Matt Gets Running

It was, again, really very sunny and warm today. I didn’t get up early enough to avoid it, so instead of head­ing for the Downs like usual, I went for a lit­tle jog around Leigh Woods, which has a lot more shade, instead. I didn’t take it too seri­ously, stop­ping off in a few different […]

Like I said in my last update, I fan­cied get­ting out for a nice long run this week­end, and this morn­ing I made good on that. I ran from home, out along the tow­path under the Sus­pen­sion Bridge, all the way to the far entrance to Leigh Woods, then up into the for­est. I did a […]

“I don’t feel too steady on my feet… ”…I feel hol­low I feel weak” Well, I did a bit. And just as that line in the Stone Roses She Bangs the Drums came around, too. But I had just pow­ered up Bridge Val­ley Road delib­er­ately a bit faster than nor­mal, to see if I could improve […]

I went to a cock­tail party last night. Even though I don’t drink, it meant I was up until about 2am, so I didn’t drag myself out for a jog until about half past one today. Bit of a con­trast from last week’s 7am enthu­si­asm! Any­way, to get myself going, I down­loaded Lady Gaga’s album […]

Yup, went out and did another 10K today. Wasn’t entirely sure I was going to — if I’d not felt good I’d have cut it short — but it was fine. Nice and slow, up Bridge Val­ley Road, around the edge of Clifton Down to the Water Tower, a loop around Dur­d­ham Down, then back […]

I think it’s quite for­tu­itous that this is the week I’ve been read­ing the chap­ter on avoid­ing injuries in John Bingham’s No Need for Speed. One of the things he talks about is how to pay atten­tion to your body; how to lis­ten to those early, gen­tle aches and pains that mean you should back […]

Well, turns out I’m actu­ally crazy. Crazy like those weirdos who go out run­ning when they’re ill and tell you that it actu­ally helps. Because it helped. Not only did it help, but in some ways, the ill­ness seemed to help the run­ning, too. My lack of con­cen­tra­tion made me a bit for­get­ful. I for­got I […]

I’m still not feel­ing fab, but sleep­ing in very late today seemed to leave me with some energy, so I decided to go spend it on another post-Christmas momentum-building run. It seemed fit­ting for the first day of the year — start as you mean to go on, and all. And it was a lovely […]

I don’t know when this week became the week to push and to prove myself. But appar­ently it did. I should have got out run­ning last night, but I was knack­ered after work, so I did what any brave and stout young fel­low would have done: gave up on the idea and went to bed early. This […]

This morn­ing I had a bit of an acci­dent. My gen­eral plan was to skip the run­ning last night, and instead go out this morn­ing, as I’ve found my last few Sat­ur­days have been low-energy, wasted days, and I thought I’d see if start­ing with a run would help pick me up a bit. So, I […]