Until now I have run naked. Naked in my ears that is. No music. Just sky and sea and the worrying sound of my own ragged panting.

This has been conducive to thinking about poems and focusing on my posture and pacing but, I’d started to get bored on the Long Runs (and to avoid doing them). I wondered if music might make a difference. Turns out, it seems able to soothe an anxiety I hadn’t fully realised I was feeling. It took me into my own world.

I started off with "Scouting for Girls” because I know I can’t help moving to that. Then, three miles in, I stuck the iPod onto shuffle and drifted off further into my own soundtracked movie, with pan and zoom modes. Even slower stuff like Leonard Cohen or Bob Seeger ("Running against the wind” made me smile as it came on just as I was cornering round to a view of St Marys Lighthouse).

I’ve had to resort to artificial means because I’m not enjoying my running as much at the moment. I peaked with a Park Run, then the Race for Life on the same weekend, and since then seem to have been in a sort of rebellion, where I’m thinking that I really love 5ks and wish I could spare my body the stress and stay at that distance. I think I’m worried about the extra strain the longer distance puts on my body. (Or, I really am more of a 5k runner and have found my personal form). I also think it’s to do with getting over the novelty of being able to run, but not being able to give myself the coddling and leeway I did at the beginning when I couldn’t do as much... 

My Running Animal

I am faster now than slow,

but too slow to be fast,

there’s no way I’ll be first,

but there’s a chance I won’t come last.

I am not a tortoise,

I am not a hare,

I oscillate between speeds,

I am a polar bear.