We Do Adventure

Over the past couple of months we've done a lot of walking: the streets of London, must-see Vancouver, most of Seattle's downtown and the pretty bits of Cape Town. We haven't, however, done much running. I had foolishly thought our pedestrian pavement pounding would be an adequate exercise substitute during our travels. I was wrong. This weekend I was back at floorball training here in Jajce. We have about a dozen, mostly athletic, teenagers who form the core of our team. As well as being committed to training twice a week they often organise running together too. A couple of them also train in handball and football teams. And they are competitive. With a game against a team from Prijedor, a town a couple of hours north of us, just a week away I was rejoining a team focused on delivering a winning performance. Training was intense. I didn't expect it to be otherwise. I just expected to find running a little easier, my recovery times a little shorter. Keeping up ...

Two classic songs, but only one of them is on my iPod! I have the original and I have a collection for dance remixes, one of which is on my ‘Running’ playlist. Last night I went running. It was raining lightly as I left the apartment headed over the river and up onto the east side of town. It was dark and the street lights made the puddles glisten and gleam like black mirrors. I avoided them not just for the sake of dry feet; hidden beneath their reflective surface lay holes of indeterminable depth. The pavements were littered with cars, mostly parked although at one point one was driving along in front of me. Perhaps I’m paranoid but I swear that more than one group of girls stared and laughed as I ran by! By the time I hit the ‘title track’ on my playlist I was heading for home. The rain was now falling heavily and I had misjudged enough puddles to have heavy trainers on my wet feet. My hair was flattened to my head, with the sticky taste of diluted hair product trickling into the c...

Since Saturday I've been digging through lyrics from songs I've written over the past couple of years. The reason for this will doubtless be revealed at some point, though not in this post. I mention it only because one song I was making some adjustments to contains the line 'and I will run'. Taken out of context it is perhaps not the most profound collection of words every committed to paper yet it jabbed at my conscience. I was running three or four miles three or four times a week in England. Baring one morning in Croatia I haven't run since we arrived here...until now. Tonight I put aside fears of looking like a crazy foreigner, plugged in my iPod and headed out the door to pound the pavements. Anyone who ever saw me running in England will be glad to know I refrained from donning my headband! My exercise was a short experience. The road I chose soon ran out of street lights and seeing a suspiciously parked park but with no way of getting an ID on its occupants ...