Sunday morning, alarm goes off – I groan and am made a welcome cup of tea. Faffolino decides to visit and in her usual fashion, manages to persuade me to faff. We are travelling to Italy tomorrow, so this gives Faffolino many prevarication excuses for me. Pack the overnight bag, unpack the overnight bag, re-pack the overnight bag. Sort out the laundry, get dressed, think about sorting the car…
Yes, yes, yes, I faffed a lot. But then I did go out and welcomed Mr Smooth back into my life. Because of a short break, followed by some interval training, I hadn’t done a longer run for a while. So, charge up the C25K App, go direct to Week 9, where Mr Smooth is waiting for me patiently.
Now I had remember how to synch everything again:-
- Music – check
- Map My Run – check
- Mr Smooth – check
It is blinking cold and I am wearing double layers, runner’s buff, gloves and hat. I decide to avoid the Top Gear tunnel under the Barbican, as it is full of nasty chemicals and so I go ‘over the top’ to avoid the fumes. Mr Smooth tells me I can do the thirty minutes run and not to fear it. I am feeling rather perky and so I actually start my run ahead of Mr Smooth’s instructions (only by a minute), I am skipping merrily to the sound of It’s Raining Men and decide I will just run as far as I feel.
Leaving the concrete beauty behind me, I continue towards Clerkenwell Road and hallelujah the traffic lights are green and I bound across St John’s Street, past the Zetter Hotel (I really should get paid for mentioning them!) and towards the Farringdon Road junction, double hallelujah the lights are on green and I bound merrily across there. towards the Italian church, where I see all the Clerkenwell Italians getting ready to enter church. As ever, they are dressed in their Sunday best, some little old nonnas wearing rather over-sized fur coats, that are the size of small houses. Reading the London Italian newspapers and sipping espresso coffee, the sight of mini Italy on a Sunday makes me smile, because that is where I will be in two days’ time.
At this point, the fur coats had obviously transmitted telepathic heat rays to my clothing, so a quick press of pause to give me time to get my hat, gloves and running buff off, as I was overheating. Needless to say, I forgot to ‘de-pause’ Mr Smooth, I did wonder why he wasn’t his usual encouraging self. Up towards Bloomsbury and the fairly hip Lamb’s Conduit Street, a quick skip towards Coram Park and looping back to Lamb’s Conduit Street again – it was at this point I realised Mr Smooth had gone AWOL, another pause and re-start. By now I was slowing down and decided if I could do six or seven kms, then that would be good enough. I headed back towards home, passing The Bowler pub (another advert!) and the Hidden House recently featured on Grand Designs. On Lever Street I saw a lady wearing the most flashy cobalt blue and net leggings, so needless to say I had to loop back and tell her they were amazing. She did look surprised – I am putting it down to middle aged eccentricity…
Finally, Mr Smooth caught up and told me I’d been running for thirty minutes – he was wrong of course, but it was me who paused him. And tonight, I saw him on SPOTY on the Beeb. Truthfully Mr Smooth is a master of words and running and he helped me today.
Playlist
All Stood Still – Ultravox
It’s Raining Men – The Weather Girls
Love’s Unkind – Donna Summer
Dreaming Of Me – Depeche Mode
Personal Jesus – Depeche Mode
Temptation – Heaven 17
I Won’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me – Nik Kershaw
Electric Barbarella – Duran Duran
Night Fever – Bee Gees
Somewhere In My Heart – Aztec Camera
Stats
Distance 7.62km (but includes warm up so probably about 6km)
Time 43.56 mins
Average Pace 5.46 mins/km (not true Map My Run was weird!)
Elevation Gain 26 m
