where shall I wander? Not sure I remember the rest of the nursery rhyme, but wandering was on the cards. Today is billed by the media as ‘quitters’ day’ – the day when most of us stop doing the New Year’s Resolution or Resolutions we made on the first of January.
Isn’t it a depressing thought that most of our committed thoughts can only last 12 days? I read the newspaper article and realised that yesterday was strictly speaking my run day. I hadn’t run….boo hiss.
Today therefore no excuses – I had to get out. Now I had a planned set of activities this morning, and my run was scheduled for this afternoon. With my running for Alzheimer’s I have to do about 37 km a week and I started one week behind in the New Year, so straight away I am in deficit. Not to worry, I can catch that up I think…
I left to my new playlist ‘Keep Running, Keep Smiling’ playlist on Spotify. I decided once more to head to the river, now I could be virtuous and say I’d run the hills in Hampstead, but my distance challenge is a challenge in itself without me adding in hills. To the river it was… I skipped through St Paul’s churchyard and headed down towards the West before turning back up to the famous now non wobbly bridge and headed West again. On Tuesday I ran past a man playing a flaming tuba, today he was nowhere to be seen. The Southbank was busy, so was scooting between people and trying to avoid being in shot on people’s pics. Today the London Eye wasn’t barricaded, so I was able to run cleanly through to Westminster Bridge. I thought briefly of running through Westminster but the crowds were horrendous, so I turned tail towards St Thomas’s Hospital and ran back towards the East. Passing the National Theatre, Johnny Nash singing ‘There Are More Questions Than Answers’ was fading out and I did wonder why the Christmas Carousel was still in pride of place. That’s one question unanswered, the second was ‘what on earth is a goose doing strolling on Southbank?’
A very confident goose, was walking towards me; I had a choice – hope I could get past him and the oncoming lady, or try and avoid him, by running across him. As I understand it geese can be diva like in their temperaments, but he was fine, nary a glance in my direction. Maybe he was blinded by my fluoro top, or astounded at the speed… Back towards the Tate and I kept on running as the Spencer Davis Group exhorted me to, and this time no security guards told me off.
We used to live in Clerkenwell in a place called Brewery Square, which was often mistaken by cab drivers for the other Brewery Square in South London, so I decided to head there, it’s not that far from Tower Bridge, so I thought I might be able to do a 9/10km run, which would be fab. I ran on into the original Brewery Square – not much going on and headed out finally to the New Caledonian Wharf, where to be honest I was getting a bit tired.
I decided just to keep running until my ‘Mrs Overall’ running style paid a visit. Back towards City Hall, Charlotte Gainsbourg was singing Rest and I sure needed one, she was followed smartly by Under Pressure, and I was feeling it, so headed on up to London Bridge for home. The theme to the Pink Panther was playing and I was neither panthering nor padding along. My feet were hitting the ground like a mini elephant, at that point ‘Happy’ by Pharrell came on – that gave me a mini boost. Just shy of home, my battery pack ran out and the little legs would go no further. But what a result, my furthest run (ever, I think) a shade over 13k.
As I turned the corner for home, The Streak by Ray Stevens came on, there was no chance of me streaking anywhere at this point. But job done, I didn’t quit on quitters’ day. Nor did loads of my buddies on C25K either.
Playlist (not necessarily in order, this is as I can remember them)
Ju Ju Man – Dave Edmunds
Gotta Keep Smiling – Scouting For Girls
Nowhere Fast – Eminem F. Kehlani
The Rock Steady Crew – The Rock Steady Crew
One Step Beyond – Prince Buster
Easy – Commodores
Running’ Down A Dream – Tom Petty
Tiger Feet – Mud
Compression – Digilio and Accorsi
Marathon – Rush
There Are More Questions Than Answers – Johnny Nash
Keep On Running – Spencer Davis Group
Smile – Lily Allen
Question – The Moody Blues
Snail – The Smashing Pumpkins
Miami Vice Theme – Jan Hammer
Tread Softly – Tiny Ruins, Hamish Kilgour
The Winner – Status Quo
Ice, Ice Baby – Vanilla Ice
Rest – Charlotte Gainsbourg
Pink Panther Theme – Henry Mancini
Under Pressure – Queen and David Bowie
Happy – Pharrell
The Streak – Ray Stevens
Statistics
Distance 13.32 km
Time 1:27:15
Average Pace 6:33 (mins/km)
Elevation Gain 115 metres
Goose – 1
Middle Aged Nose Blowing – 6
Alzheimer’s Challenge
34.28 km to date
1983.72 km to do.
