Pete was trying to explain to John and I why it was the optimum amount of red wine we'd drunk the night before that was exactly the right preparation for our morning run up in the Lakes. Neither John nor I particularily understood or indeed were listening as we blindly got ready, struggling to bend over fumbling for our feet and shoes with little care or interest of what we were about to find once the door was open. Pete kept on, something about had we not drunk any wine then we would have been of sound mind to rationally decide that we wouldn't run.
Or not too much wine that our bodies would be unable wake for whatever man-arrangement we'd made the night before. We opened the door and ventured out with the natural biological instinct of lemmings marching to the cliff edge. And so began the greatest hangover cure of them all. What a stunning morning. Clear blue skies, snow capped hill tops, a sun slowly climbing to light the day...and the welcome return of Georgie. It was as real a running experience as you could hope for.
And later in the week so too was that unique experience which is wet, windy and a thoroughly miserable run up the bypass on a winters mid week evening. It's sort of one of those "it'll be good for you" experiences. Half way up, deep into the section where the street lights and civilisation a distant memory, a relentless succession of cars temporarily blinding you, lorries drowning out any conversation, head torches on the dimmest setting because we'd both forgot to change them, it was like we were running in a darkened room on a treadmill.
For some reason Pete and I seem to enjoy it. But the only way I knew he was there was an occasional clash of elbows. I could neither see him or hear him. A sort of viritual training partner, a phrase I've seen on my watch...this run was the opposite end of the sensory spectrum to the one at the weekend...but just as life affirming. I wore a heart rate monitor for the first time in ages also. I can't believe the amount of mumbo jumbo in the name of 'metrics' I'm being offered to pour over now. Apparently I have a vertical oscillation ratio of 9%. Lucky me!
