Running commute #2

The man on XFM this morning said that summer was over and now all we had to look forward to were clouds and rain and apart from thinking I hate the man on XFM, I think typical just as I’ve re-started my running regime and then I remember that I like running in the rain although if I had to choose between all day rain or all day sun then I would say all day sun please, hell yeah, and so I pack my running stuff and grab my umbrella and go to work and tell my new workmates I’m going to run home and they don’t look at me like I’m mad, in fact they think it’s pretty cool and one of them says she’ll walk part of the way with me if I want to walk one day and I say how about Tuesday, where can you get a train from? and she says Hackney Downs and I say I can go that way, it’s three miles from here, is that ok? and she says yes so my next running commute is going to be half walk/half run, unless I cheat and jump on the train at Hackney Downs too.

But today isn’t a half walk/half run and maybe cheating-by-jumping-on-the-train-at-Hackney-Downs day, today is a proper running commute day but by less than two miles I need to stop and go to the shop and get a drink but not a can of Stella because only complete nutters like the man on the tube last night who threatened me and Tracey drink Stella, and the man at the counter says hello, how are you? and I say I’m fine thanks and he looks at my black eye and says have you been fighting? and I say yeah, you should see the other guy and he says really?  and I say no, not really, I fell over and he says shit, sorry about my language and I say that’s ok and he says were you on a bike? and I lie and say no, I was running, instead of saying no, I was drunk and fell over because once again I forgot wine equals hospitalisation and I pay for my drink and continue on my commute and remember to go the right way this time and I go down the hill again which is as much fun as it was on Tuesday and as I get to the footbridge at the marina a motorbike goes up it and I think I haven’t seen that before and he rides his bike down the steps on the other side and I get round the bend and there’s a cyclist having a piss on the edge of the path and I think you dirty peasant and I go under the bridge and then I’m being lazy and walking and I skip through my iPod trying to find  an uplifting song to spur me on but nothing does and I’m skipping through and skipping through but there’s still nothing and I can practically see my house and so I think I’d better start running again so I do and I get home quicker than last time although that may have something to do with not going half a mile out of my way by not following my map properly.

And the more eagle eyed of you may have spotted the new widget on the right hand side.  And the even more eagle eyed of you may have spotted that I’ve been called “he”.  I haven’t had a sex change.  Honest.  However, I have been set the challenge of running 100 miles in a month.  Warrior Woman has also been set a challenge which I’m sure she’ll tell you about at some point on her blog but in the meantime she has thrown down the gauntlet and challenged me to a challenge within a challenge which shall see us undertaking our challenges at the same time in a mini-competition kind of thing because obviously it’s not enough for her to keep beating me at Scrabulous on Facebook.  Now she wants to out-run me.  Hmm.

Stats
Distance: 5.98 miles
Time: 1:11:03
Pace: 11:53 m/m
Calories: 600
Shops stopped at: 1
Motorbikes going over footbridges: 1
Cyclists pissing on paths: 1
Times went the wrong way: 0
Times looked at map: 1
Walking breaks: a couple
Challenges: 1
Challenges within challenges: 1
Music
Cardiacs
Bobby Conn
Devo
Faith No More
Levellers
The Cure
Foo Fighters
Hole
Missy Elliot
Carter
Soft Cell