Month: January 2020

I had a pretty positive run this morning — an agreeable 8°, steady pace, with enough energy that I could pick up my tempo a couple of times in the last stretch. Alas, when I got home and pushed ‘Stop’ on my timer, it became clear that something had already stopped my timer when I put it in my pocket three seconds into my run (3.93 seconds, to be precise). I’ll call it a 10:30 run, though as we have seen, I am rubbish at estimating.

Back to my regular route this morning, 3° and medium breezes, and my muscles just never really opened up. Breathing whoofy rather than gaspy (I guess that’s a kind of progress?), but the time was only 10:52.

I took a bit of a detour this morning, so the time isn’t a record of a mile directly comparable to other miles. The weather was cold, with a bit of a breeze; 4°, and I ran it in 11:14 (but again, this reflects a longer distance).

I noticed today that during my early-morning run, I didn’t think as much about how much I hate running. This is a worrying sign that I might be inching toward becoming A Runner. The possibility rolled around my thoughts as I ran, and after a very short while it became clear that I do still hate running, but that I hate it less intensely. I’m not sure that counts as progress in any direction.

This morning it was about 4°, relatively calm, roads clear, 10:36. For the past couple of weeks, I have run every other day, or more often. Make of that what you will.

I’m not sure what I did with the time for my Tuesday run, but it wasn’t anything unusual; call it 10:45. Wednesday’s was 10:40 in misty 4° weather. This morning felt better (4°, no breeze or rain) for most of the mile, but still came in at 10:45. I think the whole thing is random.

Sunday morning, at 0° and with very thick frost, I ran a 10:57; this morning, -2° with frozen mist and a shoelace that came untied, the timer says I ran 10:10. That can’t be right, of course; even with a refreshed spring in my step after stopping, I was taking small cautious strides over patchy glazed pavements, and my muscles did not want to get loose at all. Still, I did my run, and now it’s time to clean up and go to chapel.

Off to a meeting of the leadership Council of the Sodality of Mary, Mother of Priests, at St Mary Magdalene, Munster Square. It’s a bit hard to leave Margaret behind when I’ve spent all week at work, and she only arrived back from the USA Monday morning; on the other hand, most Sodality events take place on weekdays, which suits the vast preponderance of Sodality priests, and I can’t go to those without missing obligations here at the college. So I’m off to London in the morning, will catch Margaret at tea-time (I hope), and we’ll have some time tomorrow to catch up.

Also: run in 0°, no breezes to mention, 10:34 (a non-standard run of uncertain length, but I’m leaving this note here anyway).

Missed yesterday — just slept too late to squeeze in a run in time before chapel — but ran again this morning, which makes five of the last seven days. Wahoo! (Ugh.) Knees felt a little wobbly at first, but otherwise okay. 10:44.

Ran again, three days of five(!), 10:46. It felt more leisurely, mild head winds, but a good time.

I had a whopping, nasty charley horse last night (this is why I didn’t run this morning), which reminded me that my British colleagues have to manage without this evocative, specific diagnosis for a leg cramp. I thought that I had blogged about this deficiency in British English before; I remember discussing it in the sacristy with my former boss. But a search turned up no relevant horses, so I must have intended to blog, without carrying the intention through.

It felt as though I couldn’t straighten my leg out for fifteen minutes, but I had been fast asleep and eventually fall back asleep without checking the time, so I may be exaggerating the duration. Ouch —

David notes that a coalition of French museums have released images of their paintings — 150,000 paintings — into the public domain. He’s concerned that they didn’t make it easier to bulk download the images, which I suppose I can sympathise with a little bit. But as an impecunious academic researcher who has recently published an essay that involved the appearance of paintings and drawings, but which couldn’t reproduce any image that wasn’t in the public domain, I am over the moon about the opportunity for low-budget scholars to write, make presentations, analyse, teach, and so on with these remarkable images.

I ran this morning, too. That’s two days in a row. Don’t worry — I’m not turning into that guy (I don’t think); I just felt vexed about having fallen from my 10:30-ish plateau to this 11:00-ish plateau, and exasperated at not improving my breathing. Really, after three or four years of regular running I had hoped for some improvement in the wheezing and gasping. Plus, I suppose, some intimations of mortality from my continuing sadness at David’s death. Oh, and when I run, I blog, and I’m trying to live up to David W’s and Bix’s (remember when he was ‘one’ and ‘true’?) admonition to just blog it.

Anyway, I woke up early and ran my mile, then walked to the bus stop to welcome Margaret back from the US, shared a breakfast at Rick’s with her, then back to St Stephen’s House to begin Hilary Term. My teaching load is high again this term, as when I have study leave (as I am scheduled to do in Trinity), I have to do all my teaching for the year in two terms; we don’t hire in substitutes. So I’m counting down the weeks before the end of term — four days to go this week, then nine weeks till leave…

Friday morning I received the painful news that a dearly-loved former student of mine, the Revd Dr David Efird of York University, had suffered a massive heart attack while exercising at his gym, and had died right away. David was only forty-five years old, an outstanding philosopher, and priest, and leader in his university. More than all, he was a wondrously gracious man; I don’t recall ever witnessing an unlovely expression from him. He and his partner and all who have known and loved him will be in my prayers at Mass this morning.

This news cast a pall over my weekend, and I couldn’t help thinking about David as I was running this morning. The run was uneventful — 10°, light rain, moderate breeze mile, time was 10:56. I was as wheezy as ever, but no other specific physical problems.

11:01, again with mild head winds, cool not cold. And again, harder to breathe than I sense it ought to be.

Tom the Dancing Bug, a/k/a Ruben Bolling, has a lovely bit of doggerel about the complications that arise from the gradual drift of copyrighted material into the public domain:

A bear, however hard he tries,
Grows tubby without exercise.
Edward Bear had barely started
When his body bent and farted.

You may not recognise his name,
but it’s the one in Public Domain.
He’s “Edward” here til ’22,
When Winnie’s copyright goes “pooh.”

(Explainer, in case it’s not obvious: A. A. Milne’s When We Were Very Young, which refers to a stuffed toy as ‘Edward Bear’, entered the public domain on 1 January; Winnie-the-Pooh, which identifies the same ursine companion as ‘Winnie the Pooh’, will not enter the public domain for another several years. Bolling evidently thinks that date will be 2022, though seventy years from 1956 (Milne’s death) would be 2026, as best I can reckon. Clarifications welcome.)

11:02. Ah, well. A bit breezy, not very cold, but my breathing was even more laboured than usual.