SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST

Spent part of the afternoon yesterday surfing in search of some more top-notch running blogs a) because my blogroll looks anaemic and b) because good running blogs don’t grow on trees, it seems. Finding the right combination of ingredients is a challenge. The basic requirements are to find a runner who is initially bad at running (runners who’ve done 341 marathons in an assertive fashion are tedious – you have to have ODDS), who can write, who writes regularly, and whose last blog entry was not posted in 2001. The final and probably most important bit is to find a blogger who does not only blog about running, but throws in other observation and narrative at the same time. I found myself trawling through quite a few promising American blogs which included running (good), parenting (fine), eating habits (OK), equipment advice (useful), race reports (great) and – oh fuck – faith. In Darwin’s birthday week it is frightening enough to discover that only 14% of Americans believe in evolution, but it is instant blog death to know that when on the road these godjoggers are not listening to the sumptuous street stomp of Smooth Criminal, but instead to the godcasts of the Rev. Burt S Hugglebutter III of Screwball, Wyoming. No wonder they have taken up running. The bit they fail to mention is that they are being pursued by a baying mob wielding some peculiarly sturdy meat cleavers.

I spent an entirely different part of the afternoon looking at flight options to Boston in May. The options seem to be rather similar in that they all involve flying there and back in a fairly straight line. I only remark on this due to something I have noticed about parks. There is a definite ‘direction’ to all of them. Deptford Park, for instance, is an anti-clockwise park. It simply feels WRONG to run around it clockwise. Greenwich Park, on the other hand, is a clockwise park. I’ve even tried running my usual circuit anti-clockwise, but it just doesn’t work – like men in macs, three-year-olds with scissors, ABBA’s ‘Fernando’. The loop is flat and there seems to be no obvious reasons why the loop cannot be run in both directions, but it just can’t. It’s handy, however, that the Atlantic Ocean doesn’t seem to have this quality. Otherwise things could get awkward.

Alcohol

When you’re reading Bukowski, you don’t need actually to consume any alcohol yourself.

Running Progress

Rest day.