Blindingly Expeditious Promulgation of Jocular Tomes

Ave atque vale to my welfare emails; here is my final stint in office, a florilegium of Lent Term’s belles-lettres. 

Canto 1

Welcome to Lent term – the notoriously enervating and infamously jarring. But it needn’t all be doom and gloom: Lent means BUCS, it means Boundary Run, it means the introduction of ‘sun’ back into our vocabularies (not the newspaper), it means formals, the AGM and, in my case, some papers I have literally been waiting my whole life to do. Never one for hyperbole. And Angus and I are here to try and help you steer clear of desolation, woe, and desolation row over the next 8 weeks. 

As the echoes of our happy Harey laughs and convos at the Saturday session swirl down the annals of our collective memory in a numinous, echoey vortex, the taper for BUCS has commenced. Practice sense and sensibility – getting plenty of sleep, fuelling well and really easing down the running. Another top tip: race days can be really hard to predict, so trying to have a structure/tactic which can be flexible is a good bet to prevent extra stress. Things like starting the warmup precisely 49.5 mins before the gun goes, or quadruple-lacing your spikes, or using specific Hello Kitty safety pins, or whatever quirky little superstition it is, can be fun, but can also risk putting a spanner in the proverbial calm works of your mind. 

So, if possible, be ready to be on your guard or thrown off by the havoc of a big day out! As literally every influencer has ever said (yet each seems to think they’ve coined the phrase), it’s wise to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. (Who’s gonna tell them…) Although actually I'm the last person to talk because when I was 5 I thought I’d written the Barbie Girl theme tune.  

This final stage of the taper can be tricky, so please do contact us or any committee member if you need a bit of advice. Good luck to all!

Song of the week: 

Country Mile – Camera Obscura. ‘The road it winds, it twists, it turns, oh my stomach burns’. Yep, you’re not alone love. The song is a great little cabochon, pretty eerie and haunting. This Glaswegian band were my big Christmas discovery, the perfect backdrop to what ended up being quite an existential dissertation moil; interesting to hear Mazzy Star meeting Dory Previn meeting Belle and Sebastian. Expanding the usual restriction of ‘nothing post-2000’! And they say I’m not adventurous…

Playlist available here! Good for the soul, the speed and the sport:

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0IE8Qxc0xsMF0xPCPKyQoF?si=MgCEedXhTNuQ6wo58EPS7Q&pi=e-Qsh0j2oTSI62

Word of the week: 

Pusillanimous – timid, cowardly. As in, ‘the last time I got told off by an officious, no-can-do dundridge at work in the summer, I should’ve unleashed hell, but instead I took the pusillanimous (and all-too familiar) tactic of trying to look sufficiently miffed, before being so ‘nice and understanding’ about the ‘misunderstanding’ that I was the one that ended up apologising’. Grrr. Pusillanimous. 

Photo of the week:

A beautiful picture of Cornwall from the Chrimbo break. As Keats, ever the wise bard (although I hear his sea-legs couldn’t rival Miranda’s), wrote: anyone with their ‘eyeballs vex’d and tir’d’ should ‘feast them upon the wideness of the sea’. As in, pop down to the ocean to lighten your emotional burdens. As we’re a bit far from the waves here, this picture may have to do. 

Canto 2

“Wow, wow, wow. In other words, game over”, to quote both Niamh Thompson and Nativity 2’s Angel Matthews. Her words are perhaps the only ones that can speak to our impeccable Saturday vibes; godspeed our fantastic team.

A massive well done to everyone who raced and spectated on Saturday. I write to you with some tasty welfare morsels to accompany your down-week. Like Jane Eyre is for Rochester, let my words be your prop and guide. 

I for one always find the post-race homecoming really tricky, especially if the weekend was as emotional and hectic as this. I think Super Hans said it best – “these are the good times love; after the initial nausea passes, but before the grinding comedown”. (Needless to say he was describing a very different experience to BUCS cross country. Perhaps more troubling though, is the fact that this reference rolled off the tongue quicker than any others in today’s email. Hmm. I think, as Hans’s friend Jez said, that I should probably take a long, hard look at myself and have a think about what I’ve done). Anyway, I’d say we’re all slogging through the grinding comedown round about now, and it’s pretty hard to switch back into reality, let alone Cambridge term time. 

So, a bit of advice. Firstly, don’t worry about it! I nearly cried in my bowl of porridge this morning, and then again in hall, and then again at the post office, ad nauseam ad nauseam… It is good to feel emotions, and we are tired and overwrought, so bung these factors together, and we’ve got a pretty teary straggler. 

Secondly, catch up on sleep and fueling. The mega buffet wasn’t enough to counter a night out, race day dodgiosity of fueling and likely slightly ratty eating yesterday. I know my meal deal option of plain cheese no mayo didn’t quite hit the same spot a good lasagne would’ve. (Oh John…). Obviously sleep will need to be regained, so just be kind to yourself.

Thirdly, running-wise, a down-week is so important now. Not only will you recover physically and mentally, but you’ll also be allowing your body to absorb the training benefit from the race. Have a gander at some swimming – I hear the lido is pretty this time of year – or some cycling, or, perchance, even a dab o’ paddle/ volleyball/ ‘real’ tennis (although from what I can grasp, that sport is pretty much just the opposite of tennis. There’s a misnomer if ever I saw one). Come back to sessions after a few easy days feeling as refreshed, reinvigorated and motivated as the makers of Bridget Jones inexplicably still seem to be. 

As always, get in touch with any concerns, questions, or general miscellaneous craic.

Song of the week: 

Violin Concerto – Benjamin Britten. Admittedly this is not a ‘song’, but it’s simply SUBLIME. Has been my favourite classical piece for almost my whole life.

Playlist available here! Good for the soul, the speed and the sport:

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0IE8Qxc0xsMF0xPCPKyQoF?si=MgCEedXhTNuQ6wo58EPS7Q&pi=e-Qsh0j2oTSI62

Word of the week: 

Taille – the juice produced from a second pressing of the grapes during winemaking. As in, ‘the taille is worth the squeeze’. Get that on a t-shirt.

Photo of the week:

It’s us this week guys. Because what could be more welfare than a picture of our glorious, golden club, clad in pyjamas, cardboard and POD tattoos? 

(Submissions welcome)

Canto 3

Happy National Flannel Day, National Umbrella Day, National Clean Out Your Computer Day and Homes for Birds Week to all who celebrate. 

Bea’s Advice

I hope everyone has enjoyed their down-week and been as kind to themselves as the critics inexplicably were to the hysterically bad horror film my friends and I started the other day. 

I was going to attach a poem for you but unfortunately the only gizmo that came to mind was either morbidly epitaphic, plangently sorrowful, or just a bit disturbing? 

However, in a providential flash of aesthetic salvation, as I type this, a wonderful song I queued a while ago has just come on – and the lyrics are pretty poetic. It’s Dire Straits’ Brothers in Arms, and actually kind of speaks to running! Sort of… a bit tenuous I know but it’s been a long day. Genuinely have a listen and enjoy – that’s all the welfare advice I have today. 

These mist covered mountains

Are a home now for me

But my home is the lowlands

And always will be

Some day you'll return to

Your valleys and your farms

And you'll no longer burn

To be brothers in arms

Through these fields of destruction

Baptisms of fire

I've witnessed your suffering

As the battle raged higher

And though they did hurt me so bad

In the fear and alarm

You did not desert me

My brothers in arms

There's so many different worlds

So many different suns

And we have just one world

But we live in different ones

Now the sun's gone to hell

And the moon riding high

Let me bid you farewell

Every man has to die

But it's written in the starlight

And every line in your palm

We're fools to make war

On our brothers in arms

Other than this, keep fuelling, keep sleeping and look after yourself. We’re officially in the throes of Lent term now and it’s hefty so stick at it, my brothers and sisters in arms. 

Song of the week: 

The Game – Dory Previn. Really not much in the way of running puns easily extractable here; I just think this is a very cool song. Quite dark, quite sinister, quite doom-inducing. Such fun, such fun, SUCH FUN.

Word of the week: 

Graminaceous – grassy; as in ‘forget West Cam, I’m going to be kind to my shins with some graminaceous terrain this week’.

Photo of the week:

It’s the Christmas rabbit – my little Josie! She is snuggled up to my brother, that straggling young man who I believe charmed some of you at the BUCS afterparty, nearly destroyed several table football championships and probably lost me between 5-10 friends. (Apologies again to all who encountered him). She is a lady of many names, from Honey-Dosai to Mr Darcy, and the charms of this rabbit, in contrast to my brother, are boundless. 

Canto 4

Hello, to quote Lionel Richie. Over here at Harey welfare, we hope you’re keeping well and enjoying the influx of sun as Helios has finally deigned to drag his fiery chariot through snow and shower into our 53.5500° N latitude and 2.4333° W longitude hemisphere. Cheers pal.

Everyone is now doing very different things training-wise – we’ve got some beserk marathoners only really just starting to hit the gas, some people tapering for Nationals, and some plodding on through that weird interim blob of time after XC but before track. So wherever you are on this continuum (or perhaps a continuum with an ‘x’ several inches above to denote the rogue marathoner contingent among us), I come bearing some dubious strava content and a reminder that ‘comparison is the thief of joy’. Actually while we’re on it, that’s another one that runfluencers love to ‘coin’ on a weekly basis. #Wilty – along with David Mitchell’s soul-destroying pragmatism and Lee Mack’s acerbic ability to invalidate literally anything – is calling them, because clearly they need to sort their fact from their fiction.

Tangent aside – although arguably the tangent was better than the teaching – this is a time when one could easily get swept up by strava, by post-season motivation or its opposite, and get worried about what one is doing. So, setting personalised goals and considering the shape of your upcoming weeks, factoring in recovery and rest periods, is the best way to avoid any silly towpath rampages or random fomo-fuelled sessions with the 100m group. 

Many of us are still settling from BUCS, and in Cambridge’s intense environment, we probably haven’t realistically had the rest we deserve. So, talk to any of us, or Phil, and check the weekly emails for guidance. Thinking ahead will keep your training more consistent than anything else – you shouldn’t be knackered by the time Sunday comes round, but steadily building over weeks. Sessions are just stepping stones on the path to fitness: or, for the musically-inflected, the disparate guitar bridges which in summation create Shine On You Crazy Diamond. Sublime. 

Right, I’ve prated on long enough. Time to scran some sultanas and kick a few bits of trash under my bed in a proxy tidy up. As ever, do get in touch if you need any tailored advice! Or, indeed, Tailor advice – the one near the Pick looks pretty swish but I am yet to visit; any regulars, feel free to chuck a ballpark rating my way. 

Song of the week: 

Like Dylan in the Movies – Belle and Sebastian.  Yep… it’s another Scottish band! ‘If they follow you, don’t look back’ is sound racing advice.

Word of the week: 

Mucilaginous – sticky, viscid. Managed to bung this bad boy into my essay this week. Call me pretentious, call me Ishmael. But it rocked. Quit calling your sweetheart ‘honey’; try instead ‘you mucilaginous associate’. Should hit the spot. 

Photo of the week:

Here are two of my least favourite Dickensian urchins loitering behind bars. (And I’ve had the displeasure of meeting a few in my time). They were jailed within seconds of entering the almighty bard’s most esteemed dwelling-place, because of their mockery of the cloth cap of their fellow-pilgrim (me). She had actually bothered – unlike them – to clad herself in the distinguished appurtenances of Victorian London, with a suspiciously-patterned waistcoat and all; and the wastrel and varmint pictured here remorselessly shunned their compatriot for her choice of bonnet. 

Canto 5

Blimey. I watched Trainspotting for the first time this week, and not to be dramatic, but it has changed my life. And also probably my Spotify wrapped – the EDM stats are soaring high. (Just like Mark Renton throughout the film). It is in this vein (ha) that I shall keep the welfare advice to a minimum this week; as Trainspotting and wellbeing tips do not go as comfortably hand-in-hand as Begbie and violence unfortunately seem to.

Food, glorious food; today I bring tidings of victuals, a little reminder of the importance of quality fueling. 

We’re so lucky to have colleges where warm, decent-quality food is provided for most of us on a daily basis, so a key Cambridge-inflected eating tip is to make the most of this. I for one find the post-SLR Sunday roast dinner an unmissable fixture in the calendar. Especially with my rather leisurely run start-times, a 12:30  instant re-fuel is pretty perfect. But post-session Saturday brunches and even post-run weekday cooked breakfasts (Lucy Cav could never), are both pretty affordable and accessible ways to eat more than some out of date jam and a stale crumpet (so stale it literally squeaks). 

The science is a bit muddled on fuelling – some say the ‘anabolic window’ (eating carbs and protein within 30-60 mins of exercise for optimal benefit) is a myth, but there’s certainly something logical to be said for putting back into your body what you just lost. A ratio of 3:1 carbohydrate to protein is advisable; in fact, if I recall, Mildred Hubble’s seaside picnic in The Worst Witch: All At Sea, is a perfect example of this. A tuna sandwich, some crisps and some apple juice. Flawless. (I actually wrote a letter to Jill Murphy and got an amazing hand-written-and-illustrated response when I was 8. Claiming fame there). 

Fruit and veg is great, but can’t be relied upon. We need CARBS with every meal. For a poetic articulation of this teaching, please see my ‘Staying Carbohydrated’ poem of yore. Let’s try not to eat fish without its rice cake bezzie mate (otherwise our Whitehaven-based weightlifter will be very disappointed), and let’s not stress if we can’t find the right M&S kefir, manchego and radicchio-infused artisan pesto on the shelves. Our meals don’t need to look instagram-able, they need to look chunky and nourishing. For reference, my friends banished my daily monster creation of ‘non-aesthetic food piles’ to Room 101. Luckily I am sticking to this as diligently as Trump is to international law. 

Ultimately, you know when you need food. Listen to your body. Signs of underfuelling include fatigue, being hungry (including at night/ when trying to sleep), weakness, dizziness, difficulty concentrating, weight loss, stalled training progress, niggling injuries, the neglect/ deletion of food groups, and disruption of the menstrual cycle for women. (Of course some of these can happen regardless, but this is a benchmark of general criteria). A crucial memorandum is that the opposite can sometimes be true: underfuellers can also feel lacking in appetite or feel full very quickly if the metabolic system gets thrown out of whack.

So as we embrace the veritable zoo of week 5 with all its nasty nabarleks, unpleasant uakaris and stressful scorpions, I charge us all to really focus on fuelling. Try not to gloss over this and assume you’re doing it right: there is always work we can do to improve. There’s no point training if you don’t let yourself absorb and recover from it! Please do get in touch if you feel you’re struggling, and we will try to help. 

Song of the week: 

A Whiter Shade of Pale – Procol Harum. This, according to the rents, used to be the slow-dance at the end of club nights. Alas, what has the world come to! O tempora, O mores; sic transit gloria mundi! ‘I was feeling kinda seasick/ But the crowd called out for more’ rather describes my headspace about 500m into Saturday’s Nationals; ‘the room was humming harder/ As the ceiling flew away’ is a pretty apt illustration of my sober clubbing experience that evening; and ‘although my eyes were open/ They might just as well have been closed’ befits my dazed journey homeward, precipitating a 7pm bedtime yesterday. All in all, a wonderful song, eternally consistent with the human condition, and even involving an unwitting Chaucer reference. 

Word of the week: 

Xenarthral – sloth-like. As in, how I felt running up Parliament Hill. 

Photo of the week:

Here’s a snap from Kettle’s Yard, taken a while back. It is stunning, and a crazy, bohemian little nest of art and light effects. No, I don’t think it amounts to very much, but perhaps not everything needs to, and can just be pretty for its own sake! 

Canto 6

Hi Hareys!

Happy March. Here are four quotes about March; so feel free to absorb whichever feels most applicable to you this fine Spring day. 

1: “March is the month of expectation” – Emily Dickinson. 

2: “Only those with tenacity can march forward in March” – Ernest Agyemang Yeboah. 

3: “It is the first mild day of March:/ Each minute sweeter than before” – Wordsworth. 

4: ““Indoors or out, no one relaxes in March, that month of wind and taxes, the wind will presently disappear, the taxes last us all the year” – Unknown. 

So let’s formez our bataillons and Marchons, Marchons into a brave new month, and possibly my penultimate (?) email to you all. 

Bea’s Advice

Here are Wordsworth’s ‘Lines Written In Early Spring’, a lovely ditty by a bard ever-inspiring. He really is the poet of welfare, advocating the great outdoors, anti-elitism, compassion and general niceness. Yes, he sold out a bit, but on the whole, a pretty good egg. (For a full vindication thereof, please see my ‘What Were His Words Worth’ on the esteemed network that is wixsite. No, nothing I write is ever ironic at all). As always, keep fueling properly, keep sleeping, and look after yourself. Enjoy our resplendent weather – life is too short to be holed up in a dingy, poky room like a desiccated 21st century Mr Casaubon. Here is Wordsworth's glorious celebration of Spring. 

I heard a thousand blended notes

While in a grove I sat reclined,

In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts

Bring sad thoughts to the mind.

To her fair works did Nature link

The human soul that through me ran;

And much it grieved my heart to think

What Man has made of Man.

Through primrose tufts, in that sweet bower,

The periwinkle trailed its wreaths;

And 'tis my faith that every flower

Enjoys the air it breathes.

The birds around me hopped and played,

Their thoughts I cannot measure -

But the least motion which they made

It seemed a thrill of pleasure.

The budding twigs spread out their fan

To catch the breezy air;

And I must think, do all I can,

That there was pleasure there.

If this belief from heaven be sent,

If such be Nature's holy plan,

Have I not reason to lament

What Man has made of Man?

Song of the week: 

You Took the Words Right Out of my Mouth (Hot Summer Night) – Meat Loaf. Meaty is wicked (and ethically, literally so). But he really came up with some absolute corkers. The guy that collaborated with him on much of his work is heavily into opera, which I think really comes through in the music: intensely energetic bordering on hysterical, full of richness and texture. ‘When I listen to your heart I hear the whole world turning’ is such a good line. Probably true for me after the lactic sniper does its thing of a Hot Summer Night down at Wilby. I literally cannot recommend this album enough. 

Bonus songs of the week because I’m realising I’m running out of time and want MORE SONGS on the playlist:

Bigger Stronger – Coldplay. I would also like to be bigger, stronger, drive a faster car, Mr Martin. But I’d say you’re doing okay atm. ‘I think I wanna change my altitude’ is also very much speaking to my lowlands-induced ennui. Coldplay are simply goated and I won’t hear anything against them – this is them at their very earliest, and their Radiohead-esque melancholy is really cool to hear (it abandons them post-Parachutes as they find their own intriguingly diverse voice).

Shadowplay – Joy Division. The epitome of what I mean when I say ‘1980s Manchester’. 

Lemon Tree – The Seekers. A jaunty little ditty for a solemn teaching; and aptly, the Seekers expose the meretricious through a citric metaphor.

Word of the week: 

Citril – a beautiful Alpine finch. Very nice. And in keeping with these springly tidings. 

Photo of the week:

My second-favourite forest in the world – second only to the Dorsetshire woodland where I grew up. This is in Cornwall, on the route down to a beautiful cove, and when we go in April the snowdrops, primroses and daffodils have just started peeping out. Really fighting the impulse not to quote a hodgepodge of Keats and Wordsworth’s stuff here, because that would be even more annoying than the rest of this. 

She dwelt among the untrodden ways

Beside the springs of Dove,

A Maid whom there were none to praise

And very few to love:

   A violet by a mossy stone

Half hidden from the eye!

—Fair as a star, when only one

Is shining in the sky.

   She lived unknown, and few could know

When Lucy ceased to be;                                  

But she is in her grave, and, oh,

The difference to me!

(ahha. soz).

Canto 7

Hi Hareys!

As this is our last email, I once again enlist the cultural canon as a vessel of articulation, as centuries of human aesthetic creativity are better disposed to speak to you than anything else. So do please select the words of farewell that best speak to you today.

1. Jeff Buckley: ‘this is our last goodbye’. 

2. Air Supply: ‘there's nothing left to say but goodbye’.

3. Shakespeare: ‘parting is such sweet sorrow that I shall say goodnight till it be morrow’. 

4. James Blunt: ‘goodbye my lover, goodbye my friend’. 

5. Leonard Cohen: ‘hey, that’s no way to say goodbye’.

6. Bob Dylan: ‘you’re gonna make me lonesome when you go’.

7. Green Day: ‘good riddance’.

8. The Smiths: ‘Over, over, over, over’. (Yes, bleak one this).

9. Churchill: ‘Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning’.

10. T S Eliot: ‘what we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from’.

11. Adele: ‘this is the end. Hold your breath and count to 10’.

12. Shakespeare: ‘exit, pursued by a bear’.

Bea’s Advice

A sizeable well done to everyone for their achievements this year – whether big or small, whether you ran your first half marathon or managed to get on top of your fuelling; whether you raced BUCS or battled through injury rehab; whether you raced well or made the decision to step away from the sport, you have all done a great job. Running is a journey, the key ingredients are enjoyment and longevity, and if we can try preserving them, we really have got a (nice clean carbon) shoe already in running welfare Elysian Fields.

The committee changeover is upon us; our reign of terror is over. So until our lovely bright-eyed and bushy-tailed new welfare reps re-assume the mantle, I remind you all to eat, drink, sleep and recover properly over Easter. Enjoy the break, don’t work too hard (makes Jack a dull boy and all), get outside, and live corporeally… whatever that means. 

A huge thank you to my wonderful welfare colleague Angus – there’s no one I’d have rather worked with. And a huge thank you to everyone who ever said something nice about these emails, or came to us for advice (I hope we were able to help!), or were generally good eggs – it doesn’t take much to spread a bit of welfare/ joy/ niceness, so long may this continue in CUH&H! We have greatly enjoyed being your welfare officers this year, and we are happy to be leaving you in the very capable hands of Ben (John) and Aimi. 

Over and out, toodle-pip, godspeed, sayonara and ave atque vale. 

Song of the week: 

Alt End – The Cure. But unlike Bobby Smith, I think we do ‘want another run around’.

Bonus songs of the week because I’m realising I’m running out of time and want MORE SONGS on the playlist:

Proof – I Am Kloot. Rogue Manchester band, just the way we like it.

Don’t Let Me Down – The Beatles. Couldn’t not bung in our arthropodous friends.

Miles From Nowhere – Yusuf/ Cat Stevens. Forget Iten: Home of Champions, forget Flagstaff, Arizona – this guy agrees that the best running location is ‘miles from nowhere, not a soul in sight’. 

Forever – The Beach Boys. As in, what CUH&H is.

The Only Living Boy In New York – Simon and Garfunkel. My father tells me that Paul Simon was incredible live, a far better performer than even the big cheese that is Bobby D. This same man, though, doesn’t like the peep show, Miranda, or Line of Duty, so his aesthetic taste perchance need be taken with a pinch of salt. 

Iceblink Luck – Cocteau Twins. Not going to pretend I know what’s going on here – or actually in any CT songs for that matter – but they are consistently very cool. 

Run Run Run – The Velvet Underground. On an absolutely canonical, seminal album. 

Belfast Child – Simple Minds. The first one I knew by this band; something of a soundtrack over the years. 

Oh You Pretty Thing – David Bowie. Tune, pure and simple. 

Word of the week: 

Anapsid – like a turtle. As in, how I felt towards the end of my final race of a long season.

Foenem – a slang term meaning friends and family. Submitted by Angus.

Crytoscopophilia – the urge to look through people’s windows as you pass houses. Very easily done whilst running.

Photo of the week:

A terrific gallery-worth of photos, credit of some harey friends. We have Michael’s avine critter and its ancillary birds-eye view; a wild Timbo (soon to be commodified to dubious ethical validity; keep an eye out on the stash front); a drippy looking welfare officer; Toby’s trendy tortoise; and a chunk of Scotland from me. Now get these in the Fitz.

(Submissions welcome)

As Octavius Caesar (very nearly) said, ‘farewell, my sisters and brothers, fare thee well. The elements be kind to thee, and make Thy spirits all of comfort: fare thee well’. 

Please do get in touch if you’d like a chat. 

So, it’s the final fare well from your wel fare friends, and with Harey love, we will;

BEa and Angus SEEING YOU.