Matt Gets Running

Hur­rah! At last, I’m back out on the street (that made me sound like a des­per­ate hooker, didn’t it? Hmm.)

The snow has mostly melted away — the only bits I saw were the huge lumps that have been rolled to the sides of Clifton Down here and there, as pic­tured, tran­si­tory snow-boulders that stand as a mon­u­ment to what once was.

Run­ning really is a great way of explor­ing new music. I’ve just started to get into Kenickie, about twelve years after they split up, which is often the way with me. Left to my own attention-deficit-disorder devices at home, I’ve mostly been play­ing two tracks, Ace­tone and Punka, from their first album, At The Club, over and over again.

Out jog­ging, though, I hap­pily lis­tened to the album all the way through, almost twice, get­ting deeper into other tracks, and find­ing other ones I love, like Peo­ple We Want, while being slightly per­turbed by lyrics from oth­ers, like PVC (“Oh PVC! It’s my favourite plas­tic! Cos it’s nice and shiny! And com­pletely waterproof!”)

Any­way. Yes. Run­ning, this blog’s meant to be about run­ning isn’t it?

So, today I fig­ured I’d take advan­tage of the sun­shine and jog up to Clifton Vil­lage and around the Downs. I wanted to do more than a per­func­tory 5K, but I fig­ured 10K would be a bit much for the first run in two whole weeks.

So, I nipped up Bridge Val­ley Road, keep­ing it nice and slow so I’d have some energy, then just went all the way around Clifton Down and back into Clifton Vil­lage (details here on Run­K­eeper.) As luck would have it, this got me to my usual fin­ish point at exactly 7.00 kilo­me­ters, which was a pleas­ingly round num­ber and just the right length.

It was a lovely day, and it was a good run, and I’m glad to be back out there after a cou­ple of bor­ing weeks on the exer­cise bike. I may pay for it a bit tomor­row, but at least I remem­bered to stretch this time…

Any­way. Much as I love snow, it’s pretty incom­pat­i­ble with run­ning, so let’s hope it stays warm for a while! See you soon…