getting closer

This year has started well. I've gotten out – much more than last year. Looking over the numbers and calculating current totals and averages, I feel good. Lack of training won't be a valid excuse if I don't do well this year. In January, I ran 186 km, six per day, more than in the first two months of last year combined. It helped that there was no snow, hardly any rain and even some sun sometimes. It was never too cold for comfort.

And so I've built a solid base. Last week was the end of this first part of the season. A long run took my up the river to the area where the Thames Path peters out in the maze of proud industrial heritage at Brentford, and then back. An hour and forty-five minutes, a bit more than 20k, an endurance test for the traditional season opener at Roding Valley that's coming up next Sunday.

Earlier this week, I've changed gears. Long slow runs won't do anymore. Now speed needs to be built and toughness developed. On Wednesday, I did a serious interval session around the Round Pond at Kensington Gardens. I did ten laps of three quarters around at full speed and one quarter easy, basting my way through lunch walkers, gaping tourists and bird feeders, frantically flapping wings surrounding me like the applause of an enthusiastic audience. A helicopter hovered overhead, inexplicably. Every now and then, I couldn't avoid kicking a gluttonous pigeon that didn't get out of the way fast enough. Around the swans, more menacing than majestic from close up, I swerved widely. Their wrath is better avoided – as is the Queen's, whose property they are.

Today I got to the lab around lunchtime, out of opportunism rather than eagerness or even habit. I had a prep lined up that needed quick working, and on weekends most equipment sits unused and ready. I was by myself. While my protein contently eluted off a big column, I wanted to go to the park for another run, the last serious effort before next Sunday's half marathon. My resolve wasn't lacking, and yet I'm still sitting here. What happened?

Trying to get out of the building, all decked out for a good run, music in ear and laces tied, I couldn't. My swipe card didn't trigger the encouraging beep in the reader nor the expected action. The front door remained stubbornly looked. The guard on duty at the front desk would have let me out, but how could I have got back in? He would certainly not be in our building all Sunday.

I went back up to test some more readers, identifying more doors that used to be open to me but were now closed. Imperial's security, by the way, is onerously paranoid. Card readers are everywhere, making most of the university out of bounds to most people working or studying there. I work in Biochemistry, yet can't get into the Chemistry department, just across the hall, not even to lug up supplies that are delivered to the shared stockroom. Our lab has internal doors that are looked in the evenings and on weekends, for crying out loud. Google probably has laxer policies, and their headquarters is ten minutes from Apple. An open and collaborative academic environment this is not.

Anyway, I found a way in and around, mostly because all the swipe reader still accepted my card. Only the newfangled touch readers refused to cooperate. I even found a way in and out of the building – through the back door of the goods elevator. What I didn't manage was get into the neighboring building where the shower is housed. No shower, no run, obviously. And so I'm still here, sitting on my desk instead of having fun in the park, writing and working instead of running, and looking out of the window every once in a while.

It's a grim sight, by the way. The sky has liquefied. Clouds have merged into a dense soup and drawn close. Yahoo tells me that it's just about 40, but with not even a memory of the sun in the sky, without even a sky to be honest, it would feel much colder. I'm coming to see the defective card readers as an unexpected gift, an injection of joy against the gloominess outside. I would have liked to polish my early-season form ahead of next Sunday's race, but the pinnacle of the season, the London Marathon, is still two months away, and who wants to peak early?