I got some energy for 2010…
There must be something fundamentally wrong with me; as a human being and I put on this planet for just a flicker of a moment and I behave like this…
There was I, all alone on the top deck of a double decker bus, on new years eve afternoon. I sat in the very front seat when all of a sudden a friendly girl, just a few years older than me, with an accent hard to define, sat in the other front seat opposite me.
She smiled at me as she took her seat and I half smiled back. When she settled into her seat, she kinda leaned over and said “this is beautiful isn’t it?” she could hardly contain her excitement… It kinda took me by surprise.
I looked out and saw grey buildings towering over me, traffic everywhere, people zig-zaging on the pavement. I tried to see the beauty, I replied “its a nice view from up here”, she agreed and her whole persona was poised for a fully fledged conversation. It was at that point, I reached in to my bag and pulled out my Ipod…
I could feel her watching me and I continued to plug my ears despite this innate feeling that it was the most ignorant, ugly thing any human could do in a moment like that.
With my ipod clogging up my ears, I couldn’t shake off this feeling of self disgust, so i put my ipod away and angled for a chin wag.
By that time she had a magazine open on her lap; I noticed it was called “voyage”.
I broke the ice and we had a loose, on & off chat for the duration of the journey across London. She was so excited to be here and had only just arrived from Paris. I told her that I too felt like that when I first came here, but now I’m sort of like a horse with blinders;
She said she feels that way about Paris. We agreed that things always look better when you’re just passing through… and I said “Yep, a rolling stone gathers no moss…”
I then thought to myself how cool it would be to be a rolling stone again, a wanderer, just roaming around from place to place and settling for a while, then moving off when the time felt right.
Imagine if we just followed our every whim and we never settled down… Like if I just went home now, packed my bags and walked out on all that’s familiar and just headed off, just headed off and just went where ever the wind blew me…
Anyway, she got off the bus when we got down south of the river and I said, “Happy new year to you”. She said it to me too. I said I hope its a good one and I really did mean it. She told me that it has already got off to a great start as she has just received the best news ever. She was beaming. I said I hope some of that energy passes over onto me, she raised her two hands over me in jest and said, “I’ll give you some of that energy now!”…
We both laughed and that was the end of our encounter.
I am kind of excited about 2010 now and waiting for my good news…
Dublin City Marathon 2009 – Under my belt!
I was shooting for a 4hour finish in the Dublin City Marathon on Monday, but I somehow managed to do better than that… I completed it in 3.44 – not bad at all for my first Marathon!
It was the most amazing experience ever and I enjoyed every single millisecond of it.
It was a lot easier than I was anticipating actually and that surprised me. I didn’t get hung up on mileage, I just knew I had to sustain a decent pace for about 4 hours and I focussed on that. The weather was perfect; sun shining down for the duration of it, yet it was crisp enough that you didn’t overheat. I felt like a wild monkey at times because children were feeding me jellies from the sidelines on little plates. When I ran past them, I grabbed such handfuls that their plates toppled and the remainder of their jellies fell onto the ground, as I stomped away stuffing them in my mouth… the people standing at the sidelines cheering us all on really makes the world of difference. I found I ran faster in the designated cheering zones than anywhere else and it’s cuz they were shouting encouraging things and making us feel good about ourselves. Encouragement does wonderful things for the psyche begorrah…
Whilst I was limping to the airport like an old woman, I got an email from my friend Tom, who informed me that I might qualify for automatic entry to the London Marathon, based on my time, sex and age. Without further ado, I looked into it and it looks like I just might… The cut off time was 3.45 and I did it in 3.44 and 54 seconds. If I finished another 6 seconds later I wouldn’t qualify! I then remembered the point where I was running through a cheering zone and I got an almerciful burst of energy; with 2.2 miles to go, I just started sprinting like a madwoman thinking I could sustain that until the end. I heard people say “Jeeze yer wan is flying it!” ha! I managed to keep it up for 2 minutes and then I went back to my usual pace, feeling a bit wobbly. I think if I didn’t do that then, I would have come in later than 3.45
I am confused about one thing though and that’s the times. Mine are as follows:
My results
I started my own watch timer as I crossed the black mat (the official starting point). When I finished, my watch said: 3.43, the Marathon Timer Clock said 3.47.
The race website said my finish time was 3.44 and my chip time was 3.47. Surely they have the chip time and the finish time mixed up, do they? How could your chip time be higher than your finish time? I can’t get my head ’round it at all…
Anyway, well done to all of you who ran…
A building gets dressed…
Think about your life in the last twelve months.
Now look at the first twelve months in the life of this building.
What a difference a year makes…
(I won’t bore you with the other 361 photos!)
London’s skyline is ever changing…
Man Eats Sandwich
I was walking through London Bridge Station there with a couple of pints in me and there was a fella eating his sandwich and I looked at him and jesus he was so funny. He was really offended when I laughed at him, there he was sitting on the bench stuffing a sandwich into his face quicker than his teeth could process it.
Why that made me laugh, Jesus I dunno… It’s just that that sandwich didn’t have a chance! It kinda made me nervous. It looked so helpless, like a lamb to the slaughter it was, and it being shoved into his mouth helpless… Feckin hell I am glad I am not a sandwich!
