No-no-no-no-no . . . Yesvember

[Sweder]

It's World Diabetes Day today.
Following the passing of the UN resolution on diabetes last year a host of major world cities will join hands to highlight the plight of people suffering from all types of diabetes and the urgent need to curtail the alarming growth of this dangerous condition.

The Empire State Building, one of New York's most famous landmarks, was the first building to join the World Diabetes Day campaign and agree to light up in blue. Since then the campaign has been joined by some of the world's most famous landmarks, including the Sydney Opera House, the London Eye, Leaning Tower of Pisa, Tokyo Tower, Niagara Falls, the Burj Al Arab in Dubai, the Aleppo Citadel in Syria, the Obelisk in Buenos Aires, the Sears Tower in Chicago, Christ the Redeemer in Brazil, and the building currently considered the world's tallest: the Taipei 101 Tower in Taiwan. More here.



I know about this because I'm heavily involved in the diabetes community, but unless I told you would you know about it? Would you know, for example, that the symbol for diabetes is a blue circle, that the London Eye will be lit up tonight (and has been all this week) as a giant blue circle in recognition of the day?

Trouble is just about every day these days is a 'something' day. Halloween, All Saints Day, Rock Aganist Racism, Breast Cancer Awareness, Children In Need, Ride Your Bike to School Day, Sanctuary for One Legged Lesbian Nuns . . . it's an endless tide of special days, and they all flow into one another until the edges blur and the meaning fades.

Excuse my doleful whinge - I've just endured one of those slow, painful plods that we all know so well. It wasn't ever going to be a good one, so I duly hunched my shoulders and scraped myself across the downs, wrapped in several layers against the cold in a vain effort to sweat off an extra kilo or two of accumulated sloth. How swiflty the lard gathers at this time of year; every pint seems to add an inch, every burger another roll of fat. At least I've knocked that smoking nonsense in the head. Beer's next I suppose.

My decision over TOM looms large and cloudy as ever. I visited Sam 'Yoda' Lambourne at the Jog Shop yesterday, taking in a good-sized carier full of old running shoes (Mrs S is still dancing in delight) for their 'old trainer amnesty', a sort of recycle running shoes for Africa deal. Sam was, as ever, generous with his advice, assuring me I shouldn't worry about a lack of hard top mileage, that off-road was better training and to focus on extending my long runs past the two-and-a-half hour threshold.

'That's when the body switches over, when you stop feeding off your reserves and start needing to feed off what you put in your mouth.' We talked gel strategies, the importance of getting the stomach working early in a race so that come the time for the body to find extra energy the food organ is up and running. It was a good chat, one that had me convinced of my chances to improve. Then I went out this morning and drowned that optimism in an ocean of sweat.

Whatever my decision there's a lot of work to be done.

On a happier note the Brighton 10K happens this weekend. Antonio arrives, and I'm hoping that he along with Andy, Niguel, Moyleman, SP (?) and a few others will be up for some beer and pasta at Alfrescos after the race. It's here I plan to fish for opinion and pearls of wisdom from my fellow Rcers, more pluses and minuses to add to the pot before I give it a big old stir next week and pull out the answer.