first 10k went well enough. The second was pretty tough. The third was gruelling - a lot of up-and-down and, by that stage, I was tired (and salty). I haven't run that far since my marathon in 2006 and my training has been a little more erratic that I would have liked in the last month or so, and it showed. Nevertheless, I ended up finishing a shade under 2h45m, which I guess is pretty decent given the circumstances. Rob whipped my ass again. Highlights: finishing in one piece, the poppies (above), the marshals (and their life-saving jelly-babies) and the cake provided by the organisers at the end. It wasn't as pretty as the Pembrokeshire race but was fun in a really, really hard way.

Shamu

I got back from Orlando on Thursday morning. I was visiting with work to attend a medical conference but managed to find time for a couple of runs. Not really knowing the city, I followed a fairly unimaginative route from my hotel, past the massive conference centre (and the 30,000 attendees in the 4 m square foot floor space), around SeaWorld and back. A few points occurred to me on the runs:

1. Running in mid-30C heat and very high humidity is enormously unpleasant.

2. I hate cities where you have to drive everywhere - they lack soul. Many of the roads didn't have pavements, which made jogging tough. People presumably drive off somewhere nicer for their runs rather than running in Orlando itself, because there were barely any other joggers around. SeaWorld seemed to be 75% car park and 25% amusement park.

3. Grass in the US is very thick.

The conference was less busy than in previous years, which left a bit of time to visit SeaWorld itself with a handful of clients and competitors. The highlight was undoubtedly seeing some leafy sea dragons - very cool fish - with the Manta rollercoaster a close second. The Shamu show ("at the heart of every being lies a sense of wonder") was corny American horseshit - my heart was not transported to the edge of wonder as they claimed - but allowed me to get this quite cool snap on my mobile phone.

Bank Holiday 10k

I've only ever run a few races - a couple of half-marathons, the London marathon in 2006 and the off-road 15 miler earlier this year. Today saw my first 10k, the BUPA 10,000. I wasn't especially confident going into it. I don't really run fast when I train - no speed-work, no hills, no intervals etc - and that's what you need to do to get a decent time in a shorter race like a 10k. This was coupled with a poor "build-up", by which I mean going down to Plymouth with a bunch of friends for the first two days of a glorious Bank Holiday, involving some very picturesque beaches but also the usual self-destruction that such a trip brings (fry-ups, beer, barbecues, stupid games, pasties etc - thanks for hosting to Bobby J). The Saturday saw an epic game of beach cricket at Mothecombe and me pulling a hamstring whilst pushing for a tight second run. Finally, my sunburn wasn't making me feel the best.

All-in-all, I wasn't expecting too much from the race today, so when I found myself with the 'elite athletes' in Red zone A at the start - the first wave of runners to set off - I was a little shocked (I must have lied about my expected time on the entry form or something). Somehow in the end I think I managed acquit myself fairly well with a time of 41m 29s to finish as the 226th male out of 4,500 - there were a lot of people in fancy dress I guess!

In other news related to previous blog entries, I have now eaten in La Figa - lunch with Lu - and it was pretty good. I had pizza 'la figa' (of course). Surprisingly, it lacked anchovies. Secondly, my mum tells me that she thinks that my grandfather, Arthur Glover, was responsible for the grasshopper outside what was Martin's Bank on Lombard Street. Finally, it turns out Will le F has actually used the catapault thingy outside the Tower as part of his odd historical re-enactment job.

Home

It's funny. Somehow this blog is ending up less personal than I thought it would be. Having lived in London (basically) all my life, I thought it would end up reflecting a lot more of me than it has. I think that a lot of this is down to the disparity between where I run and where I've lived and played. As a stolid North Londoner by birth and one educated in South Hertfordshire, I have little connection to places like Victoria Park in the East End. Even the Regent's Canal was a fairly recent discovery for me, apart from the stretch just by Camden Market, where I did hang out for the odd evening when I was a kid, drinking warm cans of lager. Etc.

This post bucks the impersonal trend. I ran back to my folks' place for lunch - round to Camden, up across the Heath and the lazily-named Heath Extension, where my mate Jonny memorably had his rugby stag a couple of years ago. From there, I entered the extraordinary and, ultimately, unsuccessful social experiment that is Hampstead Garden Suburb. The top photo is of St Jude's church, close to where my nursery school was. The lower one is of my parents' house (and mine from the age of 2 until university), with my primary school in the background, poking above the hedge. What could be more personal than that?

Go go Gadget arms!

I try not to get annoyed with the crowds that extend between Namco (a fabulous place - bowling, pool, cheap beer and that game where you dance when the floor lights up), past the London Eye and the South Bank Centre, extending all the way to the Tate Modern. Yesterday's run felt almost like Parkour, as I jumped onto barriers, round statues and generally tried to avoid the tourists. Yet I still prefer to run the route rather than changing course to avoid the throngs - I quite like seeing people enjoy my home city I guess - and occasionally you come across people like my long-armed acquaintance here.

Animals IV

Whilst I quite like monkeys...

...I am particularly pleased that I know where to find a 3-foot steel grasshopper:

Post-stag

I have just returned from a fantastic stag weekend, but one that left me with a touch of self-loathing. It involved numerous traditional stag weekend activities - silly outdoor stuff (hovercrafting and canoeing), curry, fry-ups, copious amounts of Butty Bach and small-town "clubbing". We were incredibly well looked after by Alan at the Old Pandy Inn, which is well worth a visit, if only to try the Welsh Dragon sausage - about 15" long, 1lb in weight and filled with chillies. Crawf, our stag for the weekend, put in an exceptional performance, dressed in a clown outfit and resembling nothing less than a Weeble for most of last night (Weebles wobble but they don't fall down), consuming heroic quantities of booze and yet remaining mostly upright and hugely entertaining. A truly great effort, especially considering he'd come all the way from Greenwich CT in order to be with us.

Anyway, I had only run 45 miles this month and I was aiming for 60. Also, the weekend had involved horrific calorie consumption. This resulted in me forcing myself out on my return for a 10 miler, round Chelsea Bridge. The route down took me along the final couple of miles of the London Marathon, pretty much all over bar a few stragglers and some guy in a camel costume. This week's photo is of Boadicea, who I remember being a very welcome sight in my 2006 marathon - she's just at the end of Victoria Embankment, just before the route turns off the river and up towards the Mall. At that point, you know you're going to make it...

Well done to my bro, who made it round in 4:06, despite injury-hampered training!

Hung over

It's been what can only described as a "mixed" weekend - not quite a curate's egg but it's certainly had ups and downs. On the plus side, I've eaten incredibly well. With the "r"-less months rapidly approaching, I made a quick trip to Wright Brothers early on Friday night for a couple of pints of porter and 9 oysters before ending up at my new favourite tapas place Pinchito just up the road from my flat, where I tried elvers for the first time, a fairly unusual but very pleasant experience. Plus I've uncovered the barbeque for the first time this year - yesterday involved a whole sea bream and my post-run treat was a 16oz t-bone from the Ginger Pig - both with new season English asparagus. Another positive was an unexpected visit from my schoolmate Simon yesterday, with wife and cute 10-month old son in tow.

On the less positive side... I woke up today with a SPLITTING headache after a rather-too-excitable evening out. I looked at my watch and saw it was 2pm. What a waste of a Sunday (i.e. it's annoying that I haven't managed to watch any more of the Wire yet). Plus I soon realised that my left knee was about twice the size of the right one, which (I think) was due to some kind of race down a tenpin bowling lane against my mate TG. My memory of it remains hazy but I think I got about a third of the way down before going arse-over-tit. Those things are surprisingly slippery. Still, I managed to drag myself out of bed and did the same run as last week but adding in a circuit of a blossom-filled Victoria Park, which took it to nearly 11 miles. On the way back, I saw a catapault/trebuchet or something outside the Tower of London.

Oh, and Arsenal predictably lost the FA cup semi-final. Bugger.

The fig

I was a little nervous leaving my flat today for two reasons. One was I was worried that my patellar tendinopathy had returned. This started in 2005 when I was training for the London marathon but had receded in the last year or so after a lay-off of a few months plus some weird injections from a nice sports doc called Tom Crisp that set BUPA back a pretty penny. It felt like the problem was back on Friday, so I didn't run back to my parents' house as I had intended on Saturday, hoping that this short rest would do the trick. Miraculously, 9 miles today didn't seem like a problem, which was a huge relief - it's very irritating and took ages to clear up.

The other reason for my apprehension was that I tried a new route today, East along the Regent's Canal to Victoria Park, down to Limehouse Basin via Mile End Park and then back along the Thames. It's not an area I know especially well and there's always the chance of getting lost etc first time around. It turned out fine - a really beautiful run and one that re-acquainted me with some places I've not seen for ages. My friends Sally and Alice used to live near Victoria Park, Ellie had a birthday do in a pub on Mile End Park a couple of years ago, I discovered a couple of restaurants (Gordon Ramsay's pub the Narrow and, bizarrely, the sister restaurant of the Kyrgyz one referred to in a previous post) and some great views of London landmarks. Why, then, is my only picture of an Italian restaurant that I have never been to? Well - it's called "La Figa" and I'd heard of it mainly because nearby residents eventually realised that this means not just "the fig" but is also Italian slang for... wait for it... a woman's parts.

I love the logo. I am hugely immature.

Animals III / one year to go

I left the flat gingerly this morning, feeling a little like the UK’s greatest ever marathon runner and public defaecator Paula Radcliffe. Luckily the public conveniences at Marble Arch came to my aid...

But only after I had run past Mimetes Anon. “As if from a scene in an apocalyptic science fiction movie, its appearance in the Plaza also serves as a reminder of what might have been if the great evolutionary leap forward never happened”. What a load of balls. I, however, will choose to refer to him as ‘Frank the lucky chimp’, which will please both me and at least two of my friends.

In other news, the 24th Marathon des Sables is now over. It was an extraordinary event, with the first stage cancelled due to flooding (in the Sahara?) and it rarely getting above 30 degrees - not what you’d expect. More importantly, one Jacobus Cilliers entered. South African born and a UK resident, he entered via the Korean team. He smokes 40 a day, weighs over 21 stone, and is basically quoted as saying “I entered in order to prove that fat lads aren’t a waste of space”. Unfortunately he dropped out in stage 3 but Jacobus, we salute you. You are an inspiration to us all.

Animals II: dragons and pigs

It feels like ages since I ran in London, and it turns out that it's been 3.5 weeks, what with Pembrokeshire, skiing and tower running. I'm determined to get to 60 miles in April, which doesn't really sound like that much but then I am going to the gym twice a week too. I think that's a valid excuse.

It seems like there's so much to write about. First, my second picture of animals in London.


You'll notice both of the animals that guard the City in this picture. One is the dragon, which supports the arms of the City and the origin of which is discussed in this article that I frankly couldn't be bothered to read. The other is the pig i.e. the police, who were much in evidence today. The walk to work at 6.45am was particularly amusing. Hundreds of men were sidling past wearing work-shirt, jeans, brogues and Crombie coats. There was the occasional American in chinos. None looked remotely "casual". All this because of the G20 protests taking place later in the day. These are already well-documented (the magic of live blogs and twitter) so I'm not going to say much about them myself. One pic though, looking down Cheapside towards the Bank of England and Royal Exchange on my run today. Count the police vehicles. I think there are at least 20...


I'm actually no stranger to riots in London. My first experience was the 1990 poll tax riots, when I was 14 - an early age to begin a career of civil disobedience you'd think. You'd be right, and how. I was returning from possibly the geekiest event of my life: the final of some kind of school science quiz, run by what is now the British Science Association. We came second in the country. I was on the tube, on my way back from the competition, which was held at one of the Kensington museums. I guess I must have been changing lines at Leicester Square, only to be confronted with the aftermath of the protests, which took place in Trafalgar Square (i.e. running, looting, hairy youths). I had no idea what was going on and was, I suspect, in my school uniform. Rad.

St Anton and fame

No running this week - skiing again. I decided to repeat last year’s trick of emailing everyone I know and seeing who wanted to come along, so we ended up with 29 of us (and four poor randoms) in the Chalet Regina, under the care of the lovely Dee, who did a really great job of looking after us.

There was plenty of snow - if anything, too much! A few of us had luckily booked a guide (the lovely Martina from Piste to Powder) for the Tuesday and Thursday and we ended up in ridiculous amounts of powder on both days. Despite some of the most enjoyable skiing of my life and a lot of other fun too, there’s no disguising that a holiday like this is not in any way healthy and I now need to sleep for a very long time. After that, I need to get back running again, as www.mapmyrun.com has just informed me I have only done 25 miles this month, although I have admittedly climbed some stairs and skied down some mountains.

In other news, the Guardian Online published my write-up of the Vertical Rush event a couple of weeks ago! Impressive (until you hear that I know someone who works there, which might have helped). Still, at least it might mean that someone ends up reading this blog – they included a link to it at the end. We’ll see...

Vertical Rush

Highlights:

1. Finishing.
2. Overtaking the person who started first in my heat about half way up, Sky TV's Gladiator "Tempest". She is hotter in real life.
3. £900 for Shelter.

Lowlights:

1. Too many people - I started way back in my group and they got in the way, so I only finished in 7:38, 169th out of 593. How the winner did it in 4:22 I really don't know.
2. How I felt at the top - legs were fine but my lungs were burning.

Same again next year, but I'll try harder.

Trail running in Pembrokshire

I managed to persuade my friends Al and Rob to enter a "half marathon" run earlier in the year. After a 5 hour drive down to Broad Haven on Friday afternoon and a quiet evening eating pasta in our rented apartment, we found ourselves at the start of what turned out to be a 14.8 mile race. To be fair, the organisers do warn that distances are only approximate but I think we were all a little concerned that the extra 1.7 miles might be a step too far. I was certainly a little concerned - this was to be my first ever trail run, I haven't run that far since my marathon in 2006 and the forecast in the previous week had always suggested a lot of wind whilst varying between pouring rain and cloudy conditions.

In the end, the weather was beautiful if a little blowy. The start was hilarious - after a 50 yards, we reached a staircase onto the cliffs that was only scalable in single file, leaving a trail of runners stretching out into the distance in front of us (they're visible at the top of the cliff in the photo on the right).

Both Al and Rob had professed to be "unfit" before the race, although there was little evidence of this as Rob hared off into the distance after we'd been running around 15 minutes. At this point, we'd been running quite hard and constantly climbing or descending as the path meandered along the coast so I slowed down, ran at my own pace (conveniently similar to Al's) and really enjoyed the beautiful scenery.


After 8 miles, the path turned inland and we left the stunning views for the run back, which was a bit of a shame. By then, though, my thoughts were much more on putting one foot in front of the other and getting round the course in one piece - the extra distance and uneven ground meant that it was much harder than standard half-marathon on the road. In the end, the beaches of Little Haven emerged back into view and the final little downhill run took me back down to the finish line in 2.11, with which I was enormously pleased. The run was followed up with a decent amount of beer, a nice cawl in the very pleasant Swan Inn (where we particularly enjoyed the influx - at around 5pm - of a dozen chunky local lads all without their shirts on) and, by 9.15pm, I'd passed out in bed.

A couple of thank yous: to Al for driving us down, and to all those who thought they were going to enjoy a nice Saturday morning walk along the coast only to be confronted by hundreds of sweaty people haring it along the paths. Sorry!

Rehersal

My first special training event will be next week's jaunt in aid of homelessness charity Shelter. Known as 'Vertical Rush', it will involve climbing London's second-tallest building, Tower 42 (the old NatWest Tower).

I remember reading an article about tower running a few months back and thinking "wow, that sounds cool". A couple of weeks ago, I saw a poster in Bank tube advertising Vertical Rush and wanted to get involved. I then re-read the original article after registering and present selected quotations here:

"Tower runners all talk of one universally shared experience - the pain"
"After my first race, I puked in a garbage can. Everyone high-fived me"
"Tower runners love to relate stories of elite marathon runners who assume they'll cruise to the top, only to drop out in a crumpled heap on the 43rd floor"

Luckily, Tower 42 is only 42 floors high and I'm not an elite marathon runner, so the last comment definitely won't apply to me. Nevertheless, the write-up worried me enough to take the organiser's suggestion of training a little. So, at lunchtime today, I found myself climbing the the Monument (right), which happens to be about three minutes from my office. Built between 1671 and 1677 to commemorate the Great Fire of London, the viewing platform is 311 steps up, 160 feet above the ground. This makes it a quarter of the height of Tower 42 (although with one third of the steps - clearly they had short legs in the 17th Century) - so a good training run rather than anything directly comparable to next Thursday's event.

Bugger me, it hurt. The first half was OK. The second half left me gasping for breath, with my thighs and calves burning. The real event will be exceptionally unpleasant. The only vaguely good thing was managing to get this snap from the top - Tower 42 is the very tall building in the centre of the pic.

Finally, I'd like to give a big thank you to Dos Hermanos and the Guild of Fine Food, which organises the Great Taste Awards, for my dinner tonight. The former are a couple of well-known food bloggers, who organised a fantastic dinner a couple of weeks ago at Vinoteca - my second meal there, but easily as good as my first visit (the mutton pie was awesome). At the dinner, in exceptionally uncharacteristic style, I won a hamper that was organised by the latter.

Having now munched my way through a load of the "3-star gold winners", I can confirm that the wild boar salami from the Real Boar Company is awesomely piggy and genuinely complex, Products From Spain's manchego is really excellent given I don't normally find it that particular cheese especially exciting, Hi-T's fudge rocks (it won the 'fudge, plain, including vanilla' category after all) and CoCouture's Irish Whisky Truffles were worthy winners of the 'dark truffles with alcohol' class. The reason I'm writing about this now is that my dinner is one of Harvies Pies steak pies. They have made me a happy man...

I met a bunch of great guys at the dinner, mainly food bloggers (links to their sites are on the right of this page). I felt a little humbled in their presence, given my readership averages (I think) in the mid-to-low single-digits, whereas theirs is in the hundreds or thousands. In some ways I'd like to write a food blog of my own. On the other hand, somehow food seems so integral to my life that it seems a bit odd to want to write about it as though it is something noteworthy, rather than it being a sine qua non. I can't contemplate life without being able to eat well; this blog only exists because I still think of running as somehow alien to me, given my still-'sturdy' build.

Animals I / social animals

I kinda started the blog in order to add some interest to my runs. I now find myself trying a little to spice up the blog with a semi-permanent theme/riff, which will be: London's animals. Not actual animals, mind - just its permanent (or semi-permanent) fauna. I've observed a lot of these in the last few weeks whilst running around the place and they should make for good sport. They tend to be rather unusual creatures - often carnivorous, rarely native to these shores and sometimes not even real. To get us kicked off, let's move from the sublime (the WWI Royal Air Force memorial, completed in 1923):


to the rather more prosaic:


On a different note, following this article in the Guardian recently about how runners rarely acknowledge each other, I tried an experiment. It was a genuinely beautiful sunny day today, and I felt no difficulty in summoning up a cheery smile and "good morning" for all the runners that I passed. Given that I went on a 10 mile run (West along the North Bank of the Thames to Battersea, then back along the South), there were plenty of people to greet.

It rapidly became apparent that the running community is indeed miserable. After the first few people, I learned that the best hope of a response was to make eye contact around 20 yards before passing the next runner, followed by a nod of the head (15 yards) and then finally the aforementioned "morning" (3-5 yards). Even this resulted in maybe only a 15% acknowledgement rate (and half of those were women who looked at me like I was some kind of molester).

I think the bottom line is this. Many runners listen to MP3 players and thus don't greet anyone at all. Many women are afraid that interacting with strangers is an open invitation for abuse. Greeting runners is a bit arbitrary anyway - why only say hi to them whilst ignoring every other pedestrian that one passes? And finally, I suspect that many runners don't enjoy their pastime very much and do it for reasons of virtue rather than enjoyment - they simply aren't in the mood for interaction. All of which is a shame. I am minded to continue in my efforts to greet people from now on, despite their lack of enthusiasm, in a one-man effort to... dunno... something, anyway.

Ski touring

No running for the last week, because I've been off learning to walk uphill on skis on a course with the International School of Mountaineering, based in Leysin. Unfortunately, we were severely restricted by some appalling weather, which left us with a huge amount of snow but also a great deal of wind, whiteness, avalanche risk etc.

After a couple of days of learning the ropes, including an ascent of Pic Chaussy, the supposed highlight of the week - a couple of days in the Great St Bernard Hospice, where some monks invented the brandy-carrying dogs - turned into a bit of a nightmare. We skinned up in horrible conditions and hung around for a pleasant night in the Hospice. On setting off the next morning, we triggered a mini-avalanche within 10 yards of the front door, decided discretion was the better part of valour and we just set off back down the mountain again. Through the Combe des Morts - the "Valley of Death" - so called because of its avalanche risk. Great.

Luckily, like my recent visit to Chamonix, this trip was saved by the last day - a climb of the Gros Châtillon. The weather was a bit less severe (the summit is only at 1,840m versus the Hospice at 2,470m) but there wasn't much of a view beyond our immediate surroundings. Luckily these were the most incredible snow-laden trees - it was pretty spectacular.



The ski down, through the ~18" of recent snowfall, was good enough to make up for the previous couple of days.


Am I now a fan of ski touring? I enjoyed lots of things about it - the tranquility (particularly when compared to a traditional ski resort), the sense of achievement on climbing a hill, the sense that one should try to ski down as well as possible and not "waste" any of the ascent, the freedom to roam wherever you want rather than being constrained by lifts and the aerobic element, just to name a few things. If I lived somewhere snowy, I think I'd happily tour a lot - it's like going for a good mountain walk, with the added bonus of skiing down at the end. However, for me, with only a week or two of skiing per year, I think my time on the slopes is too precious to spend it walking up them as well as caning it down. Having said that, I'm sure I'll be back for a proper hut-to-hut tour at some point in the not too distant future - the West Oberland Haute Route, also run by ISM and involving "superb north-facing (powder) slopes giving about 1000m of descent each day, and beautiful backdrops of huge limestone cliffs and the peaks of the Swiss Valais" sounds pretty cool!

Finally, a big "thank you" to Terry, who taught and guided us last week and generally kept us out of trouble, and thanks also to those on the course who were, for the most part, an entertaining bunch.

Hampstead Heath

The last few days have been full of firsts, including my first visit to London's only Kyrgyz restaurant (to my knowledge) and the purchase of my first proper trail shoes. This gave me the opportunity and incentive to run off my samsi, lagman and plov on Hampstead Heath today.

One of the reasons that I like running in London is that, having grown up here, many places have very old memories for me. For example, my slight fear of dogs was clearly down to our family's habit of going for a walk on the Heath every Sunday morning prior to lunch until I was in my teens. Here, I was regularly attacked by hounds that were, for the most part, bigger than I was. Even today, I found my way barred by an Old English Sheepdog, who refused to let me past.

Going to the Heath has some great advantages over my usual routes. This was my first real off-road running and the first on anything like hilly terrain - central London is actually pretty flat. On the other hand, it's a bit of a probe having to commute to your run - the Heath is a bit far for me to run to, then around, then back again. Apologies to those on the tube on the way home who had to put up with a somewhat feral-smelling man.

Speaking of memories, the view from Parliament Hill (above) was as cool as I could remember (maybe better, now that Canary Wharf is in existence and viewable) and it was good to see my and my brother's tree from all those years ago still standing there. Check it out - perfectly designed for climbing:

I eat rubbish

Many of my pics seem to be scenes on the Thames. This is partly because a lot of my runs involve travelling along the river, in order to have a bit of scenery to look at and to avoid traffic (the same reason I'm keen on the Regent's Canal and London's parks). Yesterday saw me take in all of the above - along the North bank to Westminster, then up through St James' Park, Green Park, Hyde Park, Regent's Park and then back along the canal. As I hit the Thames south of St Paul's, I saw this craft and couldn't help taking the picture to the right - somehow it seemed fitting in so many ways. 40 tonnes of rubbish is a lot - possibly even more than I could manage though...