Thurs 4 Dec 2003

And so, seventeen days after the Brighton 10K, I manage to get out for another run.

Excuses? None that stand scrutiny. It's true that I had a change of routine when I took a two-week break from work, but this was a great chance to crank up my running, not abandon it. And yes, I was then out of the country for a week, but what a missed opportunity for mental refreshment with some new running experiences. I saw dozens, if not hundreds, of runners in Spain. I could have joined them on the river path through Bilbao, or on the spectacular coastline near San Sebastian, or through the medieval streets of Vitoria. Did I? No.

Sometimes you just run out of steam. You quite unexpectedly step off some invisible edge; disappear down some unnoticed open manhole. Often it takes a while to notice that it's happened at all, then a bit longer to accept that you're stuck there: at the bottom of some hole, peering up through the darkness at your old life, wishing you were back there. Eventually the negative wishing becomes the positive planning, and the climbing starts once again. Slowly at first, then much quicker than you'd feared.

If I sound pretty confident about this process, it's because I've been through it many times. It happens to almost all runners. (Perhaps the wild-eyed obsessives are immune, but I'd rather be anchored to the base of that pit than be one of them.) It's been discussed just this week again on the forum, and will doubtless reappear, both here and any other place where runners congregate.

For me, there's only one proven antidote for demotivation, and that's to find another goal. If it's tempting enough, the fantasy turns into a plan before long, and the plan soon takes over. This summer I decided to try growing a vine in the front garden. A few straggly shoots appeared after a while but nothing more. Then we hammered a few nails into the wall and before long it was hauling itself up towards the roof. I've identified my own target -- a marathon at the end of April -- and the races and the long runs I do between now and then are the nails I have to reach for and use to pull myself upwards. Much of the pleasure in the journey comes from these staging posts, and these are the places my daydreams have been taking me this week.

My marathon training 'officially' begins in less than three weeks time. Christmas week. Between now and then, I have to lose a few more pounds, and I need to get stronger and feel fitter. Then eighteen long and difficult and exasperating weeks, just to humiliate myself in front of the gawping masses. Risking serious injury, cutting myself off, depriving myself of life's normal pleasures. Is it really worth it?

Yep, it's really worth it.

Fri 5 Dec 2003

It might have been a bit cheeky to have a rest day today, but I had a rest day today.

Sun 7 Dec 2003

7.377 miles (how did I manage before having a speed and distance monitor?) this morning. Compared with my usual, this is a long run. Felt pretty good too. It was one of those cold-but-sunny mornings that beckons the runner from his bed. I trotted down along the canal for about three miles, then came round the block along the main road towards home. If I'd gone straight home it would have been about 4.5 miles, but I felt able to spread my wings a bit, and tack on most of my early morning run (but in reverse). It felt great to have been out for that distance, and although I was knackered by the end of it, I expected to feel worse.

Perhaps losing a few pounds has helped here. Spain was a triumph, hedonistically, but a bit of a disaster, calorifically speaking. But I seem to have taken up where I left off, and this week has seen about 5 pounds disappear. I'm convinced this makes a difference to the comfort of a run. According to the website I've been using, this morning's run bought me over 900 extra calories today. Heartening to know.

This evening I've finished writing up my notes from our trip to northern Spain. There's not much about running there, but if you're interested, you'll find the stuff here.

This week coming is an important one. Two weeks from now is the start of my marathon training. One week from now starts the week of the Christmas parties, however, so I need to ensure that I get a good one in beforehand.

Tues 9 Dec 2003

No sleep last night. I worked from home, and was still trying to solve a deeply fascinating problem at midnight, when I went to bed. The trouble was, I couldn't push the thoughts from my head, and six hours of fruitless rumination later, I got up and went running instead.

It was an odd experience. I kept sort of 'waking up', even though I was running along the road. In the end I got fed up with this, and decided to leave my spirit in a cosy ditch beneath a warm-looking hedge while the physical bit went off for a run. The Bone and Blubber Department was having such a good time on its own that it very nearly forgot to collect my consciousness on the way back. This would have been profoundly inconvenient once I'd got to work.

I actually tried to add a bit of fartlek to this morning's run. It's funny how we can keep getting the same advice without thinking that it's really meant for us. Tax returns, smoke alarms, little bits of carpet underneath our cauliflower plants, tyre pressure, positive thinking, testicular cancer, mortgage insurance, backing up your data, half an onion in the fridge. (Or should that be half a lemon?) For the two years I've been running, everything I've read and heard involves the mantra about varying training. Tempo run - intervals - hills - long & slow - cross training.... It's only just occurred to me that maybe they're talking to me. Me! And so, this morning I fartleked my way round the normal early-morning round-the-block 3.5 miles. And it felt good (afterwards), and made the run more interesting.

I just wish I'd been there to enjoy it.

Mon 15 Dec 2003

Managed only a couple of runs last week, despite working from home for most of it. Tuesday and Wednesday I ran, then I had a couple of under-the-weather days, before a weekend of gastronomic hedonism. I'm still trotting out the same old weedy justification: next week I start my marathon training, so why not make the most of it while I can? Loyal readers will know that I've been making the same excuse for sloth and gluttony for more than two years now. Does anyone care? I hope not. Because if I don't, why should anyone else?

I'm looking forward to the training coming up. It's just the sort of heavy duty goal I need to haul me through the winter. Without it, I know it would be a constant struggle. With something to aim for, running through the bad weather becomes meaningful and rewarding. It's ready-made motivation at the time we need it most.

I hope to get a couple of runs in before the weekend - starting tomorrow morning. Parties on Thursday and Friday seem likely to derail any healthy activity for a few days after that. And then, next Tuesday, the real excitement begins, with the start of another 18 week journey to the marathon.

Hurrah!!!

Tues 16 Dec 2003

Fourteen hours since my early morning run, but it's still tingling the parts that other beers cannot reach.

When I got into work this morning, I found everyone talking about how cold it is. "It was even colder at 5:45, when I went for a run", I remarked casually. Extended silence. Someone coughed nervously.

Then:" Running? You went running? This morning? What did you wear? A fur-lined tracksuit?"

"Just a teeshirt, some shorts, and a very large smile", I said.

One of the funniest, and one of the best, and yes, one of the most frustrating, things about discovering running is that so few people believe you when you tell them how great it makes you feel. Everyone can relate to running for a bus; people understand about feeling knackered from a day's shopping, or a morning's housework. And they extrapolate. They think: well it's bad enough rushing off to the corner shop before it closes, or sprinting 200 yards to the bus-stop; and let's see now... running five miles is about 37 times the distance, so running five miles must be 37 times worse than running for my bus. Hmm. No thanks.

They're right that sprinting in your work shoes is a nasty experience. But they're wrong to think that proper running (or my version of it) is anything like it. And more critically, they don't understand that it gets better. It gets better after the first mile or so, and it gets better after the first few months.

Have you ever gone to the cinema or theatre, and wanted to walk out after five minutes because you knew that you weren't going to enjoy it? But stayed because you'd paid your money, or were too embarrassed to leave... only to find that eventually you got sucked into the film or the play, and ended up loving it? We all have.

Running, I try to tell people, is just like that. The beginning of a run, or of a period of running, is always rotten. But if you stick with it, the cold just vanishes. The rain begins to bounce off your beaming face. The sound of the frost crunching rhythmically beneath your feet... soon stops sounding like a hazard, and becomes a source of comfort instead.

I've said before that running is a kind of medicine, a feel-good pill, where the horrible side-effects come first, and the pleasure later. The palpitations, the sweating, the breathlessness, the pains in the lower limbs, the social embarrassment, the paranoia, the depression... followed shortly afterwards by day-long elation. Winter just adds a bit to each side of that line. Yes, there's another side-effect to contend with: short-term shivering. But there's also a sense of freedom that you never quite get on a warm day. Far from being mad to run semi-naked round the streets in the winter, we are the clever ones: reaching for, and usually finding, something quite uniquely liberating and inspiring. And like everything that's worth having, yes, I suppose there is some kind of sacrifice to make. But chilly knees? Not a bad bargain if it makes us feel like this. Best of all is that you don't even have to be any good at it to get the prize.

Yes! Roll on tomorrow morning. And let's hope it snows overnight, and the wind starts to whip up a bit...

Wed 17 Dec 2003

Another frosty, hostile morning to enjoy. As I left the house at 6am to run, I noticed the water-butt was a block of solid ice. First time this winter.

One minor positive about the freezing weather is that the small local hotel now keeps its dining room window shut, so I'm no longer tortured with the smell of bacon and sausages and black pudding and mushrooms sauteed in butter and toast and fresh coffee. In truth it's only the bacon I ever smell; the imagination creates the rest. Along with a newspaper or two, the perfect breakfast.

Talking of which, I found a copy of the Daily Telegraph on the train the other morning, and came across yet another article grumbling about the use of the word "community", as in the black, or the gay, or the Jewish community. It's become quite a popular whinge this season. I don't mind these vacuous rants; it keeps the grumpy old man community busy, and I prefer to have them somewhere I can keep an eye on them.

Me? I think it's a pretty useful word. I like to think there's a community of runners. 'People who go running' just doesn't amount to the same thing at all, even though it's what the running community comprises. And it really is a community, known for its supportiveness. That said, there are distinct types. Competitive runners, feel-good runners, once-in-a-lifetime-charity runners, slimming runners, social runners, hardcore body-beautiful runners, aesthetic runners, and more. Some people belong to several of these groups at the same time. Sometimes we start in one and move to another. We run in different ways, for different reasons. Sometimes these reasons change. Your reason for running is no better or worse than my reason for running.

These seem like rudimentary truths to me, yet still I read and hear a surprising amount of intolerant silliness from people who should know better. The London marathon seems to inspire a disproportionate amount of bile and petulance within this fraternity, and particularly at this time of year, when aspiring entrants discover their fate in the ballot. London is a great celebration of anti-elitism and of the inclusiveness of running. It brings together Paula Radcliffe with the humblest of new runners and those running to raise money for a cause. Those five hours of live TV annually inspire millions.

If you're in, well done: you'll have a great day. If you're not in, bad luck, but there are plenty of other great marathons to do. Above all, a bit of magnanimity is in order. Running is supposed to be good for the heart, but sometimes you wouldn't think so.

Sat 20 Dec 2003

Managed 4½ very wet and windy miles this morning. It looked worse than it really was. Blustery rain isn't ideal, but it was surprisingly mild. Very nearly warm.

The funniest thing about days like today is noticing people's reactions. I sauntered past a bus stop where two old ladies were clinging to each other while their macs and their Co-op carrier bags almost lifted them off the ground. All our lives we accept that weather conditions like this are to be fought against. We dress up against the rain and wind; we create barriers and insulation and invent sophisticated weapons like brollies to fight back. When you start running, for a while you carry on the same way, wearing rain jackets and hats and leggings. Then one day the truth dawns: it really doesn't matter. But it takes time to discover all this, and of course the old ladies at the bus stop never get to hear about it, so you become an object of wonder and derision and sympathy and suspicion.

It wasn't the best run I've done but the miracle was that it happened at all. The Christmas party on Thursday evening was late and suitably excessive. Yesterday I felt like I'd died and gone to hell. Today I feel much better, but still a bit tired. So the run was sluggish and creaky but it was important that I got out there to remind myself what it's really all about.

Sun 21 Dec 2003

We've been this way before. Next week is the start of a new round of marathon training.

Hang on. Next week? Or this week? It depends whether you're a runner or a normal person. A runner's week begins on a Monday, not the usual Sunday. Let's pretend to be normal for a minute. This week. Training begins this week.

Readers who keep abreast of current affairs will know that this is also Christmas week, which produces something of a conflict of interest. The recent trip to Spain netted two or three estupendo bottles of Rioja, and there's a bottle or two of decent Champagne blowing kisses and winking at me every time I open the fridge to find another lettuce leaf. It'll be tough.

I'm going to have another go at the Hal Higdon Intermediate schedule. This was my weapon of choice when I began the abortive programme for the Dublin marathon, back in June. Only three weeks into that schedule I managed to pull a calf muscle that kept me out for four weeks. I never regained the initiative, and had to surrender my autumn goals. (If you're interested, you can read about the start of that brief campaign here.)

The start of a training programme is always a good time to shine the torch of good intentions into the past, remind yourself what you did wrong last time, and decide how you'll do things differently this time around.

That catastrophic pulled muscle is the obvious place to start. Why did it happen? I'd started back to running only three weeks earlier, after a six week layoff. It was too much too soon. This time round I've been running pretty steadily for the last couple of months which I hope will give me some of the necessary base training. But I need to be careful, and avoid the temptation to skimp on stretching.

The Intermediate schedule starts off pretty gently, but soon heads into the hills for some savage punishment. Sorry to thrust this on you, because I know how dull other people's training detail can be, but this is how it looks:

Week No.	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat	Sun
18	rest	3	5	3	rest	5	8
17	rest	3	5	3	rest	3	9
16	rest	3	5	3	rest	5	6
15	rest	3	6	3	rest	6	11
14	rest	3	6	3	rest	6	12
13	rest	3	5	3	rest	6	9
12	rest	4	7	4	rest	7	14
11	rest	4	7	4	rest	7	15
10	rest	4	5	4	rest	7	11
9	rest	4	8	4	rest	8	17
8	rest	5	8	5	rest	8	18
7	rest	5	5	5	rest	8	13
6	rest	5	8	5	rest	5	20
5	rest	5	5	5	rest	8	12
4	rest	5	8	5	rest	5	20
3	rest	5	6	5	rest	4	12
2	rest	4	5	4	rest	3	8
1	rest	3	4	rest	rest	2	race

(For full details see Hal Higdon's website)

It's those double weekend runs that look... interesting. One longish weekend run is the staple diet of the casual runner, not two. The other thing I'm accustomed to is a few beers after my fortnightly pilgrimage to Queens Park Rangers. This is going to get difficult. The trouble is, I go to the game with other people, and it seems inhumane to make them feel guilty about indulging in this ancient tradition. I may have to get some counselling on this one, not to mention legal advice.

Like all schedules, this one is designed to be bent and twisted (he said, reluctantly passing up the opportunity to make a very cheap joke...). I have a few races booked or planned, like the Bramley 20 on 29 Feb, and the Bath Half on 14 March. These, and other races, have to be squashed in somewhere and adjustments made.

So what marathon am I planning to do? And what is my target?

I don't have firm answers to these questions yet. Or perhaps I do, but am just a bit too shy to say. What I can say is that my plan is to do a marathon on the last weekend of April, and the races available include Stratford and Lochaber in the UK, and Madrid (Spain), Padua (Italy), Leipzig (Germany), Lyon (France) and Wroclaw (Poland). I'm not ready to return to the USA for a race, but if I wanted to there are some well-known events taking place that weekend: the Country Music marathon in Nashville, Big Sur in California (Yosemite, I think), Cleveland, the New Jersey Shore marathon, and Oklahoma City.

It seems likely that I'll do one of the European ones. That's all I know.

Target? Well, anyone reading this website for the first time needs to be fully aware that I'm a crap runner. If I can power my way to a 5 hour marathon, I'll be delighted. My first one (London 2002) took me 5 hours 51 minutes; the second (Chicago 2002) saw me swoop down to 5:15. So under five hours seems like a reasonable target for a fat old degenerate like me. But again, I need to see how my training progresses, and will arrive at a target in good time.

The dreadful aspect to all this is that I could get another injury tomorrow, and be out of [my version of] action for weeks. You never quite know what will happen in this business. And I suppose it's that element of risk and uncertainty that provides half the excitement.

Mon 22 Dec 2003

Day 1 of 126. The best day in the entire Hal Higdon training programme. Why? Because it's a rest day. Yep, you heard right. Today I have to take it easy to recover from all that heavy deliberation; that long, slow, strength-sapping contemplation of yesterday. Which at least gives me the time to do a bit more of it.

125 days and 591 miles lie ahead. It says here. Gulp. Can that be right? That averages out at 4.69 miles a day. 4.69 miles a day? So this rest day, far from being a breeze, is just putting me 4.69 miles in deficit before I've even begun?

If the truth be told, it seems unlikely that I'll manage to do the schedule as it's written. The two weekend runs seem like a tough prospect once the distances lengthen, and I may find I gravitate back towards the Novice schedule which has just one long weekender. Essentially it's a guide, and an indication of the rate of increase. How literally I interpret it is up to me.

Which sounds like a rather miserable get-out clause to me...

The main excitement of the day was gadgetry: getting hold of a Garmin Forerunner. This is the new GPS-driven distance monitor. I've had the Timex SDM for a year now, and have found it damn useful, but the Garmin has a couple of features that make it a better buy for me. The main benefit is that there's no separate transceiver worn on the arm; the GPS antenna is integral to the wrist unit itself. Also, it has a built-in rechargeable battery, and it automatically records your splits rather than you having to do it manually. Plus a feature that I think I'll benefit from and have some fun with: a "virtual partner". You set a time or distance or pace goal for an imaginary running partner, and then race against this invisible person. A graphic shows you how you're doing. Crazy how a bunch of flashing pixels can become some kind of electronic bully, but I have a terrible feeling that this is how I'll come to see him. Him? Oh god, it's a person already. The self-oppression begins, and I've yet to pull on my trainers.

Tues 23 Dec 2003

More than 1% of the way through this marathon campaign already. Must be time for a run, and for the first outing with this new Garmin Forerunner GPS gadget. When I did the London marathon two years ago, I remember approaching that first day with dread and anxiety. Today was different. It must sound pitiful to more rational ears than mine, but I woke this morning feeling excited and happy. Not quite like a kid on Christmas morning, which is the simile within easiest temporal reach, but I was unusually reluctant to loiter in bed once the alarm clock reached 5:40.

I left the house with the GPS, realising with some bewilderment that I didn't know how to start the thing. I could turn on the unit, but how to start the timer? Would it just spark into life once I started to run? Evidently not. This wasn't a morning to stand around doing nothing. It wasn't quite freezing, and it wasn't quite pouring with rain, but for someone who'd been unconscious and cocooned only seven minutes earlier, the world seemed aggressively black and cold, and the drizzle was robust enough to produce a fan of chilly rivulets down my back within seconds. In the end I just poked all the buttons repeatedly till the law of averages delivered the goods, and we were off.

This run felt good. Why? Same answer as why sometimes a run doesn't feel so good. Namely that I've no bloody idea.

Some guesses might include: the loss of a few pounds recently, which has made me feel stronger and fitter. I'm still 210 pounds, or 15 stone, but if you've recently been 220 pounds, you feel the difference. But I suspect most of the extra energy and adrenaline just came from the excitement of starting to unwrap this new marathon package. I've got a rough idea of the shape and the weight, but I can't be certain what's actually in there yet till I get well into the schedule.

The temptation to discuss pace and split times is normally a resistible option; it's not a topic that holds me in thrall, so it must be inconceivably dull to everyone else. And if it isn't, you should seek urgent help, even if anyone who voluntarily goes to a psychiatrist really does need their head examining.

But just a brief mention of a long-term suspicion: if I could permanently screw my average pace down to below 10 minutes a mile, I'd be as happy as a pig in Dover, or whatever that expression is. And I'm not too far off it. This will still sound mighty slow to some, but it should be remembered that on that tear-stained evening, two years ago now, when I first plodded for 3 miles without stopping, my pace (if that's the right word) was something over 14 minutes a mile.

The new toy is splendid. I didn't customise the monitor quite right, thus missing out on the sight of my digital alter ego beating the virtual challenger into a cocked hat. It was also pitch black, which meant a lot of hopeful, exploratory fumbling, sporadic illumination and extended confusion as the barely-conscious eye tried to assimilate a ton of foreign data. The Timex is a good gadget, but this one definitely nudges ahead. Let's throw technology into a ditch for a moment: the important stuff went to plan. I hate a run without any animals, but eventually, in the flash of a puddle I see an unseasonal rabbit dash across the lane, and later, turning into the park, hear the fabulous panic of the invisible deer fleeing through the invisible leaves.

Hello World.

Wed 24 Dec 2003

The pessimist would say that becoming ill just after starting marathon training is a terrible portent, while the optimist dismisses such negativity, pointing out that if you're going to go down with something, then the first week, and particularly if it's Christmas week, is a great time for it to happen, as it's the furthest point from the race, and anyway, Christmas week is always going to be a bit hit-and-miss for training.

I'm an optimist, so I'm relaxed about the sore throat, the cough and the miraculous appearance of a pillow inside my head.

Anyway, after seeing Lord of the Rings III this afternoon, I'm counting my blessings. No longer will I complain about having an uneventful life. Crikey. After this cinematic expedition to Mordor, I'll never again complain about the hassle of driving to Basingstoke on a Saturday afternoon.

I read Lord of the Rings in the weeks leading up to my O'Levels, which probably explains my results. It's one of those books you used to assume was unfilmable, but that was before computers. The film(s) veer dangerously towards sentimentality, but the cinematography is just exceptional. The battle scenes in particular, are mind-blowing. If you still do LSD, I wouldn't bother taking a tab before seeing this. It would be kind of superfluous.

With luck, and sufficiently aggressive antibodies, I might just feel able to get out in the morning for a festive plod.

Sat 27 Dec 2003

The Grim Reaper must have had a few sherries this morning. His sickle kept clattering against the window, waking me every hour or so. I woke for the last time at one in the afternoon, my longest lie-in for years.

I'm ill. Still. Too ill to run. Nothing serious, just a bad cough and a wheezey chest and a blocked nose.

Illness fascinates me as it so rarely affects me. I can't exactly claim to enjoy it, but anything that distorts reality, changes perceptions and challenges assumptions has something going for it, as long as it's temporary. "That which does not kill me, makes me stronger". Good old Nietzsche. I've long believed in the wisdom of that saying. Similar to: "Pain is the feeling of weakness leaving your body".

Running has to come into this category somewhere. It's the only decent drug I've had in 20 years. Certainly better than alcohol and tobacco. Sometimes I wonder if my previous, quite guiltless dabbling in recreational drugs, has made me more receptive to the running 'hit'. It's not why I do it, but it's a great side-effect.

Am I rambling? I can't tell at the moment. What I do know is that my first week of marathon training has been a write-off. I have a choice here. I can collapse in a flood of tears, or I can laugh, and spit in the eye of fate. I'm opting for the latter. Maybe I can get out tomorrow.

In the meantime, there's more time available to get to work on some tasks I have lined up, and in particular a writing project that's been simmering for some time now. It's come and gone, but after some encouraging correspondence on the forum a while back, I think it's time to revive the idea. One of the reasons for starting this website was to get me back into writing, which it has helped to do, but for a while now the website has become an end in itself. There's something I've been wanting to write since I started running, and it's only recently that I've begun to see a way of doing it. I'm afraid I can't say too much more about it at the moment, but I am grateful to all the people who've made encouraging comments, privately or publicly. It may work and it may not, but I'll give it a go.

Sun 28 Dec 2003

And so, my first week of marathon training comes to an end. One 3.5 mile run on the board, followed by 5 days of illness. I wonder if coughing can be counted as cross-training? It can get pretty vigorous when I put my mind to it.

I'm convinced that each week of running must uncover some great truth or lesson, if only we can find it. This week's big blob of wisdom is pretty unmissable though. It's this: that a plan is a thing of great beauty. It can take hours, days, weeks, years, to germinate and develop and adjust. We can spend every spare moment polishing it until we can see our great, fat, smug faces grinning back at us. But it isn't enough. Without the adhesive of luck, well, it's just a hill o'beans. So, always have a plan, but expect it not to work out.

And before I get back to the tissues and the whisky, let's send an RIP to Bob Monkhouse: They laughed when I said I wanted to be a stand-up comedian... Well, they're not laughing now...

Mon 29 Dec 2003

This is probably my last ever entry.

I've spent most of the day in bed, computing famous last words to croak as M dabs my throbbing temples. I expect Death sometime later this evening (after Coronation Street, I hope), but unless M updates this website, you will never know what rib-rattling witticism passed my lips as I drifted away towards that great compost heap in the sky.

Farewell, my friends.

U RRRRRRsssss!!!

Tues 30 Dec 2003

For a hardened atheist like me, it was quite a shock to open my eyes this morning and think, "Crikey, there really is an afterlife". And to discover that Hell had been modelled on our back bedroom. Always was a bit untidy, but not that bad, I thought.

Eventually, the terrible truth revealed itself: I was still of this earth. I remembered I'd quarantined myself in the servants' quarters while I still have this cold. The main consolation was not to have suffered the eternal torment of expiring before the end of the football season. Since Nick Hornby first mentioned the terror of dying without knowing who won the FA Cup, in Fever Pitch, it's become the principal worry in my life.

To celebrate my resurrection, I even managed a sort of run today. It began as a run anyway, though it did end up as a walk, after a violent paroxysm of coughing and spluttering a half mile or so into it. Should I have gone out? Probably not, but it cheered me up, and at least I still managed to get a brisk 3+ mile walk onto the scoreboard. Some people will say I shouldn't count it, but I'm counting it, OK...? Good.

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