Week 2, Day 2 - Curiouser and Curiouser

I’m staring at a blank page.

Well, not any more.

I went to bed very late last night after a night out with some old friends and former colleagues in Bristol. Any time after 10:30 or 11pm is late for me and it was actually this morning when I finally turned in. A night in a hotel contributed to the lack of sleep and so I extend my apologies to anyone who might be reading this. These are the ramblings of a seriously tired person.

As you may have gathered, I’m having a rest from training today. If you’re remotely interested, I’ll fill you in on how my physical exertions panned out yesterday.

Once again my wife was working in Oxfam during the morning but we managed to get up early and headed out for our usual 6 miler down to Cardiff Bay, along the banks of the Taff. It’s been ages since I’ve run in the rain and this trot added to the drought. The patchy clouds did not disturb the low, early morning sun and hungry cormorants dived, Alice-like, into the looking glass that masqueraded as the river, whilst their replete companions dried their prehistoric wings on convenient pontoons.

We don’t chat a great deal when we’re running, just the occasional musing and ruminations on things that catch our eye. When I follow the same route for any length of time it’s amazing what previously unnoticed details can spark my curiosity. For example, whilst navigating against the trickle of commuters along the Taff Embankment, I noticed a series of rounded oblong, iron covers, set at regular intervals into the pavement. They’re about 1’ by 6” in size and are decorated with 2 Celtic knot patterns that occupy the 2 halves of their surface. They’re only along a short section of the path and don’t appear to be terminated by any obvious piece of street furniture, which is, I believe, the term coined for the random collection of boxes and posts that clutter our city’s walkways. What do these covers conceal? Why are they decorated like that and why can’t more of the mundane necessities of modern urban infrastructure be similarly adorned?

See what I mean? Ramblings.

Any way, my feet seem to be behaving themselves these days but this morning’s effort was a little more taxing than usual and I was glad to hear the bowed and blown scales and musical exercises floating across the canal from the college of music and drama that herald the home straight. The increased fatigue was later explained when I discovered that we’d inadvertently picked up our pace a little, and we had completed the 6.04 miles in just over 54 minutes.

******** Ramble alert *********

Just an aside – I’ve lived near the college of music and drama for over 13 years now and in all that time I’ve never witnessed large groups of leotard and leg-warmer clad students, rhythmically spilling out of the building and pirouetting on the roofs of near-by traffic in spontaneous, yet strangely choreographed, song and dance routines. Funny that.

Back to the serious stuff…

More Swiss torture was endured later that afternoon. I’m looking forward to the day when what I’m doing in these core, strength and stability exercises seems easy but there is some compensation from the wonderful feeling of smug and satisfying exhaustion that rounds off each session.

I also think I need to come up with a new name for Swiss Ball crunchies when I’m trying to explain what I’m doing to the uninitiated.

I’m going for a lay down.