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I woke up this morning feeling almost entirely well — mostly just undernourished, as I hadn’t eaten in 24 hours. I had a smoothie and two slices of toast, cup of coffee, took stock quickly, and caught the bus in to Oxford.

It wasn’t the wisest thing to do, but having signed up in order to honour my dad, who was a great admirer of Roger Bannister, and not knowing whether there would be comparable opportunities in the future, I couldn’t bear to skip the Bannister Mile. I have a strong sense of duty to demonstrate respect for my forebears and predecessors, and it would have been entirely wrong if I didn’t follow through if there was any way I could take on the mile, even just by walking. And now, I am proud to have done it.

My legs felt fine through the run, but I was running on fumes the whole way. This morning’s toast for breakfast was literally the only thing I’d eaten in 24 hours. Nonetheless, I finished the run, came in in the top 2/3 of men over 60 (including those spritely young 60- and 61-year-olds), and although I’m still undernourished, I don’t feel as though my health has collapsed.

I wore my Newman hoodie for Oriel, my Yale Divinity School Alumni Ultimate Divinity t-shirt, and my Chatham College (*not* ‘University’) gym shorts to honour Don Adam. This one, as they say, is for you, Dad.

Yesterday morning after my sermon at St Nic’s — still during the service — I felt as though something had clobbered me. I was wiped out, and just barely made it down to the Faith Forum, left early and went home to lie down and rest. I dozed, napped, rested, through the afternoon, and in the evening just had enough appetite to drink some of the smoothie Margaret got at the grocery store. I went to bed at 9:00 and slept through to 5:30….

I mostly walked this morning. My hips and knees were resistant, stiff and rusty. Shower, another cup of coffee, toast, finish sermon, Mattins at St Nic’s, Faith Forum at the Parish Centre. I’m hoping my legs limber up over the course of the day and work agreeably tomorrow morning.

Good run this morning. With a view to warming up for Monday morning’s run, I broke the two miles into three roughly 2/3 mile segments, with brief walking intervals; I want to keep limber and to keep a good pace for my running intervals, but not to risk too hard a push on any run. I am confident that I can dial up the intensity Monday morning, so I’ve been trying to optimise the non-pushing baseline. We’ll see how that works out. Since I know nearly nothing about athletics and kinesiology, the odds on being generally correct and on being catastrophically wrong are about even.

Yesterday’s conference — the morning half that I attended — was fine. While I was in Oxford, Margaret handed the ladies over for grooming. We’ll try to get a good ‘after’ photo today, so that we can post the contrasting images for the Small Dog Appreciation Society.

We started watching the Jon Hamm vehicle Your Friends & Neighbours, but turned it off after two episodes; it seemed to unselfconsciously smug about the wealthy lifestyle the characters take for granted, and Jon Hamm’s character gave us no trace of a reason to sympathise with him. No, that’s wrong; he’s kind to his sister, and they seem to have come out of a very emotionally-cold parental household. Still, the ‘only the wealthy matter’ worldview that expects us to sympathise with a man who has to subsist on sums that boggle our imagination just wore on us as we watched. Too much shocking presumption, not enough humane core.

Good run, pleasant weather, coffee and fruit, Morning Prayer (followed quickly by phone check at the Parish Centre) and bus journey to Oxford for our annual meet-up with Cambridge Biblical Studies for a day of PG student papers and conversations with our colleagues from the Other Place.

Another good run this morning — I’m suspicious about what this implies about Monday’s Bannister Mile. I anticipate all the most baneful minor afflictions of my running experience. Ah, well, so long as I don}t finish dead last. Coffee and fruit, shower and dress, Morning Prayer, and I think I’ll start my working morning at public office hours at R&R.

Yesterday I had a good run, worked up a homily, hot breakfast, showered and dressed, Morning Prayer, Holy Communion at St Helen’s, Staff Meeting, then slumped home for lunch. Took up email and odds and ends from the meeting, worked on my article for ATR, Margaret made an early dinner, then to the Parish Centre for a wedding consultation (Lovely, sweet couple — I do love the marrying part of this vocation), and a Deanery Meeting at St Helen’s. I got home at 9:30, cleaned the kitchen, and so to bed….

I have two proximate submission deadlines: one for a series of sermon helps for Working Preacher (very glad to be back at it for them again) in June and another for Anglican Theological Review in July. I re-opened the file for the ATR article and added about 300 words this afternoon. There’s life in the old scholar yet!

This morning my legs would not run for the first mile or so, though they relented and permitted me a very leisurely jog the rest of the way home. Coffee and fruit, showered and dressed, off to Morning Prayer and then home to finish marking, et cetera.

Just now on Bluesky, Eric Vanden Eykel mentioned having seen somebody in an airport who squeezed a packet of mayonnaise into a cup of coffee. To that, John Lyons added that he had watched a video about the practice. My reaction was to go downstairs, brush off and wipe down the countertop, and make a cup of black coffee with no possible pollutants in sight.

I think this has something to do with keeping the Torah, but maybe it’s just that I’ve been reading James Kugel….

A frustrating two miles this morning, as I didn’t get any momentum going and paused several times, hoping that the restart would pull the trigger to release limber energy to get me home — but I got home just as stiff as when I left. Frustrating. Along the way I considered dropping the Bannister Mile on Monday week, but realised that the problem isn’t that I can’t run a mile, but that my competitive streak wouldn’t consider it worthwhile if I don’t finish ahead of someone; I realised that a 3K Fun Run might be doable (the presence of ‘Fun’ presumably signifying ‘times don’t matter’) — then understood that if I run next Monday on the ‘fun’ basis, the stress resolves itself and I needn’t get so wound up about myself. Just (as the adverts say) do it.

Then Margaret and I went to the eight o’clock, in order to have a languorous breakfast in town — oh, delicious and indulgent — and home again to relieve the ladies and to tackle marking. I should do a ‘story behind my books’ entry on What Is Postmodern Biblical Criticism?, perhaps if I clear marking off my desk.

Don’t say anything about the Orioles. Maybe their mediocrity is an aggravating factor in my own disheartening athletic practices.

Good-ish morning run, hot breakfast, second cup of coffee, attended (via BBC) the Holy Father’s obsequies, was concomitantly moved, then lunch, grocery shopping and marking. I was so impressed with the typography/page design of the service booklet that it gave me the idea of launching Updike awards for liturgical printing: perhaps one for regular Sunday services, one for a special event, one for typography in particular, one for layout, and one to three (max) for general merit in specific respects (for children? use of non-roman typography? for creativity? colour? the idea is that some works warrant recognition even though they may not represent a ‘category’ that should be institutionalised for annual recognition), and of course, the coveted Updike for overall Best Liturgical Printing.
‘Our Updike-winning Sunday bulletin…’
‘Once again, the Updike goes to Tipografia Vaticana, for the third year in a row….’
‘This year’s Updike for a Special Service goes to Westminster Abbey, for the service book for the Coronation…’

Think I’ll ask around about this.