The Loveliness of the Long Distance Runner

Over the six weeks or so I have rekindled my love of running, and what an eventful time it has been. From some rather shaky beginnings (I was running very sporadically over the winter) I am now able to run 6.5 km very easily without stopping, and have even managed 7.5 a couple of times! One day I did manage 10km, but it was a run of two halves so to speak, with about 6 hours in between, but this is the distance I am planning to run this summer for Race for Life so I'd better get practising!

There is such a wonderful feeling about running, and knowing you can go that little bit further every time, with the trees making a skeletal canopy of branches above you, seeing the stars appear gradually as the sky darkens, the smell of damp soil which is a lot nicer than it sounds. All these things combined with the euphoria you experience about 10 minutes after you've stopped flailing your limbs around make it completely BRILLIANT!

Last night I watched two films about running, 'Run Fatboy Run' (which I've seen before) starring such stars as Simon Pegg, Thandie Newton and Dylan Moran, which is a comedy about an out of shape security guard training for a marathon to impress his ex-fiance and his son. It gets a bit silly and sentimental, but what more do you want from life?

AH! You may say, I want gritty realism, I want rebellion, I want disenchanted 60s youths! Well the second film I watched may be more up your Alfreton Road*
*That's in Nottingham
And interestingly enough, Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner is partly set in Nottingham**
**That's where I'm from, and with the peculiar pride I feel for my home town when I am away from it, I feel this is an important factor to note.
I can't explain how much I enjoyed this film, it isn't quite so dark as 'Saturday Night and Sunday Morning', another one of Alan Sillitoe's novels adapted for the screen, but it is still very affective. I don't want to spoil anything for anyone who hasn't seen it, so what I will say is that I recommend you watch it, it can be found split into 10 parts on a rather famous video hosting website. (Just in case you're reading this Mum, I've added it to my Amazon wishlist, but I've got a feeling we've got it on DVD already, if so, please ignore this!)

That's all for today, I've got to find myself some new trainers, my toes are making a very real effort to escape out of the ends of my current pair...