I have been ill and had nightshifts all week. I can just about cope with running when ill, or running between nightshifts, but I can’t cope with running when ill and on nightshifts, so I didn’t run for three days (or do anything much else). Today I was just ill and didn’t have a nightshift so I went to the running track and ran in circles for ninety minutes, in which time I ran 12.5km. I could have gone on but the spa was due to close at 6pm and I felt getting some steam into my lungs was a higher priority than running in circles. I’m struggling to find anything interesting to say about this run so I’ll just leave it there. This run took me to my target of 100km for December! Not bad considering all the coughing, spluttering, snow, ice and “festive” inconveniences.
Finsbury parkrun is cancelled tomorrow due to a murder. I’ve made that sound a bit Miss Marple but it’s actually really awful and chilling. A young woman named Julie (who, like me, is part of the London alternative scene and who worked in a pub I sometimes go to) was killed there on Christmas Eve. Her body wasn’t found until three days later. When the parkrun took place the next day, she would have been lying just metres away, undiscovered. That thought is really chilling. There are shots of “the hill” covered in police tape all over the TV. Somehow it hits home more when things like this happen in a place you know, love and feel at home in. I’m quite glad it has been cancelled. I know you can’t let bad events scare you away but I think it would feel disrespectful to be there enjoying myself so soon afterwards.
I nearly decided to go to Hackney Marshes parkrun tomorrow instead, as it’s probably my best chance of getting a sub 35 parkrun this year, but then I discovered the toilets are shut (due to the rather more mundane reason of “Christmas”) so I think I might go to Highbury Fields instead. It’s five laps and sounds like chaos, but I am due at the football later so haven’t got time to go further afield. At least I have real potential for lapping the tailwalker there.
7:07 