Black Snot and Endorphins (Week 7)

So, I had a busy busy week last week. So much so that I didn't have time to blog. Golly, I'm awful at this whole blogging regularly thing.

We spent the weekend in London, it being mine & Mr Steve's birthdays (me on the 15th, him on the 20th). The journey down was....interesting (Carry On Driving-style, you can read all about it elsewhere), but we made it to the theatre on time to see "Oliver!", which was superb.

On the Saturday we met up with Adopted Daughters 1&2, went to the Science Museum, and had a meal together. Adopted Daughter No. 1 bought me a rather splendid running-themed book, "Running on Empty", by a bloke who used to write for Runner's World. It gives a great humourous look into the world of running, and he doesn't take himself too seriously, which makes it an engaging read (particularly for others like myself, who don't take running *too* seriously!). Of course, I should also mention Adopted Daughter No 2's present, for want of making her feel left out. Not strictly running-related, it was a splendid pair of cow-slippers. Marvellous.

Anyway, why am I waffling on about London? Ever since my second foray to the capital (my first was with my parents in my early teens, when we drove through it but didn't stop) I've come to the conclusion that it has to be one of the worst places to even think of running, or indeed doing any kind of exercise. At the end of the day, you go to your place of abode, you blow your nose and you get...Black Snot. Now, praise the Lord and give thanks for your nasal cilia, is all I can say. Those tiny hairs, beavering away to stop all this particulate rubbish from getting any further. But you can't help wondering about all the bits that they don't catch. All that lovely airbourne carbon and other diesel stuff that might make its way down to your bronchial tubes....mmmmm, splendid. Who on earth came up with the bright idea to stage Britain's flagship marathon in what is the lung-equivalent of a sewage swamp?

Mind you, according to RW magazine's feature this month, Birmingham isn't much better. "...the city is almost the most polluted in term of asthma-causing PM10 diesel particles". Note the "almost", please. When, as someone with an irritating lung condition who normally lives in a relatively clean-air area, you take a foray into a city centre, you certainly notice the difference.

In the world of respiratory medicine, a recently emerging concept is that of "One Airway, One Disease". Put basically, if inflammation is present in one part of the respiratory tract (which extends right from those lovely nasal cilia to the base of your alveoli in the lungs), then that can also mean inflammation in another. Relate this back to the splendid Black Snot, and you can see that this might result in a few problems.

So anyway, back to the actual running. This week it was 12 miles - the second-longest distance I've ever run. I gave into my insanity and ran down, and subsequently back up, the Hagley Mile. Disappointingly, I confirmed what I had previously suspected - the current entity known as the Hagley Mile isn't actually a mile. It's 0.7 miles. And when you're running back up it, it's 0.7 miles of not-so-sophisticated torture. Mind you, I didn't do too badly, considering the weekend dose of Black Snot. And the fact that I'd already run up Portsdown Road (incidentally, I realised I hadn't properly purged my MP3 player at the point, whilst turning puce and gasping, it started playing "Take My Breath Away". Not funny. Stop laughing). Got round the lot in 2hrs 10, not bad considering it was at "LSR" pace and the two hills.

Running a long distance does slightly funny things to your psyche. Getting through the first 30 mins is a challenge - it's a bit like making a truculent toddler do something it doesn't want to do. Namely, it spends a while throwing a strop, then settles down and grudgingly complies. Then, a few miles later, you get insidious thoughts leaking into your mind. "This is daft, I'll never make it. Stop it." If you manage to circumnavigate those, you're rewarded by a little boost a while later with a rush of those friendly endorphins, who envelope you in a lovely warming glow. "Well done," they seem to say. "You've made it this far. You can do it, just keep going." Then those 'orrible thoughts break through again (usually co-inciding with a hill, or similar), and we're back on the roller-coaster again. Given the fact that you're already running, going on a roller-coaster is just a bit rude. It just shows that sometimes, running is as much a mental battle as a physical one.