The Ham Green Prowler

Thanks to the snow there have been limited training opportunities this week, which a few weeks ago would have been a very welcome development and I’d be happy to sit at home chomping through a vat of pasta and catering pack of Cadbury’s Chocolate Buttons.

Now, weirdly, I have been really annoyed about not being able to go out running in the middle of a freezing January and feeling acute anxiety about falling behind in my training regime.

So, instead I’ve been out walking the mean streets of Ham Green, as it was deemed safer than trying to run through the snow and ice. And after coming too close to mention to being squashed on the A361 through Gloucestershire the other day, I am tending to agree.

The (not particularly) interesting thing I have discovered about walking however, is that I appear to be better at it than running, for now anyway.

I’ve been out twice this week schlepping along at a bit of a pace and according to the Run Keeper app I use to measure these things, my average minutes per mile are fewer when I walk than when I run. Which leads me to wonder why I’m bothering to run at all, why not just walk the Edinburgh Marathon and save all this time and energy running round North Somerset, like the day-glo wally I am?

Late night walks all very well, unless you look like a house burglar

 But, the more disturbing thing I have discovered on these walks is what I must look like to the good people of my sleepy village as I stroll purposefully through the centre. As is well documented it is currently quite cold, so in order to tackle the freezing temperatures I sensibly don my coat, hat, gloves and scarf.

However, what I realised stepping out tonight is that my coat is black, my gloves are black leather (Nazi gloves somebody once called them, you know the ones) and I often wear a black baseball cap that shades my face. Basically I look precisely as I would think of dressing if I was going out to rob somebody’s house or lurk in the dark corners waiting to mug somebody. Given that I am trying to walk as quickly as I can to derive maximum cardio-vascular benefits from exercise, I also look like I’m trying to flee the scene of a crime without rousing suspicion.

I’m not sure this will do anything to endear me to the neighbourhood.