Modus Eundi

A week ago, I boarded a plane for the first time since July 2007. As I sat staring down at glaciers on my way north to Seattle, I realised that this may have been the longest time I've ever gone without a flight in my life. Flying felt familiar and comfortable...

For me, 30-mile weeks only normally happen in the first third or last third of a marathon training programme.But I'm not training for a marathon and yet I still managed to clock mileage in the 30s last week.The distance between the mental peaks and troughs is bigger than it ever has been at the...

After a year spent posting each day, a week feels like a decade. The break has de-cobwebbed my brain and done it a lot of good. I've noticed that, without the Modus whip lashing at my back, I process the world differently...

It all began a year ago. It was a premature present for my dead father whose birthday is tomorrow.An incredible amount has happened to me in that time...

I found the anniversary of my Dad's death, on St. Patrick's Day, more difficult to manage this year than ever before. And so too with the anniversary of his birth, today, St. George's Day...

Last time I found myself running around Echo Lake, I looped it five times and speculated on how many loops would light the fuse of dementia.Today, I looped the lake six times. Only the need to get home and get on with the day stopped me running more. The first few laps are tough...

I've been asked a few times why I insist on having a Modus Eundi post for every day of the year. It's all down to the pathology of the self-punisher; I will beat myself with any rod I can find. I started out last year with a flurry of posts and, before I knew it, I had a whole week behind me...

There's probably only 10% of Angelino Heights, the historic hilltop enclave where I live, that I haven't covered on foot. I bit a chunk out of that 10% today with a run along Bellevue and Boylston...

Amtrak trains are the opposite of polite children: they are heard but not seen. You can hear the rumbling when you walk under the platforms at Union Station. You can hear the distant honking and screeching at various places throughout the city...

Runyon Canyon is a small, busy but pleasant enough oasis of wilderness in Hollywood.Appropriately for a Hollywood attempt at being rural, it feels fake...

I took three days in a row off running last week and subjected myself to a slow crescendo of guilt. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. By Thursday, I couldn't handle the shrill scream of self-punishing conscience any more. I finally forced myself to run. This week began in the same way. Nothing on Monday...

A week to go. Then it will have been a year. Modus Eundi has been handrail, friend and taskmaster. I am two-thirds grateful and one-third burdened.I still don't know what Modus Eundi will become after its 366th day...

I think my accent has changed slightly in the nine months I've lived in LA. It started out as a London turd and it was then polished, not completely successfully, by years of private education...

Today was an Echo Lake day. A day where I feel I can only muster a mile or two. A day where I con myself into a quick jaunt around the lake in the knowledge that I might be able to add loops once I'm there and bump my distance up to something worthwhile. I ended up running round the lake five times...