My mum died this morning at 10:40. The decision not to go to Almeria was the right one. I’d set my sails, and was ready go. Then late yesterday afternoon, having just made arrangements with Sweder to pick me up in Crawley on his way to Gatwick, I went to see my mother. She’s been unwell since Christmas. Last weekend, M and I drove to North Yorkshire to help celebrate the 50th birthday of M’s old friend, Sally.… READ MORE.... …
Month: January 2009
Life is frantic these days. It’s like being pursued by a gorgon, with each mini head yelling at me to get something done. It’s all happening. What is? Too much, you’ll be relieved to hear, to list and to pick over right now. I have a thousand things to do, including, now, at 11 p.m. on a Friday night, the need to pack for a party weekend in Yorkshire and a complicated business day in Nottingham on Monday.… READ MORE.... …
Success: my first experiment with treadmill intervals yesterday evening. At least I’m presuming it was a success. I did what I set out to do, namely run 6 x 2 minutes fastish, interleaved with 6 x 2 minutes slowish, on a treadmill set to an incline of +1. This followed 30 minutes of bug-eyed biking and elliptical cross-training to get the blood bubbling nicely through my arteries.… READ MORE.... …
After 3 weeks of clinging to the Boston ledge by my fingertips, I may just have clambered back to safety. An enforced lay-off can be a good thing. It’s one of nature’s slick self-protection mechanisms. When your instincts may be to overload, you end up compelled to take some rest and recovery. Sounds good, but during a marathon training plan, you can very quickly have too much of a good thing.… READ MORE.... …
Within hours of gloomily tucking up the previous entry in bed, and retiring, head bowed, I feel obliged to rush back up this glittering celebrity staircase to announce these better tidings. It’s a small gain, but at the moment, any gain is something to be snatched and shown off. It was nothing more than 3.5 miles around the block at lunchtime, but for the first time since Boxing Day, I managed it without feeling any calf twinges of note.… READ MORE.... …
Perhaps I imagined that by not writing about my troubles, they would somehow go away. They haven’t, and I’m still very fed up. To pick up the story from last time, I did indeed set off on my “stately 3 or 4 miler” the following day, but got no further than 100 metres before the calf went again. Not as sharply as it had the previous week, but I couldn’t run on it.… READ MORE.... …