Running and running

This blog started as a travel blog, then it was all about cycling, but now it would be accurate to call it my running blog considering all my recent running activities.

Yes in recent months, in part thanks to my lovely colleague Alejandro, I have turned my attention to running in a big way.



I recently did the Run to the Beat half marathon which was my first proper signed up race.

I have just finished doing the slightly loopy Nike Grid which involved running from phonebox to phonebox across London's 48 postcodes in 15 days. I was never going to compete with some of the large teams of students who collectively managed to win the 'Crowns' in each postcode, but I managed to come 164th out of nearly 3000 runners and scored 9 'badges'.



Today I completed a 10km 'MoRun' in Greenwich Park for Movember, the men's health charity. There were some hilarious Mo's and fancy dress outfits. The hills in the park were punishing so it felt a lot further than 10km! My new ASICS GEL Kayano 17 trainers are proving pretty comfortable and supportive and I'd recommend them to any women with low arches and wide feet who do a lot of running. The synthetic fabrics on these are made from recycled materials, ensuring a more ecologically friendly direction, which is a big bonus.


As well as this, I've been running to and from work whenever I can using the RunKeeper iPhone app. It's only stopped on me once so far!

Does this all sound a bit smug? I hope not. I've always been a runner but now it feels like I've had my eyes opened up to a whole new world of running. I'm still cycling everywhere but there's nothing like a run to ease those stresses and strains and to release endorphins!

Baby Elephants

baby elephants

I've had so much fun this weekend cycling around central London taking photos of these gorgeous baby elephants.

They are part of a conservation campaign to save the endangered Asian elephant - http://www.elephantparadelondon.org/ - and 258 of the beauties will be making an appearance around London until July.

Tassie

Tassie - my baby, my love, my dearest friend, my confidante, my beautiful loving dog - died today.

After two nightmarish weeks of worry followed by hope, despair followed by relief, today the illness in her body, which we'll never fully know, got the better of her. And as she drifted away in my arms, I really felt something went out in me too.

My mother and I are totally heartbroken and cannot imagine life without her. How unfair that we must now talk of her in the past, that she is no longer in our present with her delicious smelling paws, her warm soft ears, her beautiful golden coat, always waggy tail and those huge sad brown eyes which could warm the coldest heart.

Everybody loved Tassie. A dog but a person, a family member.

Each day from now will be painful for a while.

Rest In Peace my darling.

Goodbye Willie Booth

Today I went to Westminster to celebrate the life of The Reverend Prebendary Willie Booth, a much loved friend of many and a significant figure in my own formative years at the palace.

It was a lovely memorial service, full of fond anecdotes as well as many musical and literary delights and this passage particularly struck a chord:

Success

To laugh often and love much;
to win the respect of intelligent persons
and the affection of children;
to earn the approbation of honest critics
and to endure the betrayal of false friends;
to appreciate beauty;
to find the best in others;
to give of one's self;
to leave the world a little better,
whether by a healthy child,
a garden patch
or a redeemed social condition;
to have played and laughed with enthusiasm
and sung with exultation;
to know that even one life has breathed easier
because you have lived -
this is to have succeeded.

attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson

Life meets Death at Wapping Project

It’s rare that we are actually made to confront death so boldly as we are at the Wapping Project’s Death Drive exhibition where nine evocative photographs by Dean Rogers meticulously capture the scenes of iconic celebratory deaths.


Rogers took the photos on the anniversary and at the exact time and place that Jayne Mansfield, Marc Bolan, Albert Camus, Grace Kelly, Eddie Cochrane, Princess Diana, James Dean, Jackson Pollock ad Helmut Newton met their end. The results are morbidly fascinating and eerily beautiful.

The show, which runs until 1 November also includes a fabulous ‘Crash’ type a-z by Deborah Levy..."a perilous road trip through death, celebrity and the automobile". Then, in the back room is ‘Signal 30’, an Ohio Highway Patrol road safety film for schools made in 1959. Nothing is spared and it’s not for the faint hearted. They’d never get away with it now, although perhaps they should. The horrid waste of it all. More here at one of the most irritating websites ever.

If that sounds a bit too sinister but you haven’t been to the Wapping Project, go anyway. Once a hydraulic power station, the gallery is such a unique space and free to enter, and the spacious restaurant, though a bit pricey, serves really imaginative food. The real draw though is that you eat surrounded by the original pulleys and machinery - a legacy of the building’s past.

I Love My Postcode

What a clever idea. There are so many different postcodes in London, each with their own character, history and fans.

Now you can share your enthusiasm for yours at ilovemypostcode.com.

Read an interview I did about E1 in the blog.

Autumn in my favourite city

Days and weeks and months have flashed by and now we are in Autumn.

So many days of sun, friends, fun and cycling around this marvellous city have passed, making it difficult to believe I've been back for over five months.

My new bfcf (best female cycling friend) Vanessa and I have explored canals...

cycled to city farms...

done the (Mayor of London's) Skyride, got stuck in to the Bicycle Film Festival...
and many other wonderful things besides; both of us, in different ways and with individual needs trying to figure out the course of our futures. Sounds serious but is proving a lot of fun.

I have greatly enjoyed working for Stacey and the rest of the bright, energetic, expert Lavish team and am proud to have helped, even just a little, with the development of the new charity arm of the business, Lavish Connect. However, although I have much to learn and would stay there for much, much longer if I could, I must turn to new ventures.

So now it's back to thinking about what I'm good at, what I want to achieve and how to get that message across to potential employers!

In some ways I feel far more knowledgeable about a plethora of creative services, project management and charities but I am woefully lacking in confidence, experience and purpose. I feel unskilled in these sectors, an insecurity which no doubt comes across in the workplace, despite the effort I put it. I feel I am always disappointing.

Having said that, it's apparent that the massive uptake of social media trends such as Twitter in recent months makes it a very exciting time to be in new media and the geek in me knows I will soon find my niche. Meanwhile, Lavish will continue to prop me up while I soak up as much 'inside knowledge' as I possibly can. I am so grateful to them.

So, while I look ahead to the future, I must add that I am loving the present and feel very lucky to be able to cycle around the capital making the most of these glorious, crisp and cloudless days of Autumn. Having decided against buying a new stead, instead I am pimping the old one with these from Bobbin Bicycles in Islington:


Much to my delight, I've also become Newsletter Editor of Southwark Cyclists. Check out my work on The Needle!