So, I got out before half past nine, and did a simple short route up the currently-closed-to-traffic Bridge Valley Road. Thanks, Bristol City Council, for the complete lack of pedestrian signage, and unsarcastic thanks to the fellow who exited the bottom of the road as I was starting up it, who let me know that I’d actually be able to get all the way to the top…

And that was my 5K. The RunKeeper log is a bit rubbish at the end, because I seemed to lose GPS signal for the last kilometre, but I’ve done the route before, and it’s definitely a smidge over 5K. My pace was about normal for a hilly route, around 8 minutes per kilometre, and it felt absolutely fine.

I finished off with a coffee-and-croissant breakfast from the ever-friendly Boston Tea Party, then came home to start my day with a shower — almost completely backwards from the normal course of events! And that was my simple start to Sunday. Another day, another 5K…

My hip feels fine, and I didn’t feel totally knackered from the get-go like I did last time, either. Which is all good. Even better, there were actually some traces of daylight left when I set out. It can only be a few weeks until I can get off the A4 and back onto the towpath on the other side of the river, away from the traffic and all the noise and fumes that go with it.

Tonight I used a playlist generated by Tangerine. I like Tangerine– and iTunes Genius-generated lists because they uncover things I never knew were in my music library.

This evening was no exception. There were some old favourites in there — although I really should put Madness’s Driving in My Car on the “not really for jogging” blacklist — but I had no idea that I even owned Madonna’s Love Profusion, Soft Cell’s Le Grand Guignol, or Placebo’s cover of Daddy Cool.

Back to recognisable stuff, my run finished off with a nice back-to-back blast from the 1980s, with the Pet Shop Boys’ It’s a Sin and One More Chance. I love It’s a Sin, but I was probably in my teens the last time I heard One More Chance… Ah, nostalgia.

Anyway. Probably won’t run on Friday, so I guess Saturday will be my next jog; then I might try to get out on Monday and Thursday next week to get back to my more normal three-times-a-week routine. Especially if it’s nice and light!

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 The Fame Monster — currently on Amazon UK at the bargain price of £3 — and got out into the spring sunshine.

As I was tired and a bit headachey — must have been the guava juice — I kept it slow and steady and didn’t go too far. It felt pretty good, though, once I’d got up Bridge Valley Road and got going, and I decided to do a bit more than I’d planned, looping around Durdham Down to finish at just a smidge over 7km.

This makes up a bit for not running on Friday, I suppose. Looking at my stats over the last six months, Friday is the day of the week on which I tend to run least, coming in just below Monday. I think I should therefore be a bit more realistic about planning to run on Fridays, and maybe try heading out on Tuesday and Thursday if I want to go out twice during the week…

Anyway. Finished my 7K, went and got some lunch from Boston Tea Party, who are always lovely and friendly and do great coffee, and then wandered home along Royal York Crescent, which is today’s picture. This came straight from the iPhone, put together in camera from three shots, using Debacle Software’s Pano App.

So. A bit odd, then, that this morning I woke up just before the alarm clock did that quiet little *clonk* it does when the alarm’s not actually switched on, and thought, “Hmm. I fancy a jog.”

Even more odd, I actually went and did it. None of the stats look unusual on the RunKeeper log. 7K in 56 minutes, a little under 8 minutes per kilometre — slow, but not unusual when Bridge Valley Road is involved. What’s unusual is that the run started at just past 7am on a Sunday morning.

It made a nice change, actually. I think I suffered a bit more towards the end than usual — there’s a final little incline I have to get up, and it seemed harder today. Maybe I was lacking blood sugar.

But on the whole, it was a pretty nice experience. I was out early enough to disturb some wildlife I don’t normally see — a cormorant, for example, flapping away to the other side of the river as I bounded past, and the crows, yet to be relegated to the sidelines by the Sunday football leagues, pulling their stringy breakfast from the Downs.

And I finished on an unexpected bonus, too: I’d expected a pitfall of the early start to be a lack of coffee at the finish line, but once I’d passed my three usual suspects for a post-run drink — Coffee #1, Chandos Deli, and Boston Tea Party — I stumbled across Caffe Nero, who open at 8am every Sunday. Not only were they open, they wished me a happy Valentine’s Day as soon as I walked in, which was a nice touch.

So, in the absence of any decent photos — it was a dull, grey dawn this morning — here’s some product placement. I think they deserve it :)

PS: I went out for a simple 5K on Wednesday, but didn’t have time to blog about it. But I’m keeping up the momentum, honest!

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…

The Primitives’ fab 1988 single, Crash, poured some good advice out into my headphones as I ran this evening. Because it was bloody freezing.

Look, even my WeatherPro iPhone app said it was minus 0ºC. That’s like freezing, only even freezinger.¹

Luckily, the ice seemed to be confined to the beginning bit of the run — I guess today’s sunshine must have melted anything that had built up on the Portway itself. And once I’d warmed up, which took about ten minutes, in my woolly hat and gloves, the running was fine.

I think I’m nearly back to normal, in terms of speed. I’m not sure the RunKeeper stats are particularly accurate today, as the app had to cope with a lot of interruptions — this is the first time I’ve had a phone call, a text, a Twitter mention and some email all come in during the course of a single run — but if it’s to be believed, I did 5K in 35 minutes, which is fine by me.

Anyway. The point of this week was to get the momentum back after the Christmas break, and this third run of the week means I’m back in the usual groove. I’m going to try to get out for three runs in the coming week, too, to make sure of that. But just in case it gets icier, I’ve also dusted off my exercise bike. It’ll be dull, but at least I’ll be keeping up with the exercise…

1. Joking aside, WeatherPro is an excellent app, and I recommend it.

Nevertheless, because it looked like it might chuck it down with rain if I left it any longer, I finally got out for my weekend jog a couple of hours later. And it was fine. Although I’ve been feeling tired all day, mentally and to some degree physically, that didn’t seem to stop my legs moving. Result.

So, aided by an iTunes Genius playlist kicked off by She Bangs the Drums, which meandered through some lesser-known bits of my library, including some of Ian Brown’s solo stuff, and the Magic Numbers’ Mornings Eleven, which was pleasingly bouncy, I jogged nearly 7K, at a decent pace even though it started off with a relatively slow puff and pant up Bridge Valley Road.

And I’m glad I did. Especially as I’d not managed to have lunch by the time I made it to Coffee #1 and Chandos Deli in Clifton Village at the end of the run :) Vanilla latte “for the win”, as I believe the youngsters are saying these days…

Today’s photo is a bit of autumn colour from the path back to Clifton Village from the Downs. Click through for Flickr bigness.

I’d not noticed this bit of literally Panglossian optimism in Babshambles’ Deft Left Hand before. But it seemed to be the theme of the morning, as I climbed up into the sunshine on the Downs, and my iPod randomly picked the most cheerfully British of Pete Doherty’s output, from Albion to The Last of the English Roses. Okay, some of Doherty’s cheeriness might be a touch ironic in places, but it’s clear that he’s in love with at least bits of his country at a fairly deep level.

And, jogging around the greenery of Clifton Down, occasionally picking my way through bits of fallen tree from the weekend’s storms, as the sun picked out the colours of the last of the autumn leaves, it was easy to take the cheeriness at face value.

So, yeah, a good run. I didn’t push it hard, just did a simple 5-and-a-bit-K, ending up in the Coffee #1 in Clifton Village. That did nothing to dispel my joy with the world, as I walked in and the girl behind the counter, who I’m pretty sure has only seen me three times before, smiled and said, “Large vanilla latte to take away?” Gotta love that.

This is a bit of a relief after my rubbish run earlier this week, frankly. If it had been an equally crap run, I might have decided to take a week off to give myself a break. As it is, I’m just going to take it easy this week, not pushing myself any further than 5K, and then see how I feel at the weekend.

Today’s title is from Alabama 3’s fantastic track Power In the Blood, from the album of the same name. It helped me get off to a nice start on the Downs after I’d clambered up Bridge Valley Road.

I woke up to the sound of fairly heavy rain on a dull morning in Bristol. By the time I’d dragged myself into a fully awake state, though, it had dried off a bit, so I got out running.

I kept up with my plan to go around the Downs, but this time by a slightly longer route, still starting off by climbing from the Portway along Bridge Valley Road and along Ladies’ Mile, but then turning left at the top of the Downs, rather than right, to go around Circular Road and past the Sea Wall, before curving back towards Clifton Village.

That’s where today’s photo is from, by the way; I stopped for a minute or two in the howling gale at the Sea Wall to take a quick picture. It’s amazing how small in the distance the Suspension Bridge looks, bearing in mind I started off on the far side, on the road below it!

Anyway. I was going for distance, rather than speed, today, so it was a fairly gentle plod, especially at the beginning; I didn’t want to knacker myself on the eighty-metre climb at the start.

And it was successful, being my longest run to date. Looking at the RunKeeper log, I did about 6.5km (you have to take off about 300m for the 5-minute warm up, which I walked) in about 54 minutes. I don’t think that’s bad, considering the hill. My pace looks pretty even, too, although the graph is a bit skew-whiff at the end; I had to edit the route manually after the GPS got a bit confused on the last bit of the run, probably because I went through some trees.

So, basically, things are going fine :) I’m going to take a couple of days off now, and probably run on Wednesday and Friday this week.