I cycled to work this morning and very nice it was too. Sunny, but not too hot, with a lovely breeze and not too crowded. I must have been on something of an exercise high, because I decided early on in the day that I would be running again this evening.

My daily toil over with, I cycled home again, on the seafront cycle path. Which was strewn with pedestrians (see earlier post about their attitude to cyclists on the pedestrian bit). But, you see, that's not all. I've written about this elsewhere before, but it really...I won't say annoys...but, it gets to me, you know?

We are not talking about the Cannes or Nice crowd here. We are talking about people who gave their children monosyllabic names in the hopes of being able to write them down on benefit forms. People who would (try to) write to their local paper or politician to demand compensation if one of their loinfruits stepped in something left behind by a dog owner. People who honestly expect us to believe they earned the right to the special forces tattoo alongside the name of three-girlfriends-ago they haven't had removed yet.

Out comes the sun, though, and off come the tops and we're treated to the gratifying sight of their nipples dragging along the ground alongside (and sometimes not even in between) their knuckles. Luring seagulls into landing on their unfeasibly large foreheads before inhaling them whole, bottoms and all. Obviously, I go too far, but you know what I mean. I have always maintained that the right to go topless should be by invitation only. For maximum fun, it should also be illegal to refuse to take your top off when invited to do so. I would gladly manage and administer the system. But these people. No. Just no.

Consequently, the beach was out for this evening's excursion and I again slogged the hills around home. I set out to see if I could improve on last time's 5.56km in 30 mins. And I did. I managed 5.69km. Baby steps, but improvement nonetheless. And, you know what? I actually think it's my arms that are making quite a bit of the difference this time. Last time I pretty much just swung them in order not to fall over. This time, it feels like I'm actually driving from the shoulder. Time will tell.

A gorgeous evening, by the way. Beautiful light, a perfect breeze straight from the South. Get the humidity down a bit and it will be perfect running weather!