Rivers and bikes

Interesting 5-miler last night. Usual traipse down the Thames, but as I'm getting used to actually running and not just cursing and swearing about how much I hate everything (which must look like I've just escaped from a tourettes clinic*), I'm actually paying attention to what's around me a bit more.

Now, I'm not the most observant person, but it was hard to escape the fact that the boundary between river and road had been blurred so much as to be non-existent in places. There were little islands of the occasional tree that was now several feet from the bank of the river.

I tried to get some pics, but as it was dark and my phone's camera doesn't have a flash, you'll just have to believe me.

The downside of this meant I couldn't run on the path next to the river. Usually it's pretty grim anyway, but even that's better than the perils of the road in the dark, as people are rushing home for their pie and chips (or whatever people in Surrey rush home to eat).

At one point a cyclist just stopped in front of me despite there being no other traffic in either direction.

Just cycled towards me.

Then stopped.

For a moment I thought he was going to ask directions, but he just stood there as I went around him.

He may have been a mentalist, or a psycho, but I didn't think it would have been polite to ask. Not least because he was much bigger than me and my experience is that bicycles go faster than northerners on legs.

Anyway, if I suddenly stop blogging, it's probably because I've been kidnapped/killed and eaten. This would mean I don't have to do anymore training (unless it was the kidnap thing and he had a particularly strange fetich involving a treadmill) so don't worry yourself too much.

Now I'm back to mentally preparing myself for the 3 and 8 miler's I've got to do this weekend.

Hope I see that cyclist chap again...

*I know they don't exist but it was the best thing I could think of for the metaphor. I'm aching,so give me a break!