It is a Sunday morning and I am ensconced in my bed. The date reminder from Mr Smooth tells me to get up and put my trainers on. My head is banging a familiar rhythm. Head or heart – who is going to win? Mr Smooth or Mrs Migraine.
I decide that Mrs Migraine wins for the moment and take some Paracetamol with a mug of tea. Having given Mrs Migraine an hour to go away and she decided to stay, I then decided to run and join Mr Smooth on our date.
Today is Monopoly Board day and I have the ‘greens’ to do those are:-
- Regent Street
- Oxford Street
- Bond Street
Strictly speaking Bond Street doesn’t actually exist – at one end it is New Bond Street and at the other towards Piccadilly it is Old BS. I noticed as well that I am very close to having run 300km since the beginning of the year and whilst today’s plan is to do 9km, if I feel like doing a bit more, then I won’t be unhappy. This is all going on in the banging head, which is not the best state for running as the pounding of my little elephant feet on the pavement tends to compound the headache.
I trot out – again in my trusty ninja black costume happily gamboling along Theobald Road towards New Oxford Street and boom I get ninja’d -by a guy who undertook me at an incredibly fast pace and I neither heard nor saw him. I am only a trainee ninja – he was the real deal. The embarrassing bit is that he wasn’t kitted up as a ninja, he just looked like your everyday guy, in jeans and trainers – but it was like a sonic boom when he went past. Chuckling to myself I carried onto Oxford Street which even on a Sunday morning is a nightmare of limbs, pushchairs, bikes, cars buses. I took my obligatory pic and then dashed off towards Soho, to cut out the worst of Oxford Street.
Regent Street is similarly afflicted with traffic of all kinds so I made my way through Conduit Street towards New Bond Street. The shops are a lot more chichi and expensive here, so you tend to get fewer crowds, which was a help for me and my running. Dodging selfie takers outside of Tiffany’s, I managed to get to Old Bond Street without any woes.
Hitting Piccadilly, I headed off towards Leicester Square (typical when you’ve already collected those squares, you come across them again) and up towards law country. Holborn and the Inns of Court. It is nice and quiet in this part of town so I steer towards home and hurrah, I have actually passed the 300km milestone. Going for Greens, I got Gold and a medal from the Under Armour Challenge (frankly it’s utterly meaningless, but it is nice to get bling even if virtual). And I am now in the top 4% for the year all genders and ages.
I am writing this up eating marmalade on toast with a gorgeous frothy home-made cappuccino. I feel all happy and warm just like Paddington bear – if only I had a duffle coat.
Playlist
Doctor Doctor – Thomson Twins (twice)
Tainted Love – Soft Cell
Don’t Go – Yazoo
Everybody Wants To Rule The World – Tears For Fears
Every Day Hurts – Sad Cafe
Do You Really Want To Hurt Me – Culture Club
Hold Me Now – Thompson Twins
I Won’t Back Down – Tom Petty
Don’t You Want Me – The Human League
Cars – Gary Numan
Girls Just Want To Have Fun – Cyndi Lauper
I’m Still Standing – Elton John
Living On the Ceiling – Blancmange
The Tears Of A Clown – The English Beat
Eighties – Killing Joke
It’s My Life – Talk Talk
I Want Your Love – Transvision Vamp
Trapped – Colonel Abrams
It’s A Sin – Pet Shop Boys
Gold – Spandau Ballet
Fade To Grey – Visage
Uptown Girl – Billy Joel
I Melt With You – Modern English
Stats
Distance 11.78kms
Time 1:17:08
Average Pace 6:32(mins/km)
Elevation Gain 51 metres
Alzheimer’s Challenge
Kms Done 300.2
Kms to do 1717.8
He hasn’t posted today’s instructions – so I am going to do squats, wall press ups and hollow rock things, and then if he does post even if I’ve got something wrong, I will have done something.
Torture Update
2 sets of 10 reps of squats – holding the 4kg vampire kettlebell
2 sets of 10 reps of wall press-ups
4 hollow rocks – holding for 20 seconds each
