| |
 |
Running? Boring?
By Andy Blackford on 09/09/2003 10:22:10
Musings on the wondrous variety of life while en route to the gym
If I should let drop that I’ve just run 20 miles to the gym and back, just to idle away a dull morning, I can count on one of two responses from my audience.First there’s, “Run? I can’t even run for the bus, me!” Surely, I reply, that depends on who
|
|
 |
Carrion Running
By Andy Blackford on 05/09/2003 14:40:22
While training in the tropics, Andy Blackford discovers a new and unique tool for blocking out the pain
. I’ve run in countries where there isn’t any roadkill, either because intensive farming techniques have long since eradicated even the faintest folk memory of wildlife, or else because any creature unlucky enough to be run over would be sizzling on a
|
|
 |
Fastness Is All In The Mind
By Andy Blackford on 04/09/2003 17:00:55
Running is a mental thing. But running 78K over Swiss mountains is a mental mental thing
As I once remarked to Rob Wright, a founder member of Numbskulls AC, “You know, running is a mental thing.” He nodded vigorously. “It certainly is, mate. Do you remember the Nude Year’s Eve Triathlon when we had to break the ice on Regent’s Park
|
|
|
|
Thinking Outside The Box
By Andy Blackford on 08/09/2004 12:48:54
I've found that when it comes to running, less is definitely more
exponentially improved the game of the legendary chess master Boris Spasky. And that it was Delia Smith’s secret passion for Norwich City that lent her recipes their characteristic frisson dangereuse.So it is with me and running. Some of my best efforts have
|
|
 |
Professional conduct
By Andy Blackford on 08/09/2004 12:18:41
Sleep lots, eat mud, run constantly - what the life of the full-time runner is really like
Don’t get me wrong – I like running as much as the next man. Actually, that isn’t entirely true. At this precise moment the man next to me is an obese Samoan who is gigantic even by Samoan standards. Like me, he is eating tagliatelli carbonara
|
|
 |
One Dog And His Man
By Andy Blackford on 09/09/2003 10:50:33
Realising that your canine running partner is more famous than you can be something of a blow
Last Sunday morning, I was creeping naked around the house. Naked, because Oscar The Dog intently monitors my wardrobe for the merest suggestion that I might be about to go running.A sock or a marathon T-shirt is enough to send him charging
|
|
 |
Beach Queens Of LA
By Andy Blackford on 10/08/2004 12:43:50
When the sun comes up on Santa Monica Boulevard... the population of California goes running
down Santa Monica Boulevard towards the ocean. Strangely, I seemed to have become the star of a continuous Beach Boys video.A light, warm breeze played in my hair as I pulled over and slipped on my running shoes. I set off along the Tarmac track
|
|
 |
Coming To Life
By Andy Blackford on 04/09/2003 16:02:35
Marathon preparation with a twist: quit your job, catch a cold and drop your running buddy into a pit of despair
, Spanish fighting wine. But this was Monday morning, Id run five miles on the Heath and I was as sober as a fish. In the time-honoured tradition of my industry, I was out by Thursday.So Im writing to you as a free man. I gaze out between sentences
|
|
 |
Body of Evidence
By Andy Blackford on 08/09/2003 17:28:35
How much can the human body handle? As little as it can get away with
Harriers’ morning run. It can’t resist lounging in the pub at lunchtime when it promised Barry it would go to the gym with him. It can’t walk past the Agra Tandoori House at 11.15pm. It can’t bear to shed two stones of its unsightly flab, when this would
|
|
 |
Charity Fatigue Syndrome
By Andy Blackford on 09/09/2003 10:30:17
Charity may start in the home, but these days it always seems to end up at a race of some sort
In the last 20 years, running has become inextricably entangled with fund-raising.Correct me if I’m wrong, but until the first London Marathon we ran only for ourselves. When we turned up in the rain to plod round the Cabbage Patch 10, the last
|
|
