Wednesday, in the middle of St Stephen’s House’s Advent Retreat (with 40 Hours Devotion), I ran 10:47. I pushed my break-stride to Leopold Street, but I don’t remember anything else about it.
This morning I ran 10:34, on mildly resentful upper legs. Break-stride pushed to Aston Street.
10:27 on Sunday. As I ran past Henley Street, a pedestrian greeted me with ‘Morning, Son’, and I spent the next two blocks wondering how old one has to be to call a man in his sixties ‘Son.’ Quick answer: He didn’t look that old.
Pushed my single not-break-stride close to Leopold Street. There were headwinds every direction I turned. This seems profoundly unfair.
10:47 again today, in the rain. My body was resisting much of the way — harder breathing, muscles complaining about being tired (after a good night’s sleep). I did push my single break a few paces past the Rusty Bicycle, but mostly just very glad it’s over.
Mostly the same run as Wednesday — I did, however, push my single break-stride back to the Rusty Bicycle at Magdalen and Hurst. The weather wasn’t as cold as Wednesday, and I felt a definite tension in the small of my back (more than any other ache or weakness): time, 10:45.
The Bangorian Controversy is probably not the most prominent topic on most readers’ minds — not even most Anglican readers’ — not even most Anglican controversialist readers’ — but in the seventeenth century, the question of the relation of church and state in post-Restoration England touched on practically everyone’s concerns. If I had more time, I might whip up editions of some of the pertinent documents from the Non-Jurors; but the Bishop of Bangor’s sermon attained wide circulation as a statement of Latitudinarian Erastianism (over against those Anglicans and Scottish Episcopalians who could not in conscience acknowledge William and Mary as legitimate monarchs while James II was alive). Non-Jurors might hew to a catholic, Jacobite line, or a principled Protestant primitivism, so the non-juring movement was constituted with internal conflict from the outset. On the other hand, the Latitudinarians who accepted William and Mary could argue (as Bishop Hoadly does herein) that the very idea of church government was non-biblical and that the state was the only proper seat of temporal authority.
Anyway, it’s not a long sermon, and you can read it here, in either single-page or two-up versions.
Cold morning, very strong disinclination to get out of bed, but I pushed the single break-stride interval further up the Magdalen Road and kept to a peppier pace. 10:57, back closer to what had been normal.
I ran my mile this morning, cautiously, since I have had a vexing, lingering head cold and cough for more than two weeks (during which interval I forswore my exercise regimen). I set a very modest pace and planned to break at Magdalen Road, if I could get that far.
As it turned out, the break at Magdalen Road was the only break I took, which was encouraging since I’ve been able to pare away extra breaks over my past few runs. I’ll be very pleased if I can resume pushing my single break later and later in the run. Various muscles and joints protested mildly, but on the whole my body did its job very well, and the time came in at 11:24 (not good, but very good for my first day back, with an unambitious pace and chilly air).
I think I’m coming down with a cold, but I went ahead anyway — didn’t feel any worse than usual, ran in 10:42, and made only one pause. I pushed a half block past Aston Street.
Still only one break (this time I pushed it to Aston Street), time overall came in at 10:35. First quarter mile I was wondering why I was even out in the cold; second quarter mile I was thinking of my friends from Squirrel Hill and times I’d been to Tree of Life; third quarter I pondered the pace I had set and how soon I’d break stride; and the last quarter I was aching to get home and stop running.
Not my time, which was only 10:40, but my steadiness. I didn’t break stride until Leopold Street, again, and today this was my only break. That means I’m one break away from running the whole mile straight through.
Still wheezy, still gasping, but on the verge of running the whole mile. (And I’m eyeing Friday morning for a short sprint, perhaps 1/3 mile at my highest speed.
I pushed my don’t-break-stride back to Leopold Street, and broke only one other time (around Bullingdon), set a decent pace, and got home in 10:29. Very pleased to be cutting down the walking breaks, and although I’d rather be hovering around 10:00 flat, I’m making progress on steady running, and that’s good too.
It pretty much — but not quite — makes up for the young man who whizzed pass me at the start of my run, going faster than I ever can, without the laboured breathing that is my lot. I remain a bit concerned by my breathing; I don’t hear other runners wheezing and gasping as I still do. But I’m keeping at running, and that’s a great deal more for my lungs than I might be doing.
Everything resisted running this morning — my breathing was laboured, my shoulders felt heavy and weary, it was hard to pick up my feet (to be fair, my knees and legs in general were pretty cooperative, so not ‘everything’). I broke stride at Magdalene and Iffley, way earlier than I had been.
Still, I finished at 10:39, so I suppose that’s a good sign. On to Sunday —