I enjoy running in new locations. Though I've visited Glasgow a few times, I'd never run there, so, as I packed for the Health Libraries Group 2012 conference, I threw in shoes, shorts, t-shirt and Garmin.
Conference running is morning running; I've rarely managed it successfully at any other time for after breakfast one is swept up in the hurly-burly. So, for my first morning, I went from my hotel near the station down to the Clyde and east. People on their way to work, dressed for winter rather than summer, queued at bus stops. Glasgow Green had been recommended to me as a place to run in the pub the previous evening, and it was a great, and uniquely Glaswegian place. Here poor mad John McLean would address the crowds at rallies against the First World War, and an old shop steward I knew when I worked as a hospital porter, Jock Curley, told me of the unemployed demonstrations that met here in the 1930s, often attacked by the police. In the centre is the People's Palace, the Doulton fountain and an obleisk commemorating Nelson. The fountain is the largest terracotta fountain in the world, and is impressively imperial: Scottish soldiers, such an important part of empire, guard figures representing Australia, India, Canada and South Africa.
On the second morning I resolved to head west. I crossed the river by the piers of an old bridge, inscribed by Ian Hamiton Finlay with a quotation from Plato in both English and Greek, All Greatness Stands Firm in the Storm, or TA ΓAΡ ΔΗ ΜΕΓΑΛΑ ΠΑΝΤΑ ΕΠΙΣΦΑΛΗ ΚΑI ΤΌ ΛΕΓΌΜΕΝΌΝ ΤΑ ΚΑΛΑ ΤΏΙ ΟΝΤΙ ΧΑΛΕΠΑ. From here, I ran along the south bank of the Clyde, at least as far as I could for I came to a housing development who had, illegally, I would imagine, fenced off the path. Making my way inland, I found myself in Govan. I passed a junction at which an average-looking pub is crowned with an impressive Art Deco sculpture. I ran back to the other side of the river over the Clyde Arc. Shortly after this, disaster. I slipped on gravel and fell, injuring knees, hands and my face. I lay on the ground for a while, and then picked myself up and began to walk, painfully, home. A kind and beautiful young lassie out running stopped and asked me if I was all right. I told her I was. Whoever you were, thank you for asking. After limping for a while, I started a slow shuffle and made it back to the hotel, where I assessed the damage.
After cleaning myself up, eating breakfast and checking out, apologising to the receptionist for the blood in the room and assuring her I had not been engaged in murder during my stay I headed out for the conference. I paused to buy a newspaper. The newsagent looked at my bloody hands and asked me how I had hurt myself. 'Running', I replied. 'Oh aye', he said, 'we saw a bloody man running past a couple of hours ago'. 'That was me', I confessed. I was a little proud to have offered a remarkable spectacle to the citizens of a city that prides itself on its toughness.

I have not run since. I missed the Phoenix 10k. While the black eye subsided, the wound on my left knee is infected and I contrived to fall over again yesterday. I am now on antibiotics and somewhat anxious to see if I shall be fit for the Bexhill 5k next Wednesday evening.
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