running

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Aliveandrunning2013 October 22

Surely I must be fully fit now ! My calf feels back to normal and it’s sending signals to my brain indicating it wants to start running again. No, not just indicating but demanding. No, not just demanding but vehemently urging. OK, I give in. I’ll (probably) wait until the weekend and do parkrun. If I don’t wait, I’ll go for a two mile run in a couple of days. But, Mr Calf, if I have any further problems, I will never speak to you again.

Half watching The Great British Bake Off : The Final. Like other well produced mainstream food programmes ,the focus is on appearance and taste not health. There is seldom any mention of calories or sugar, fat and salt content. Are these over produced confections healthy ? Will they provide the roughage that my bowel requires? Will my customary good quality poo be compromised if I eat a Bake Off diet ? Importantly, what effect will it have on my calf ?

Interested in sugar ? Read Robert Lustig in today’s Guardian. http://www.theguardian.com/profile/robert-lustig

 

 

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Aliveandrunning2013 October 19

It’s hard not running. I feel more tired and physically slower, I’m eating too much and I’m mildly resentful of running buddies who have the nerve to keep on running rather than show solidarity with me and hang up their shoes until I’ve fully recovered. My calf is no longer aching or sore when pressed but the swelling persists. In three weeks, I’m registered to do the Bonfire Burn 10K. I would be able to complete it but there would be a strong chance of re-injuring my calf and setting me back further. Anyway, I’ll see how I progress overt the next fortnight. There’s an equally strong chance I’ll make the wrong decision.

We volunteered at Wimpole Estate parkrun handing out the finish tokens at the end of the race (which are then scanned alongside  a personal barcode and  appear online as a results table). The weather held and the parkland setting was as beautiful as ever. We had coffee with our friends and then we retired to the second hand bookshop where I underwent a near mystical olfactory experience. Yes, that’s right ! A smell, an odor, a fragrance. The perfume of books on wooden shelves. The scent of old fashioned libraries which only contained physical tomes. I had only taken three steps inside when my not so sensitive nostrils took me back to to my childhood and adolescence. I do know a sizeable number of book people actually sniff them as a part of a sensory experience which digital devices cannot provide. Don’t worry if you are such a person. It’s completely normal and entirely conducive to good mental health. Anyway after recovering  my poise, I bought Ian McEwan’s On Chesil Beach and three Pelican Freud Library paperbacks, Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis, New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis and The Psychopathology of Everyday Life. The Freud volumes are not difficult to read but do require a degree of concentration. However you can dip into them. Sometimes you can feel that Sigmund is talking directly to you. His cultural world and psychological insights continue to fascinate and resonate equally. There is an otherness about his writing which in these times of evidence based research is refreshing. That’s an example of the kind of reasoning which I employ to convince me to buy a book. I have an array of different justifications for various types of books or magazines. I usually succeed in making the right decision.

We’ve got a pair of tickets to see the austere looking Donna Tartt in Cambridge soon. I read The Secret History around 1992 and liked it. I’ll have to get a copy of The Goldfinch and get it signed. “Thank you, Ms Tartt. I’ll be sure to buy your next novel when it’s published in ten years’ time. By the way, have you ever thought of going blond?”

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Aliveandrunning2013 October 15

It’s not easy being a runner when you are injured. Not so long ago, my friends called me the Cambridge gazelle. I ran like the wind (note combination of metaphor and simile), I leapt over any obstacle, I ruthlessly cut a swathe through inferior runners who fell away in awe as I swept past at a super hero pace. In short I was acknowledged as a running god. But no more. The sun has set so far North it won’t rise again for several months. The legend is tarnished, the glitter slides off, the celebrity stumbles. I am beset with failed body parts. Well, one primarily. My bloody right calf ! It’s going to require much longer to recover and I haven’t done myself any favours by running on it before it was fully healed. I’m metaphorically chastising myself right now and it’s not pleasant. Parkrun is out for the time being and a 10K at the beginning of November is in jeopardy. Or is it ? A possible scenario. A week before, I decide my calf strain has gone and I am fully fit. I successfully run the Bonfire Burn 10K but shortly afterwards my calf starts to ache then hurt. Two days later I am hobbling around, my calf badly bruised and swollen. My injury enters a chronic phase.

I did contact my GP surgery to discuss my calf sprain because there was a  very small chance that I had developed a deep vein thrombosis (DVT). I spoke to the practice nurse and my self diagnosis was confirmed. She rang back 10 minutes later having discussed it with a doctor and said I should have a blood test to definitely rule out a DVT. I had a blood test 2 hours later. An excellent service. Thank you.

We watched Stephen Fry : Out There in which he reflects on how much improvement there has been for gay people in his lifetime. It included positive examples like civil partnerships and individual celebrities coming out and shocking instances of proposed laws in Uganda to allow the death penalty for homosexuality. He interviewed a rabidly homophobic church minister who supported the measure and a Government minister for Ethics and Integrity who supports the death penalty. He also spoke to a lesbian who had been “correctively raped”, aged 14. I like Stephen Fry’s approach. It wasn’t that difficult to coax homophobes to spout their sexual fears and hatreds. It’s always dismaying to hear their total absence of empathy and lack of common humanity.

The police are getting some very bad press at the moment. The Independent Police Complaints Commission has questioned the honesty and integrity of police officers who met with Andrew Mitchell MP over the Plebgate row. After the meeting they misrepresented his views at a pre-arranged press conference. But Conservative Andrew secretly recorded the meeting. Eight people, including four police officers, have been arrested and bailed over the September 2012 row at the security gates to Downing Street. The row occurred when Mitchell was told by police not to take his bike through the main gate and  exit instead via a nearby side gate. In a short outburst, he swore at the officers and allegedly called them “plebs”, an interesting class slur.The pleb jibe (alleged) hurt the thin skinned police officers which Mitchell has consistently denied uttering. The police position is becoming increasingly weaker as evidence is amounting that individuals are making up evidence, much like they did following the Hillsborough Stadium  disaster when they blamed the football fans’ behaviour for the deaths of 96 people crushed to death. It seems clear that they have failed to “fit up” Andrew Mitchell and their image is further shredded.

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Aliveandrunning2013 October 12

I have not been running since I did parkrun exactly a week ago. My right calf  strain hasn’t fully recovered but I decided to do Cambridge parkrun today and see how it goes. The race was OK. My arch rival Mike beat me by 47 seconds but a secondary arch rival Darien came in a second behind me. Disappointingly, my calf felt sore and slightly painful when pressed. Perhaps I will have to promote this injury from mild to moderate. It didn’t stop us from having coffee with friends which included new pal Maurice and some of us eating homemade cake offered by two chums who were celebrating running 50 and 100 parkruns each.

I’m having difficulty finding T shirts to fit me in national stores like M&S and John Lewis. Supermarket T’s are similarly problematic. They are predominately large fit, unshaped and long. It’s clear these are aimed at men who are overweight and probably have a sizeable paunch or at least an ample waistline. Which means they will have a large mass of visceral fat around their organs. That’s not at all good. It’s very bad. Do they know? Do they care? Someone’s got to buy the cronuts !

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Aliveandrunning 2013 October 6

I did it ! I ran the Wimpole Estate Hoo Haar half marathon without having to stop because of my recent calf injury and in a reasonable time (for me) of 1 hour 55 minutes. The course had some steep trail hills and I tend to struggle on these. I think they would have added around 5 minutes compared with a flat course such as the Grunty Fen which I ran 4 weeks ago. My arch rival Mike beat me by 3 minutes and did very well for his first half marathon on this demanding course. Lorna provided vocal support as a marshall on the last gate, about 300 metres from the finish line and met loads of friendly people. My right calf was aching immediately after the race and remains sore. It may well die down over the next couple of days but I won’t go running with the club on October 8. I also felt pretty knocked out when I got home and needed a couple of hours resting/dozing on the sofa. After this, I felt fine.

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Aliveandrunning2013 October 5

Cambridge parkrun presented no problem today and I am now assuming my calf injury is fully healed. This is good news, and very timely too, because I’m running a half marathon at Wimpole Hall estate tomorrow. The weather is predicted good with plenty of sunshine and I now feel invincible again. In fact I might run the course then run it again to complete a full marathon. Or I might run it backwards. Who knows what I am capable of ! But putting on my hard hat of objectivity, I remind myself that I am under trained for this distance at the moment and I might re-injure my calf. Quick as a flash, I remove my hard hat and don my cloak of invincibility. I am all powerful and nothing can stop me completing the race in a record time. I decide to keep my cloak on and store my hard hat in the garage.

Lorna’s Achilles’ injury is proving to be more substantial than we first thought and she has now been advised to walk as little as possible for the next week. If the pain and discomfort improve we will know that extended minimal walking and rest is the way to go. Not to run is a big disappointment but at the moment even normal getting around can be painful. So Lorna didn’t volunteer today and I went off to parkrun alone. My arch rival Mike is running in the half marathon tomorrow and decided to keep his powder dry by not doing parkrun. He did support me as a vocal spectator, however, magnanimously clapping rather than hissing as I passed by. He’s beating me by about 2-3 minutes on 10K runs but hasn’t run 13 miles before. With my swirling cloak of invincibility, I’m sure I’ll be a winner.

I still have little understanding why Obama’s health care bill, and the issue of extending medical care to a larger section of those who have great difficulty accessing the help they need, creates such hostility and righteous anger in the Republican Party. Large swathes of America opinion seem to be so foccussed on vested interest or expressing a repugnance of paying extra taxes to support the initiative or fearing a slippery slope to socialism. I can only conclude that the Christian virtues espoused by many Republicans are entirely hypocritical (or perhaps ironic) because the impression I receive is that they are wholly lacking in common humanity, charity and empathy.

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Aliveandrunning2013 October 2

No available car to drive to Cambridge and Coleridge AC, so no road running for me with the club yesterday evening. Instead I went for a routine 47 minute run which took me to the banks of the River Cam at which point I turn around and run back. Calf feels normal but will it hold up for 2 hours when I do the Hoo Haar half marathon on Sunday, October 6 ? Should I do an hour’s run  tomorrow ? And what about parkrun on Saturday ? Good sense suggests I should cut out at least one of them. I’ll definitely do parkrun, however.

The media is reporting a meta analysis finding in the British Medical Journal which looked at 304 research papers concerning the role of exercise and medication in heart disease and stroke. The conclusion identified exercise as on a par  with medication in terms of continuing good health outcomes. It identifies diuretic drugs as most important for heart failure and exercise as important , or most important, in stroke recovery. It looked at trials involving nearly 340,000 patients to assess the merits of exercise and drugs in preventing death. Such was the extent of exercise in reducing death rates, the findings suggested that exercise should be added to prescriptions. This is good news and will encourage people to take some responsibility for their own continuing health. Unfortunately so many of us seem determined to sleepwalk into substantial health problems by willfully ignoring sensible eating patterns, not sleeping sufficiently, drinking too much alcohol and not taking any regard for the nature and quality of the food we consume, particularly the refined stuff.

At Birmingham Crown Court, a 23 year old man pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of a 16 year old girl on a bus by stabbing her, He has been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, a severe and enduring mental illness which when appropriately treated and care supported, can be well managed. He was previously assessed by a psychiatric service in prison where he was serving a short sentence for threatening his mother with a knife. On discharge there was no treatment or care plan presumably because they didn’t identify a treatable mental illness (although prison staff had identified a number of problem behaviours). That’s the most charitable explanation. Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust have Assertive Outreach teams, a medium secure forensic service and a contract to provide a psychiatric service to the prison system. I find it difficult to accept that the assessing personnel didn’t identify an illness that their services could successfully treat. Paranoid schizophrenia was apparently diagnosed after the fatal stabbing which occurred about 3 months after his discharge from prison. Are their specialist Assertive Outreach teams working at full capacity? Have there been cuts in the provision of such services ? How could he not meet the criteria ?

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Aliveandrunning2013 September 29

Cambridge parkrun went well. No problems with my right calf muscle and I was only 22 seconds away from a personal best. My arch rival, Mike, beat me by 17 seconds but ” vengeance is mine, sayeth the runner” and we go head to head next week in the Wimpole Hall Estate Hoo Haar half marathon. Lovely, sunny weather for the 5K parkrun. Lorna volunteered, scanning finishers’ barcodes and, after the race,  we had coffee, with friends, outside in the warm sun. Why wouldn’t you do parkrun at 9 am on Saturday morning? Staying in bed often results in feeling lethargic during the day and susceptible people are at risk from Krispey Kremes or other dangerous sugar and fat confections if they don’t take active steps to wake themselves up. If you are feeling down in mood, running and particularly social runs can help you to manage your mood or positively alter your mindset. Runners readily form communities and everyone can belong. There are so many more available races these days and it can work out fairly expensive in terms of entry fees. Soon, people will be turning to crime to fund their running habit. But parkrun is free! They only ask you to volunteer occasionally (and this is fun rather than a chore). It gives an insight into the amount of organisation required to stage a run and allows you to contribute to its success. Parkrun is very inclusive ; parents frequently run with babies in buggies, carry toddlers or run with older children. You don’t have to be a “serious runner” or particularly fit but it will motivate you to think about what you would like to do regarding levels of fitness and how you could realistically achieve those goals.

At the moment, I think I will be sufficiently fit to do the Wimpole half marathon. I have done very little training, due to injury, and I am keeping my fingers crossed that I will be able to complete the course without calf pains. If I feel uncomfortable, I will stop running. After more than 30 years, the penny has finally dropped. DON’T RUN ON AN INJURY ! It’s so tempting. How easily we can delude ourselves and become  unrealistically optimistic. We find we can run the race and the pain hasn’t been so bad. Then we discover, at our leisure, that we have compounded the injury which might have cleared up in a third  of the time  it will now take. Anyway, that’s the theory. But if I’m just ahead of Mike and my calf starts to twang, no way am I going to pull up and let my arch rival beat me so easily. In fact I will redouble my effort and push on, even if I need to be stretchered off at the finish line.

Today, we spectated at the Bourn to Run 10K where Mike and Sue were running. Both ran well over an undulating trail course and their young daughter, Emily, did the 3K race. A second excellent day of weather with unbroken sunshine and early Autumn warmth. We met loads of running friends of all abilities and it was an enjoyable way to spend a Sunday morning. Again, why wouldn’t you want to be a part of that? If you experience problems with your mood, here’s a gold standard activity (running or volunteering or spectating) to mitigate and manage those difficulties.

Chief Constable Mike Barton of Durham Police has called for the decriminalisation of Class A drugs and advocates the care and treatment of addicts rather than criminalising them. He argues that the  disappearance of the criminal element of drugs removes the income stream of criminal groups, erodes their power and influence and allows for a “controlled environment” for the dissemination of addicts’ drugs, possibly administered under the auspices of the NHS. This approach has been implemented, or part implemented, in a few other countries. I don’t know what the outcomes have been but it is a dramatic change of tack that is increasingly being discussed. Unfortunately these kinds of controversial measures are laden with political risk for the party bringing in the appropriate legislation. The government would be denounced and pilloried by the right wing media whose demographic comprise the frightened middle classes, unthinking people, bigots and the mindset that requires all transgressions to be punished. I presume the coalition, or rather the Tories, won’t genuinely address the issue or will dismiss it.

Lorna pointed out a statistic in yesterday’s Guardian. “For 36% of Britons , a tidy home is a greater pleasure than a holiday, a night out or sex But the study showed that woman still do most of the tidying).” Source : survey of householder appliance manufacturer Beko. Ye Gods! What inferior kind of holiday, night out or sex are these people having?

Random pictures of books in our home. Reading a book, of course, is a greater pleasure than keeping a tidy house.

photo (4) photo books12photo5

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Aliveandrunning2013 September 26

Hooray, I’m into the Cambridge half marathon for 2014. Various off spring are also trying to get registered. I got in today because I had pre-registered and have a Cambridge postcode, tomorrow registration is open for those who previously emailed their interest and on September 30, registration is open for everyone else……if places are still available ! The first tranche of registrations (which includes ME) has taken over 2000 of the 4,600 places in under 12 hours.

Great local story in our city newspaper, Cambridge News, which was taken up by the nationals. Trumpington Village Hall which hires out rooms or the Hall to groups like the Women’s Institute, pensioners and the Brownies, took an unremarkable booking for a “relationship support meeting.” In reality, the booking was undertaken by a bondage group who intended to provide lessons in “flogging, spanking and domination.” The paper described the individual workshops and sessions and noted that the low cost fee included tea, coffee, pastries and biscuits. One of the sessions offered Kink on a Budget, focusing on BDSM, “without breaking the bank.” On September 25, the paper’s headlines announced a bondage workshop at Trumpington Village Hall (with considerable detail) and on September 26, the headlines reported that the  village hall trustees had cancelled the booking (with more substantial detail of sessions that would now not take place and quotes from outraged local residents). The hall manager said “We provide services for little old ladies and child care groups. Some of our little old ladies who come to play bingo will be upset.” The articles marvelously illustrated the British stereotype of condemning anything sexually unconventional by implication or insinuation rather than straight forward criticism or argument. The clear message is it’s smut from which vulnerable people (little old ladies and children) need to be protected. The case for mild sexual diversity in the Cambridgeshire villages has received a body blow (with no sexual frisson in this instance).

In the near future I will be posting pictures of my books where they live, sit or are stacked, dreaming of an air conditioned, low light, purpose built library extension. I may also include pictures of piles of papers and magazines too. The world waits with bated breath.

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Aliveandrunning2013 September 25

I ran 2 miles to test my injured calf. I had intended to rest it for longer but gave in because I miss running. I think I’m more tired and have less energy when I’m not running and this alone makes me highly motivated to get back into a routine. My calf felt fine and I will rest it until Cambridge parkrun on September 28 when I will do 5K as fast as possible. I then have a week before the Wimpole Estate Hoo Haah  half marathon. I may do a long run next week to push my calf further and hopefully it will hold up.

Tomorrow I hope to register for the Cambridge half marathon in March 2014. There’re about 4,600 places and around 8000 people have previously shown interest by email which will give some priority over those who register, or try to register later.