Thanks to the royal wedding I have the tangled woods to myself.

  • Saturday, April 30, 2011
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Thanks to the royal wedding I have the tangled woods to myself.

The trails are russet, ochre and mossy. these are the tones that sing to me with most joy and I am aware of their song. despite this it is not a happy run. my legs are stiff and tight and i run with the gait of a clockwork man. i cannot flow or dance, a rare disconnect between the music of creation and my body. instead the ground jars through me, takes form as anxiety and begins to reside in my neck and shoulders. stiff becomes stiffer. at mile seven i reach a crossroad, the gravel lane that will lead me arterially straight home. i decide to cross over and feel something break inside me, there is a narcotic release of energy and my legs respond, i am still stiff and a little resentful but it becomes easier, I push out another four miles before returning home. Once there I eat victoria sponge cake. Perhaps a lot of what holds us back is in the mind.


lazy sunday afternoon

  • Monday, April 25, 2011
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Lazy sunday afternoon, I've got no mind to worry, close my eyes and
Drift away, Close my eyes and drift away.
(small faces)

i drift through the woods, eddying between the tree's and the dapples. my mind is opaque as the light and cloudless sky. i am agreeable, greeting ramblers in their carnival coloured shirts and wide brimmed hats, the women are daringly barelegged in shorts, the men, resolute with stout sticks and corduroy. they have idiot dogs with idiot smiles. these moments are ordained. they cannot be hurried or ignored and they cannot be contrived. they are rare recreation runs, slow, mellow and mellowing. i am on no ones clock or dime out here, i am my own. i ignore the gravitational pull of home when the orbit of my route delivers me close, i swing away for a few more miles carried by the tide of my singing blood and the compass of my heart.

running is death and resurrection

  • Monday, April 18, 2011
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i wanted to walk up the sunbaked hill but the dog walker coming the other way forbade it. my chest is tight and raspy after a week of flu like symptoms. i run past her and her dog, retching like a binge drinker and hope that somehow i'm doing myself good and that i will expel some of the crappy virus from my system by running hard. after four miles i run over a palm cross lying in the middle of the trail, it is incongruous and out of place and although i run past it i feel it tug me back. it is the voice in the wilderness and it can't be ignored. i pick it up and tuck it under my shirt. i can feel it against my body all the way home. it is the week before easter. running is death and resurrection too.

  • Wednesday, April 06, 2011
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tonight i ran with the foxes, a few smoggy stars and a fingernail moon. i found some hills and treated them with contempt, my footsteps echoing of the canyon sides of  houses. it was good to feel the warm air moving around me and know that the worst of winter is behind. summer lies ahead, my mojo already lighter.