athlete: no athlete
permissions: null
time: 6/30/2025, 4:26:36 AM — token valid? false, expired: 1/1/1970, 12:00:00 AM
Hi there, and welcome to Jog-Log!
Running is a beautiful thing but so often we turn it into a mere accumulation of miles. A thoughtless barage of heartless stats. What good is knowing your heart rate if your heart has turned unresponsive to reflections of the world around you?
The aim of this website is to encourage you to mine the rich bounty of poetic stimulation that running can offer.
Strava stands tall as the monolithic figurehead for run recording, and this website aims to capture things that Strava doesn't. But we understand that it's still a useful record of your runs. And that the subtler, impression-based side of running doesn't negate the data collecting side. So you can either link your Strava account to here and add some of your impressions to those recorded runs, or you can simply create an account on here and record each run unattached.
We were inspired to make this website when looking back through Srava history and seeing all these runs that were only half-remembered. Strava shows the route but it doesn't show the memory of what it was like to be out there on that run. We wanted a way to record the impressions and feelings we experienced and store them as a recording that was less stark and cold. So we could not only look back on it, but also stimulate a more intentional relationship with the run in that moment. Instead of just thinking about miles – thinking about what's happening around us on each of those miles. Because if we're thinking about what we'll write about the run afterwards – then naturally it will encourage us to look out for those things.
Also, you can look back through umpteen training runs and they all look like the same route - but can contain unique and wildly different experiences that mere GPX points do not capture.
Here is a selection of recent run impressions:
 | a December run it was cold
and i didn't want to run
and i didn't want to smile
and when four boys in a hatchback
beeped me for being in the road
and i turned round and shouted at them
with my arms flapping in anger
i couldn't help but smile
in laughter at myself
| 09-12-22 | |
| long nights i run past a witch of the modern night,
who holds a phone close to her face,
her connection to the ether,
erupting in a cackle, as a
winding breath of steam crawls from the
building above her,
and snakes into the sky.
and to the moon,
who is out in full force,
with it's underlings the icy stars,
and low-hanging clouds that lurk,
reflected in the speckled ground,
sparkling with crystals,
rapt in the path of two red eyes
lit up behind a fog blanketed street,
as bright as tail-lights turned toward me,
slowly approaching,
snarling,
and breathing hot exhaust fumes. | 07-12-22 |  |
| moon bird in the early evening
it was the sky
caught between a halycon orange
and a vespering blue
and the birds singing
a town of joyous villagers
awoken to the false news
of the suns bountiful harvest
that made me think
i could strip off my clothes
and bathe in the glow
of the full moon
until my own breath
in curdled crisps upon my beard
made me realise
the warmth was in my motion
and not the stillness of the moon
that gives no warmth
a recalcitrant king of shopfront neon
cold, and un-nourishing
so ignorant of my wonder
so callous to my reverence
and still...
i'm a sucker for the glow | 06-12-22 | |
| misty law a hundred birds take flight
afront the rock strewn hillside
spatters of white blend
as if the hill is coming alive
and breaking free of itself | 04-12-22 | |
| hilltop heralds 3 heralds on a hilltop
under a soft orange light
that glows through the misted clouds
i can almost see their arms aloft
like i can almost see the soul of the grass
glittering in cold dew and promising
there is always more to them than what i see | 02-12-22 | |
| be glad the the trees pay no mind for when you chance upon them
and they do not see you
you are intruders in a world of stillness
read plainly in their black branches
a power and a potency
that moving mortals
could never match | 01-12-22 | |
| libations there is a pearl at the heart of road running,
upon which i focus,
and with my legs enact a ceaseless whittle.
with each pace i am closer to the pure form,
until it– and only it remains,
my body and my mind cast aside. | 23-11-22 | |
| striations the light sits scattered through the trees,
sliced to pieces by my strafing vision.
it hangs floating in the mist over the wier,
distracted–
set loose from it's intention.
like each smile sent out into the world,
was born of a decision, for which i am grateful,
as it doesn't always know where it will land.
and will surely lie waiting,
if it finds no one to receive it straight away. | 22-11-22 | |
| roman rodeo how long has this path cut through these trees?
superhighway of the soul,
expressway of the earth.
did romans really march here?
where now are people walking dogs,
and me running as fast as i can,
trying to summon something older
and something deeper than myself.
i meet a dog who looks as old as that,
leakage matts the fur beneath his eyes,
that look as if they're barely holding in there,
as he lumbers at me, slow as timber,
a living tree with in it's mind to smell me. | 21-11-22 | |
| ridge sails my body lightens,
floating down the ridgeline,
my mind takes leave of me,
light on the wind,
spores aloft above the valley,
of my inner landscape,
settle where it will,
take root on the lung,
breathe the light,
and catch the air. | 18-11-22 | |
| guppy the sun sets to work unveiling the world,
stripping the wist to reveal a giant apple,
gentle folds down the valley, lead to the stalk.
soft fur with a dew coat,
my feet sweep it clean,
pick up the dew, i am becoming the apple.
pick up the smaller apples and put them to my mouth,
– i become the apple.
the church is closed to me,
the apple tree will have to do. | 17-11-22 | |
| church hunter god sleeps in the ruins of st. giles church,
where my skin is a filth of mud and sweat,
yet the stone recognises the pureness underneath.
'god is love' etched above the door at st. gabriels,
a love so quiet – but still audible,
whispering underneath the roar and rumble of the A road outside.
st. candida heals my eyes by simply looking on her shrine,
i no longer see past the flaws,
of the world – i see no flaws. | 16-11-22 | |
| theatre of the sky the ocean claws back at the land,
beckoned on by the sky above it,
a wild seriousness in it's mind.
soon the sun will win out as it always does,
and return us to the eternal summering of the world,
where each blade of grass will seize upon a glint of sunlight,
and feast on it's refelected peace,
and all that graveness threatened,
is just light-hearted play. | 15-11-22 | |
| interrupting some bird of prey feasting on a pheasant's corpse i scare birds i don't know the names of –
and they take off – scaring leaves
from trees they don't know the names of.
black wings sworl and orange darts flutter –
free to match the thoughts loosed from my head –
an emptiness that knows the silent name of nothing.
| 14-11-22 | |
| fog-ghost sheep appear like sentient fog spawn,
a fog so heavy the trees are dripping with it.
drops falling on my skin let me know i'm here,
and not drifting into the thick folds like all else around me. | 13-11-22 | |
| autumn classic
running with my hands full of apples,
i know my muscles are made of chiltern clay
when i take my shoes off and enter the village church,
and feel my bare feet on the carpeted aisle,
it reminds me of the delicate orange floor
of the sprawling orange chapel
that makes sure i know it as alive as i run through it's corridors,
it's little creatures take to the skies and up the tree trunks,
and when i look out across it's roof when i reach the high points,
and see a hundred tiles in all manner of auburn,
i know autumn is burning with it's dry and biding heat that waits for us all. | 11-11-22 | |
| you know what's good to the lady
sitting on her porch
with a can of tennant's,
i didn't tell you
but i will always remember,
the way you looked so perfect
in your happiness
sitting with a can
at ease with the evening light
and every stranger who went past,
maybe you read in my smile
how much i appreciated that. | 04-07-22 | |
| 3.2mi, Pollock Park I wish my gaze as Pure as the Birds'
Alighting on a rusted cow pen
as if it were a Tree. | 01-05-22 | |
| 4.9mi, Glasgow drops of rain imbue the air
with a sense of continuity –
like my skin never ends.
it begins as the trees do –
with the shining green of spring. | 30-04-22 | |
| 6.3mi, Beaconsfield the sky was away from the earth,
where the ground was green and verdant,
screaming with brightness,
tufts of grass waving out to me in the wind –
the sky swamped with light and cloud,
swirls of dark light peeling itself backward
away from everything.
my body felt light as the earth,
but sympathetic to the heavy, pervasive energy of the sky. | 19-04-22 |