Eye opener

(ok, so this was just off google, but my mind remembers it like this..)

Just went for a run, for the 2nd day in a row! Nothing ridiculous, just trying to keep going, a plodding pace for anything over half an hour to get back into it. ("Back into it" sounds a bit too professional... but I did do some last year, and need to do more for my physio.)

Anyway, after training for the marathon last year, I found that 45 minutes or so thumping round the streets with my ipod on was a brilliant way to clear out the brain, or a good way to think. Something to do with the rhythm.

But what I hadn't remembered was how much I'd enjoyed just meandering around streets I didn't know, connecting up areas of the city overland that maybe I'd never travelled, never knew anyone who lived there, never had any reason to go there. Uncluttered back streets, away from the heavy diesel bus clag of the main streets that catches the back of your throat when you're running.

I'd done a lot of it last year, but now, with the first year architecture theory swimming around my head, I was a lot more conscious of WHY I was enjoying it, rather than just a vague voyeuristic feeling of catching a glimpse into a front room as you flash (plod) past.

A new park I never knew existed, a pristine square of Victorian-terraces, absolutely immaculate, surrounded on all sides by looming council blocks. A row of shops. The realisation a station with a distant vague name is actually JUST round the corner. The city opens up for you.

So here I am, endorphins kicking in after 20 minutes (helped by a good downhill stretch) with the Chemical Brothers giving me a booming beat to set my feet down, then, hoody up like some errant scallyway, scrambling over the locked fence of Brockwell Park and into the unlit interior.

Away from all the streets, people, houses and traffic, barely able to see where you put your feet on the dark paths, I got to the top of the hill in the centre. Suddenly, the stars burst into sight above me, blue moon light finally managing to push back the orange halo of the street lights below. Like being at the centre of your own personal black hole, looking out over the galaxy of the cities lights... amazing.

Checked my ipod... track 9... Life is Sweet.