Berlin Marathon 2011

I did it - the Berlin Marathon! It took me 5 hours 45 minutes, at a leisurely pace, including stopping for toilets, free massage and loads of free refreshments. I ran with two other English people, one my mate Kat and another woman called Anne who we met in the toilet queue before the race started. 

Running the marathon was honestly one of the most fun I'd had in ages. 

A few days before, Kat and I went to the expo at Tempelhoff Airport, and there I met a couple, who joined me at the outdoor picnic tables. The man told me 'Definitely do the fun run the morning before the marathon. You won't regret it.' It was quite a bold move for me to run 6km before my first ever marathon, especially one that had been marred by shoddy training and serious confidence knocks. But he assured me, it was worth it. 

The day before the marathon, I joined what became an increasingly mammoth sized party on the U-bahn at Merringdam station. People from literally every country hopped on the train, most of them in garish costume garb, which was totally amusing. The fun run started at a pace that I wouldn't normally even jog in, but I kept up with the majority, even though I could feel many people wanting to push on, through the crowds. I was around some seriously hardcore runners. What was I doing? Still the crowds were friendly, upbeat, stopping off to take group photos (the Japanese & Mexicans rocked) for each other and before I knew it, we were running just outside the perimeter of the Olympic Stadium. Next - we were running through it. The run had finished. We watched ourselves smiling on large TV screens. I was grateful for the free breakfast being handed out in the front, complete with a DJ and soundsystem; I felt simultaneously thrilled and cringy. 

Cue 6am the next morning. The day of truth saw me getting to Tiergarten at 7.45am, for a 9am start from the centre. The proceeding 5 + hours was a civilised, exciting jaunt through every nook and cranny that Berlin provided, moving from Charlottenburg over to the East and then South through Kreuzberg, then West and then back up towards Tiergarten once again. 

Literally all of Berlin and its residents emptied out into the streets to encourage us on, organising street parties, bands, jazz ensembles, raves, and shouty brigades. The sights and sounds were surreal, fun, inane and everything you'd hope for on a Sunday when you're sweating out everything you've got for charity. 

Speaking of which, I managed to raise over £400 for 2 charities - my totals are here 

http://www.charitiestrust.org/members_data/event/amysberlinmarathon11/

On to Barcelona, from the intrepid marathon runner! 

Flash-lit Fiction: Brighton Digital Festival 2011

I've been looking forward to doing a night with Tara Gould (Short Fuse/Story Studio) for some time. Tim and I met her in 2009, and later that year, she started helping me host on Writers Hub for Reverb. Those were fun days. Radio Reverb's a great station, but doing a one-hour monthly show that's not music-based takes a lot of time and energy to coordinate and plan. 

I can't remember how we got the idea of the slam, but I'd been floating this idea to various writing people  and we seized the opportunity to do something for Brighton Digital Festival. 

I've never been to a fiction slam, but plenty of poetry slams and hiphop battles. When I first moved to Brighton, one of my favorite lit nights was Howling at the Moon at the Full Moon pub. Paul Stones put that on. Wish there were more informal nights like that. 

I'm pretty sure this one will be a really fun night - lots of interesting acts in between heats. 12 writers and wannabes testing their 300 word pieces, hopefully on the theme of 21st century, although we won't hold people to it if it's 19th or 20th century stuff. Fame, glory and maybe even a prize!

We've still got a few spaces left for the slam, so if you're interested, write on our FB event wall http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=233314200036473&ref=ts or email us at flashlitdigital@gmail.com.

And for those up to speed with Twitter, we've got a story competition going on! If you wanna have a go,  tag your piece with #FLF11 so we can find it. Richard Hearn from Paragraph Planet will be unveiling the short list on 11 September and judges will pick the top 5 winners.

To get your advanced ticket (fiver, more on door) > http://bit.ly/nlOpkW. Hope to see you on the night. 

Training for Berlin Marathon

So, quite a few people have probably heard that I'm training to run my first marathon. My first is the Berlin Marathon, deemed the flattest course of all marathons, and with it being in my favorite month of the year, September, I was taken with the idea of a new challenge, running through the city's beautiful parks and downtown.

Tomorrow will be the end of week 4 of my training. My optimism and excitement about doing the training and then actually completing the marathon has wavered wildly. From delusional euphoria

After seeing an osteopath for the extreme pain in my hip, which I developed shortly after doing the Brighton Half Marathon, I've managed to more or less get back to normal. But the training, with its shorts running bursts and long runs on Saturday and Sunday, haven't necessarily been smooth sailing. 

Week 1 (27 June - 3 July) > 19.85 miles

Felt good but it was hotter than hell in Brighton. 

Week 2 (4 July  10 July) > 15.14 miles 

Started the week with hill training. That was fun. But how I got up on Sunday after partying for two nights in a row (and being woken up by my Texan friend at 6am) and managed the 9.4 miles I will never ever now. Again, fucking hot. 

Noticing that the only thing that pulls me through the long runs is the vision of me sitting down with a roast and a glass of wine in a pub. Perhaps not the best motivation!

Week 3 (11 July - 17 July) > 9.07 miles

Not my best week. Having visitors, evening events or meetings - all excuses for pub and drinking culture - have taken their toll. Gave myself the week off, apart from Saturday and Sunday.  

Week 4 (18 July - 24 July) > about 10- 15 miles TBC

Again, not my best week. I did one hill sprint on Wednesday, but skipped Thursday. Too much bloody work on. Today's run was 5 miles through Oxfordshire canals and meadows and tiny villages. Lovely, but not feeling the most fittest of runners. 

Week 5 (25 July - 31 July) > all to be revealed in the next blog, I guess!

I'm actually training for Berlin with my mate Kat. Today was our first run together. She's a slightly better runner, averaging 6 miles per hour to my 5. But we're both full of pains and injuries and trying to work out what is the best way forward. Dodgy hips, shinsplints, stiff achilles heels, numb feet. It was good to run and compare stretching and running tips, and we eventually got into a good rhythm - right before we were finished!

A week ago I was close to throwing in the towel. BF said it seemed a shame, when I was only at the start of training. And now, I'm thinking maybe I can get into this. Read up on Runner's World, start making minor improvements to my diet. I've still got August and September to get better. 

Kat and I have reasoned that at least we know that we can do 13 miles; the rest will be a mystery combo of running and walking. For the moment, I can stress about my Sunday runs turning into 13 and 15 miles. WTF!

If you're interested, here's the training programme I'm using: Marathon programme for Breakthrough Breast Cancer (although I'm not necessarily running for them, I should probably consider it, they're site is a great resource for runners). 

I'm also Runkeeper to keep track of my runs > I'm amyriley. 

I'm running for Audioactive, a children and young people's charity in Brighton. If you're interested in supporting, maybe you'd like to come along on Saturday 20 August to our one-day Audioactive Summer Festival at Hanover Community Centre, Southover Street, Brighton, 12-8pm. Again, all proceeds go to the charity for their programmes. 

Advanced tickets or to simply donate to the charity, see: http://audioactivesummerfe​st11.eventbrite.com/

Tip from charles in charge

www.simplynoise.com

He recommends brown noise, says its white noise with the high end cut out. I'm going to check it out.

"Simply noise will sort all your sound problems out."

Marathon training starts tomorrow: sweatbands

Everyone thought I was being really '80s when I wrote on Facebook that 'I was shopping for headbands'. How wrong could they be? Sweatbands are the new portable hand fan, the new

So I've been looking for headbands, on and off, for about three days. It's been more off than on since Sky don't seem to prioritise Council estates for decent broadband. Apparently, broadband has reached an all-time low for most of the people I work with, which made me quickly shake my half-baked paranoid theories. The more likely reason is that a lot of people are shafted by the most basic of services like internet.  It's all probably going to Korea.

A woman I work with said she'd heard that people are chipping away metal, that's something to do with the drop in service. I think I might go back to the socio economic conspiracy theories.

The broadband seems to be working just fine now. As if to spite me.

Tonight it took me about an hour to move past the novelty day-glo and imports from America. Like why would I want to pay £3 to ship a piece of fluffy elastic? 

My first decent find is a Lebanon headband and wristband set . Red and white striped with a pine tree in the middle.

Perfectly attractive until I bid and then was told I was outbid, probably by myself. This sort of insanity could keep going on forever.

Also I noticed the postage was £4. Like - what? The postage is the same as the American counterparts, which seems crazy considering it's an extended bit of fluff, weighing slightly more than a ping pong and less than a book.

I hope I don't win.

ps - please someone outbid me

Old habits - a 425 word short story

Here's a piece of flash fiction that I wrote just before Christmas. It was inspired by a 425 word writing competition run by Viva Lewes - thanks to Tara from Short Fuse (now Story Salon) for flagging it up!


Brighton author & poet  Louise Halvardsson also wrote a great piece on the same theme, which you can read on her myspace page.  

Old Habits - by Amy Riley

Fingernails to the quick – that’s me. I bite them every time I have a deadline, and being someone who always leaves things to the last minute, that’s every time an article’s due in.

It’s a frosty winter’s night as I pull the electric heater close and hunch over my pad. It’s 4.25am. Five more hours. My head hurts and sleep beckons, but I resist.

A badger wanders past. 

Frost cracks across the patio, coats the grass and looks like an icy lace shawl under the half moon’s light. 

The wind blows and heaves from the north, scaring me. I’m alone. I look up at the door, making sure no one’s trying to get in, and continue to write.

My writing takes me on a journey through a valley, where I can count the ghosts. I rifle through my pages of handwritten notes, wondering why my handwriting never improves over the years, wondering why I never bothered to learn shorthand, why I can never finish things.

A man’s voice calls through the pages. A hoarse voice, whiskey cured and Marlborough reds deepened, he can still curse on his deathbed. 

‘Goddamn, give me some brew,’ he says to his son-in-law, who goes out to the fridge. 

He was a man living out in the woods, nursed by his daughter and forgotten about by history. The oldest living Confederate, he claimed, with a cheeky glint in his eye.

‘You shouldn’t drink,’ says the daughter, who wipes his brow with a towel.

‘I can do what I damn well like’ says the man. ‘I’m going to drink my beer and I’m going to tell my story to this nice young man visiting us.’

The man looks at me, licking his lips, watching as the son-in-law, a heavy man with a blue lumberjack shirt, surrenders the can.

I was the one who travelled hundreds of miles, looking for the man they said had killed three bears with his bare hands, and I’d found him, invalid, sickly, dying of cancer.

As the sun begins to rise, I type away my notes, which I carried from Arizona to Texas to here, in a rucksack, by bus, car, motorcycle, train and then plane, and see my story take shape.  

It is like watching a miracle happen, and I know that I’ll be able to finish the article, re-read it, sub it, then email it to the editor for 9am.

I tell myself I’ll start earlier, plan it better. 

But old habits, true to the saying, die as hard as the oldest living Confederate.

Old books make light reading

" 'There are three things that I like,' Amanda exclaimed upon awakening from her first long trance. 'These are: the butterfly, the cactus and the Infinite Goof.'

Later she amended the list to include mushrooms and motorcycles.

While strolling through her cactus gardens one warmish June morning, Amanda came upon an old Navajo man painting pictures in the sand.

'What is the function of the artist?' Amanda demanded of the talented trespasser. 'The function of the artist,' the Navajo answered, 'is to provide what life does not.'

Amanda became pregnant during a fierce thunderstorm. 'Was it the lightning or the lover?' she was sometimes heard to muse.

When her son was born with electric eyes, people no longer thought her foolish."

- from a slightly water warped version of Tom Robbins' 'Another Roadside Attraction'