Run Forrest, run!

Hola ya' bastards!
(said like Mel B from Bo Selecta)
Having 5 days off from the tour with nothing to do has had me almost walking in circles around the living room in an attempt to relieve the boredom, that is until the dizziness overcame me.

I did go the the cinema on Sunday, was planning a movie marathon. I was planning to see Terminator - Salvation, Angels and Demons and then the new Transformers movie. In the end I just saw the Terminator movie because although the intention was there to watch all three, a forgotten factor was to then rear its ugly head: I'm as tight as a gnat's chuff!

I won't spoil it for you but I'll say that there's a lot of ass whooping and shit getting blown the fuck up. Oh yeah and something to do with a storyline somewhere.

Yesterday then, having eaten stuff I shouldn't have due to the boredom (that's what fat folk say) I figured a run of some sort would counteract it. I know it's weird fat person logic but I guess that must make me a weird fat person.

When I lived in UAE, I often ran along the corniche at night. Originally it was to hopefully knacker myself out so I could sleep with all the insomnia I was suffering. Sometimes I'd go for a run at 4:00 am. It didn't work I'll add, I'd return and I'd still couldn't sleep. But I did enjoy the experience. It was peaceful at that time of night and I enjoyed taking in the sea air. Abu dhabi is very humid so I'd sweat like a Mexican pig farmer. I will say though even at that time of night/early in the morning there was still no shortage of random Pakistanis just hanging around, and they love to stare, oh boy do they stare!!! Anyone that's lived there will know exactly what I mean!

So roll on to here and now and me being at home, Swansea is a seaside town so I figured as it was a nice evening, I'd go for a run along the promenade.

The promenade is also a bike track and years ago when I was into my bike riding, I often used to ride along it after cycling from the house before doubling back. I must say that we are blessed with a wonderful beach at Swansea and it's a shame that most people that live here take it for granted and don't give it a second thought. Not me! So after changing I to my shorts, putting some essentials into my rucksack (water, change of clothes, iPod, condoms- you never know?!?) I headed off to the beach.

I parked the car at Blackpill and crossed the road onto the cycle track. I planned to run to the pier an back, it's probably about 6 kilometers. But I didn't want to run more than 30 minutes so I set a 15 minute timer, when it alerts me I'd turn around. After doing some stretches, hitting the start button I was off to the sounds of Dream Theater. The Awake album to be more precise!

As the evening was sublime, I figured that I would take pictures to remember the event; it's proobably going to be some time before I'll do it again.


The cycle track bridge over a stream at Blackpill.



The eastbound track complete with "no shitting dogs" sign and doggy shit bin. Word of advice, don't use one of these to spit out a chewing gum into!!!




Westbound track. The dividing line is pedestrians to the left, cycles to the right. Not that any bastard pays attention to this though.


Mumbles head


This is where I eventually ran to, overlooking the bay across to where I ran from. Directly ahead is Blackpill. This shit is riveting isn't it folks?


Random Swansea folk doing a spot of fishing


The iPhone camera doesn't do justice to how awesome this looked.


Mumbles pier and lifeboat station



I was on the way back here. I messed up about the timer after wondering "Jesus, this is a long 15 minutes" after checking, it was set to stopwatch and I had been running for 22 minutes. Doh! So I thought it was a good time to turn around and start back!


Some small boats.... Great aren't they?


And eventually after running for another 22 minutes or so, I was back at Blackpill. This used to be the boating lake but recently they've changed it into more a kiddies pool.

There was one bloke at a bench in a trench coat and hat, so I told him that the schools haven't broken up yet and it's too late in the evening for anyone to be here. He looked at me bemused if not slightly angry.

Ok that didn't happen, but it would have been a great story to tell if it did!

After everything, I had run for about 45 minutes. My heart felt like I could have done another 45 minutes but my ankle was hurting me by now as were my feet. Then when after I had taken a breather, my right keg started hurt a lot. It's always my right leg that used to give me problems when I was running regularly. My technique must suck ass or something. I doubt I'll be able to run tomorrow but I'm glad I did today.