My conference running habit has not had many outlets in recent years. The days when I would nonchalantly knock off a few miles in Washington DC, or up Arthur's Seat in Edinburgh, are gone. I wonder if Sweder, as he lives the rock'n'roll life on the road, has taken his running shoes and kit with him.
I have run in Manchester before, and along a similar route, but this morning I set out before dawn from the University of Manchester and ran to the University of Salford. It was a four mile trip there and back, and by no means beautiful. The tall buildings blocked the Garmin, signal, the city centre looked dank and miserable in the early light, and then the road to Salford runs by closed buildings, old disused mills and boarded churches. The only sight of nature was the river Irwell, as I approached the end of the journey out, but the experienced of looking down over its gently curved meander was tempered by the six-lane road beside me. The anecdote about Engels came to mind: as he was writing the Condition of the Working Class in England, he met a Manchester bourgeois, and held forth at some length about the atrocious conditions in the city. The bourgeois listened patiently, and replied, 'and yet there is a very great deal of money to be made here. Good day to you, sir'.
My cough troubled me more than usual. I attribute this to the inner-city pollution. Oh for the clean Sussex air.
