A remarkable thing happened to me on my run tonight: I was out for a short, slow recovery run and was heading out of the village, when I heard birdsong from the hedge next to the footpath. I looked as I ran, and there he was, a little robin sitting on the top of the hedge not a meter away from me, and singing his heart out! He kept his position as I ran past him, and I caught a good look at him chirping away.

I’ve no idea why the image stayed with me. We live in a small village next to a nature reserve, and have become accustomed to more impressive birds (peregrin falcons are often seeing hunting in the fields around Croft hill for example), but there was something about the serenity of the scene; the earnestness of his singing and the way he was content to stand his ground (twig?) and sing as I ran past.

It’s probably also that I had come back from work, changed, walked Dash, hosted a viewing of our house, got changed into my running gear and only then went out for a run, and the day was still bright enough for me to see him clearly! Spring is certainly at the gates.

And I think that set my mood for the rest of the run. It was a recovery run, so the pace was always going to be nice and slow, but it was also the first evening run where I enjoyed the light chill in the air, and wasn’t in a hurry to warm up against it; where I didn’t need a headtorch for the unlit section back up to the village; and where I didn’t think once about the upcoming Manchester Marathon or how unprepared I am for it.

And who knows if in the end, enjoying the sight of a robin chirping away isn’t a huge part of preparing for a marathon.