...frostbite!?

Time left until the big day: 2 months, 28 days, 13 hours and 59 minutes
State of mind: …showing signs of frostbite!

Life of a runner in the UK is not exactly easy, is it? If it is not pissing down with rain, there are wind gust of over 150 miles/hour (always against, never ever for!) or like today an inch of snow with temperatures that would not be odd in an Antarctic climate. A quick search online shows that a typical Antarctic climate is characterized by being extremely cold, dry, windy, and with scarce precipitations. In fact, summer does not exist. I don’t know about you, but that in certain ways sounds like the weather here in the UK, especially the sentence “summer does not exist!”.

Sometimes I do feel it is all because I started to enjoy the idea of running and if that is indeed the case, I apologise to you all for turning the weather conditions in the UK to such a state of misery.

On top of that, I am seriously having problems keeping up with a 5 times a week schedule and it is not just the weather conditions that keep me from running either. I still talk about it as a 5 times a week schedule, but I do entertain the thought of reducing it to a more feasible 4 times a week in my mind. If only because that will then be slightly closer to the 3 times a week I actually manage to run.

I wrote earlier about feeling I had joined a swimming club. On tonight's run, however, I felt I had incidentally joined the local Haslemere ice-skating club. Not only was it dark and gloomy, the road was positively icy and slippery and I would have probably set a Personal Best if only I had worn my ice skates.

On a positive note, I have entered a Half-Marathon Race at the end of February, the 25th to be exact! All part of the “official” preparation for the big day in April. It will be the Eastbourne Half marathon, nice on the coast here in the UK. Parts of the race are on the boulevard close to the beach, which sounds exotic, but I am sure, and it is just experience talking, that it probably will either rain really badly or even worse attracts even more severe weather conditions, solely because I am doing it. In that case, advance apologies to all other participants...

Have a great week!

Take care
AZ

Happy (belated) New Year all!

Time left until the big day: 3 months, 13 days, 21 hours and 36 minutes
State of mind: Positively beaming!

I really hope you all had a good festive time off work and feel invigorated to start the New Year… If your holiday was anything like mine you probably need another week to recover. Mine involved various activities, of which running was the least prioritised.

As written before I volunteered for Crisis and worked 5 consecutive night shifts at one of their centres in Central London. Crisis sets up centres throughout London during the holidays to provide a meal, a bed and companionship to the homeless. The words I would use to describe that experience include… rewarding, challenging, gratifying, a real eye-opener, but also extremely tiring and rather smelly, but overall it has been one of my best Christmases yet…

With regards to the smelly bit, it probably had something to do with giving 115 people sprouts for dinner to then be given night shift duty as a fire warden in the dormitory part of the building. We, my fellow night shifters and I, quickly developed a theory relating to breaking wind in groups. We discovered that there is a certain synchronicity developing overtime when people sleep in one large area (i.e. dormitory). This synchronicity can only be compared to the human “wave” you can see during large matches in football stadiums, albeit this wave being rather aromatic and more to the point, invisible. You, in fact, will only notice this wave once it has reached you full on. By that time it was too late to do anything, except for hearing your fellow fire wardens laugh, and you would be secure in the knowledge it would reach them too eventually. It was easy to see once it had reached any one of us, your facial expression would distort inaudibly from having a I-am-really-tired to one of wide-awake-panicky-horror look in a matter of split seconds.

Following my “night shift “ week, it took me another week to get back to normal. I still feel I have flown to Australia and back 20 times in less than 20 days and that is not helped by the fact by power shower is still broken. It certainly does not live up to its name anymore and should be called dribble shower instead. Only an elaborate rain dance ritual underneath said shower will ensure you get hit by some of the sporadic drops leaving it dismally …

I have run though, and quite pleased to write I have trained 4 days in the last 7. I am building up to longer and longer distances and even managed a fast paced 7-mile run this Saturday, in the rain! So all good and I have to admit, my confidence in doing the marathon within target time is rising (for now)…

Speak soon,
AZ