A long running commute

As I have resolved to do another running commute tonight, this morning I look at my marathon training schedule and it says to do 8 miles. What?!!! Yikes. 8 miles mid-week? I’ve only ever done 6 miles mid-week and I don’t have an 8 mile route and I don’t know if I’m marathon training yet or what anyway. But I take my running stuff to work with me and at lunchtime I’m trying to eat my lunch in peace and read the internet but those noisy annoying twats in the office next door are being noisy annoying twats so I mutter loudly under my breath “shut the fuck up” and hope they can hear me and I grab my iPod and go to go out for a walk but my boss is back from court and in his office and he’s got his pissed off face on and calls me in and starts going blah blah blah and hassling me and I go back to my desk to do something for him and the noisy annoying twats are still being noisy and annoying and I go to leave again and my boss apologises for going blah blah blah and hassling me and he says he’s stressed and asks if I’m going to the gym and I say no, those idiots are being annoying, I need to go for a walk and escape and he says yes, good idea, go out for an hour or so, I’ll see you later and I think bollocks, in my new job I bet my new boss won’t be telling me to go out for an hour and I go for a walk up to Waterloo bridge and I wonder how far the river is from my new job and I think it’s nearer than it is now and I go back to work and my boss has gone back to court and the door is shut on the annoying twats’ office and I think you shut the door after I’ve gone? you tossers, and the day is going so so slowly and I just want to go home and do my running commute and my boss comes back and says I can go home on time today and I think hooray, as for the last two days I’ve left late and I leave to do my commute and while I’m at the bus stop waiting for my Garmin to get a signal I think how warm it is and glad I’m wearing a short sleeved t-shirt as I haven’t even started to run yet and I’m roasting already and when my Garmin eventually gets a signal I head off and I’m still trying to decide whether I should start marathon training now as, although my new schedule started last week, I had already made myself a schedule that doesn’t start ‘til May and my brain isn’t prepared to start training yet but I don’t want to appear ungrateful for the new schedule and I give myself until I get to the Angel to decide whether this is the start of my marathon training or not and I get to the Angel and I still haven’t decided and I get to Essex Road and a woman cycles up a side road and I’m sure it’s the same woman from yesterday who was getting sworn at by a very angry man for cycling on the pavement but she doesn’t seem to be harmed so maybe she wasn’t beaten into submission although she is now on the road instead of the pavement so maybe she learnt her lesson after all and all I have to say on the cyclist v pedestrian v cars debate is CYCLISTS: KEEP OFF THE FUCKING PAVEMENT.

And as I’m going down Essex Road, I’m remembering to look out for a chemist that Londonjogger said there’s a Banksy on although I wouldn’t recognise a Banksy even if Brian Sewell dragged me over to one by the hair and said “This is a Banksy” but I eventually find a chemist in Essex Road with some graffiti on the side of it and I’m assuming this is what you meant LJ?

The rest of Essex Road remains Banksy-less and cyclists-on-pavement-less and I get halfway home and think oh no, I’ve got to do another five miles but a schedule is a schedule and a resolve is a resolve and more to the point a marathon is twenty six point two miles long and it seems that my brain has decided for me that I am marathon training now after all but I still haven’t decided how I’m going to add another two miles on in the marshes and I get to the marshes and when I get to the first bridge I decide to not go over the marshes but to run alongside the canal on the other side and rejoin the marshes at the marina which a) means I don’t have to be stuck in the middle of the marshes on my own but can run alongside the houses and feel safer; and b) it’ll make a change as I haven’t run that way before. And as I’m running alongside the canal the area has a nice feel about it and I start looking at the houses to see if any of them have a for sale sign on them as I quite fancy a house overlooking the canal and the marshes and then I see one and make a note of the estate agent and think I will investigate and see how much they are and then I can live opposite the marshes and hope my cat doesn’t fall into the canal.

I get to the rowing club at five and a half miles and it’s a mile to the street then a mile and a half home so that will bring me up to 8 miles and I think that was just about a perfect route and when I’m going back along the street I look over the wall at the train tracks and there’s a sign there I’ve never noticed before that says “7” and I look at my Garmin and it’s on 6.99 miles and I think that’s spooky or maybe I’m hallucinating and I finally get home and I’ve got to write this blog and hope I’ve managed to intertwine all the answers to the questions that were in the comments from yesterday’s post and have a shower and wash my hair and have some dinner and do my washing and get my stuff ready for the gym tomorrow lunchtime and my new journalism evening class tomorrow night and between doing that and going to work I’ve somehow got to fit some sleep in too.

Today’s route

Stats
Distance: 8.26 miles
Time: 1:33:38
Pace: 11:20 m/m
Calories: 823
Annoying twats in the office next door: 4
Days ’til I leave my job: 21
Banksys: 1
Marathon training schedules started: 1
Music
Jesus & Mary Chain
The Levellers
Cardiacs
Hard-Fi
The Doors
Electric Soft Parade
Eminem
Franz Ferdinand
The Gossip
The Killers
The Kooks
Manic Street Preachers
Pulp
Modest Mouse
PJ Harvey
Sleeper
Sex Pistols
Ween
The Who
The Wombats
Ash
Charlotte Hatherley