easing off now

following my realatively high mileage week last week i have had to ease back this week due to a small injury problem that was caused on a royal mail bike. the bikes have keys on the locks which are physically attatched to the bikes. unfortunately one of those keys decided to start digging in to me on monday. but rather than stop to sort the problem out like i now realise that i should of done i just thought bollocks i'll sort it out when i get back to the office. this meant that i cycled with my foot twisted on the pedal and i have now pulled a muscle in my foot. did a steady 10 today but it was noticable that i hadn't run so far for a couple of days as my legs felt quite stiff and had that general feeling that you get when you've not done as much as you've been used to being doing. still if there was a time for it to happen it is most definitely now as i had a few easy weeks planned with the intention of hitting a second peak for may the 23rd next year in edinburgh. i know so many people who have made the mistake of peaking too early for a marathon and not fulfilling their potential. i also know some one else who did too little and ran a time of just over 6 hours!

probably wont hear much from me over the next couple of weeks as we are obviously entering an exceptionally busy period at work with christmas coming up and i have volunteered to work my days off on over time right up until christmas on over time, as i need the money for a new car a new racing bike and a holiday next year after the marathon (i want to go some where very very quiet and enjoy some of the summer!). i also have plans to go to more concerts for katherine jenkins and i'm going to see hayley westenra (for those that don'tknow thats the girl who was singing the new zealand national anthem before the match against the all blacks at twickenham yesterday) at bristol cathedral on saturday the 19th december, my one treat before xmas after which the hard work will really start!

counting down the hours

its sunday morning here in old portishead, the rain is pouring down and i feel about as useful as a non catholic nun in a brothel. still i'm back at work tomorrow ready in anticipatin of the annual christmas rush and i can't wait for it to get some over time done (thats just inevitable at this time of year) and to get some semblence of routine in to my life. its amazing how having one week off can recharge your batteries and get you away from the drudgery of nine til five or in my case six til two. by the time i've had my run today i will have done approximately 66 miles this week plus a 43 mile bike ride to priddy and back, which is right at the top of the mendips, which i really enjoyed in the cold and wet, thos mendip hills as martin greenwood correctly pointed out have a real reputation in the cycling fraternity, because some of them are steep, and it is a bleak desolate landscape up there, nothing for miles and miles apart from maybe four or five houses and zero shops or pubs. oh and the mendip race way that me and my brother used to frequent when we were much younger, for banger racing.

so the route i took for the ride was portishead-clevedon then along the b3133 to langford, then up the b3134 up rwoberry hill to priddy, before turning right towards cheddar down the famous cheddar gorge really strong headwind, then back to langford over shipham hill before going back the way i came.

thursday i did a quality session of a hilly 4 x 1.1 miles when i was averaging about 6:30 per rep around eastwood in portishead one of my favourite running places because its just so quiet and peaceful and you have the sound of the waves crashing on to the beach which adds to the atmosphere

a first for me

for once in my life i, in preparation for the big event next year (the marathon) i am learning to plan things in advance. it will be an 18 week programme based on the marathon preparation programmes that are usually published in the running magazines for the january editions. i will be having a couple of easy weeks in the new year to ensure that i don't peak too early for the big day and end up blowing a gasket half way through the race or some thing. i think we all know some one who's done that but that was due to being under trained (severely). i wont embarass the person concerned by mentioning the name scott roberts, but his hamstring has allegedly been playing up ever since that day

for my long runs to try and relieve some of the tedium that some times comes with them i will be trying to do a different course for every single one of them, i've got various courses around places like kingston seymour, yatton and a few other local places planned. as far as the dietings concerned my weight is down to 83kgs at the minute, prompting the usual questions that athletes often get asked by people who know nothing about sport like 'are you anorexic?' or 'are you eating properly?' please don't ask those because it does my head in frankly but thanks for your concern.

not bothering with a long run tomorrow, will do a 10k time trial around portishead. had originally planned the swindon 10k and had offered to meet up with martin greenwood for the race, but its just as well as my cars packed in so the logistics would be rather difficult. the old mountain bike is ok for local trips and the odd jaunt out of old portishead but swindon is just a bit too far. saving every penny at the minute with xmas just around the corner needing a new car and i also want a new racing bike as i want to do some cycling after the marathon next year to save the wear and tear on my body and also because i think i might do well with it. i've been cycling too and from work, and that huge steep hill that i live at the top of is quite a test even for some one like me who is relatively fit

the royal victoria park 4 miles

i have just done this famous local race around the royal victoria park in bath near the world famous royal crescent, a 5 lap course around the park that is quite hilly and undulating. parts of it are reasonably steep to run up and no part of the course is flat, your always either on a up hill or a down hill. i spent most of the morning trying to find the registration tent warming up and trying desperately hard to go to the toilet so i didnt get caught short in the race. so thats three things i tried to do and i only succeeded in two of them. by the end of the second lap i was, shall we say close to "using the bushes" or "doing a paula", but hold on i did manage to do just about, but add about 400 yards to the race distance at the end for a quick go in the toilet. cue a time of 24:46 at the end which was quicker than i expected given the nature of the course but it was exactly 100 seconds outside my best from nigh on 2 years ago at clevedon on boxing day. i still feel though that come the may bank holiday next year i will be running a sub 3 hour marathon in edinburgh.

the situation at work has calmed down somewhat although we're a long long way from resolving the dispute, they now have a frame work for talks on the changes that we all agree are necessary to make royal mail a modern efficient and successful business, but both the local and national strike ballots are still in place but it is now agreed that all industrial action is now suspended until january. the union were caught between a rock and a hard place really because this could actuallly prolong the dispute more than is necessary if they don't come to some sort of agreement, but the impact to other people notably those whose businesses rely on the royal mail at this time of year for xmas presents etc would have been huge. the cost to my self may be greater in the long run, but i can afford to lose a days pay here and there, but preferably not over christmas, but the cost to customers could have sent them in to irreversible decline, so on balance probably the right decision. i've had a copy of the interim agreement emailed to me and really it's only a frame work for talks but at least brendan barber and the tuc have given them a frame work with which they can move forward in unison, but it will be interesting to see whether pigson, crony and mandy actually stick to their side of the agreements fully for once and not just when it suits them. the next two months will be both challenging and interesting for royal mail and the communications workers union

i'm having an easy week

my body has been sending me the signals for some time, that i need to cut down on the number of miles that i'm running, i've been feeling dehydrated, which is usually a symptom of over training, but more worrying than that my left knee has been giving me trouble to the extent that it has been moving about in the knee socket while i've been running. the worst case scenario for this was when i was out on a 13 miler on sunday, the knee actually moved about an inch, which was quite scary, but i managed to run through it. i will be consulting a physio about this problem. apart from that since then i've just been doing some very easy paced 4 or 5 milers just to keep me ticking over. nothing exciting really but i just felt the need to come on here

pete

an apology

first things first i have heard about johns mate sarah who has been experiencing problems with the postal system recently due to the recent industrial action that has been taking place in bristol london peterborough leeds and scotland and will be going national next week. i heard that some thing she sent in the post got delayed in the back log and was consequently late. i can only apologise unreservedly for any inconvenience it caused her or to any of you who have experienced problems with royal mail recently. i'm sure you don't want me going on though too much about our reasons for going out on strike (staff being bullied by managers, longer working days, later hours in return for less pay, job cuts) and a refusal by managers to compromise or negotiate meaningfully on any thing has left us with very little alternative. NO POSTMAN/WOMAN OR UNION OFFICIAL WANTS TO BE IN THE POSITION OF GOING OUT ON STRIKE AS WE LOSE A LOT OF MONEY

enough of that though recently i have been runnig a lot of miles including a 16 mile long run on last saturday and a 10 k tempo run tonight which i completed in 38:59, my best time for that distance since my come back began. conditions tonight were near perfect with a slight cooling drizzle, and next to no breeze. for those of you that know portishead the course was this. start by the toilets at the lake ground, down esplanade road up lake road, rodmoor road, down beach road west and back to where i started. i repeated this 3 times followed by 3 shorter circuits of esplanade road and the full length of lake road, before i finally did a final length of esplanade, before finishing by the open air pool. i made a relatively conservative start for about 10 minutes before i really got in to my stride and attacked the run. there have been times when i've been running when i can really feel the testosterone flowing, like floyd landis must have done on THAT tour stage a few years ago, when no matter how hard you push yourself, no matter how hard your breathing, you just don't feel yourself tiring and thats what i felt like tonight. contrast that with last night when i went on a steady 9 miler around clapton in gordano and my legs were so heavy due to the unusually heavy mileage i've been doing, that i really felt like i was struggling to lift them for the whole run.

aerobically i feel fitter now than i've been for a long long time, backed up by the fact that i pb'd at the burnham half marathon. unfortunately anaerobically i can't say the same thing though. it is pretty much the story of my running career though, that its my struggle with any form of training that involves heavy lactate production, that i've really struggled with and with me soon going to be the wrong side of thirty its hard to see it changing ever now. part of that is due to the fact that i came to running competitively relatively late in life and part is due to my physical make up ie lack of fast twitch muscle fibres and the marathon is unlikely to help it but i feel confident i can get my self in to some thing close to pb shape by the time i start my 18 week plan for the marathon. we'll see.

**NEW HALF MARATHON PB AT BURNHAM ON SEA**

The title gives it away really. having done the burnham prom 5k series on thursday evening in an awful, pathetic 19:15 (iknow it was windy but my split time at the clevedon 10k was quicker than that though for gods sake) mike richards, my sisters ex boyfriends step dad offered to pace me round after i found out that you could enter on the day. so i made the same journey down to burnham on sunday morning. the first couple of miles were very easy as you would expect running only 6:45's. half marathon for me usually means a sub 6 minute first mile and agony for the rest of the race. this was the first time in my running career that i have managed to run the same pace for a whole race of any distance apart from mile 10-11 where we went over a railway bridge and lost about 4 seconds. i started to feel the accumulation of fatigue albeit gradually from about mile 3 onwards and miles 8-10 were the bad patch that every one goes through in long distance races but i still hit the same pace. mentally the final mile gave me that second wind and i pushed hard until the line and even managed a sprint over the last 2-300 yards and i staggered over the line in 1 hour 28 minutes and 36 seconds, which made up for the disappointment of thursday night. after the warm down and a sunday lunch i wasn't in the mood to do much else apart from lie down on my bed taking some well earned recovery time. its been easy runs since then and the same tonight although i may try and do a speed session later on this week depending on how quickly my legs recover from the beating that long distance running gives them.

nothing much to report at work apart from fridays strike almost turned in to a disaster for the union because they called it at short notice (how is it they managed to inform the company last week and only tell us on the tuesday) and we had an informal union meeting at work where we finished the meeting more confused than when we started it as we talked about a work to rule instead but when i said i didn't think my conscience would allow me to cross a picket line it seemed to turn more people in favour of striking and we ended up letting peoples consciences decide what they should do. the next strike for delivery is on october the 12th and this one i think will be national if its a yes vote-results this week and it probably will be. although they're talking at the minute i can see this dispute lasting for a few months yet

sorry for the delay in posting

i apologise to people for the delay in posting since the last post. i have been very busy with things like training, reading writing and enough other things to distract me. as a matter of fact we've been on strike today at portishead delivery office. although the ballot result is due to be announced next week it is important to keep the pressure up on royal mail as the fact is that the two sides are now talking as a result of the industrial action but without the pressure from the union the talks will collapse without agreement. after getting up at 5 am to go and stand on a picket line for a couple of hours the few hardy souls that bothered to come down we went for a breakfast at a cafe.

striking is always a controversial subject and we posties have been given little public sympathy over our industrial action. here though is one story about about what happened to one of my work colleagues in a previous job down at portbury docks. the firm he was working for forced the union out of the work place. the managers then made so many cuts in hours that it left the work force unable to meet the targets laid down for them because the work load was so high. as a consequnce of this business went else where and within 3 years the firm went bus. unions are there to make work places more democratic and also to stop firms from shooting themselves in the foot like the current crop of royal mail managers are trying desperately hard to do as their plans for the business will only drive more business to the competition in the long run. we have lost no business as a result of the strikes it is all due to incompetent management, but the fact is we were losing contracts even before the first round of strikes two years ago. the union have never tried to stop modernisation of the business but the fact is that modernisation cannot come at the expense of peoples working conditions which is what royal mail is REALLY trying to force through. they (royal mail) say that it is the union trying to act like luddites but the machinery that the union is supposedly trying to block the use of is already in place and being used! so all in all the facts of this dispute are being wildly inaccurately presented by royal mail in a desperated bid to get people on their side and the tragedy of it is that many people are gullible enough to believe what they say and nothing that the union says saying with some justification that the unions have political agendas etc etc. the morale of postmen and women is lower now then it has ever been. scott roberts and many others have criticised us for going on strike saying things like 'don't they realise there's a recession on?'. recessions should not be an excuse for giving big firms the green light to do what they want because financial problems work both ways. ie these problems should be solved democratically and not just by rich people like cronzier and mark higson making more cuts and dumping all their shit on poorly paid workers who're already struggling financially before this recession even began, henceforth not by diktat. we've also been told many times that we should be count ourselves lucky that we have a job. well firstly there are many postmen and women who would gladly give up working for royal mail and swap it for redundancy. secondly there is a threat of redundancies in the very near future, although royal mail has gone to great pains to assure its staff thatno one has ever been made compulsorily redundant in this business, but they have made no assurances about the near future that convince me there will not be compulsory redundancies (a very cleverly worded statement) and the union has repeatedly tried to get them to make these assurances but they keep onn giving us the same crap about the past. in short my argument is that trade unions are about every member of the working classes standing together against the criminal behaviour of some of the people who try to run (or ruin) our lives and don't do a particularly good job of any thing apart from enriching themselves

just have a read of this

the following is a link to an article written in the bristol evening post about the recent postal strikes, by one of the cities most high profile businessmen peter hargreaves of financial services firm hargreaves lansdown.

http://www.thisisbristol.co.uk/homepage/Bristol-businessman-Blame-management-postal-chaos/article-1330765-detail/article.html

i wont ruin your pleasure by divulging details of the article but you can probably get the jist of it by the title. again i would be interested to hear some feed back from some of you who read this blog, as i never expected union style criticisms like that coming from a captain of industry.

on a more lighter note i managed to procure a late place in this years bristol half marathon and succeeded in running 1hr37 minutes. due to the fact that the person whose place i was taking is to be honest not in my league as an athlete, i was forced to start in the second wave half an hour behind the first wave. by the time i reached the first mile point in a ridiculously fast 6 minutes 16 seconds (and it felt really easy) i was well and truly in no mans land and that was the way of things until about two or three miles when i started to catch back markers from the first wave. for the next four or five miles this wasn't a problem but as i had to dodge and weave through people it became more of a problem. that and it was hot and humid and i was dehyrating even though i was taking water on board and energy gels. progressively i started to work harder until i hit the notorious queens square cobbles. ouch. 7 minute miles quickly became 10 or 11 minute miles as i was reduced to a pathetic jog, even though i was still catching people in their thousands from the first wave. finally dehydrated exhausted on the verge of fainting i crossed the line wondering what i have put myself in for doing edinburgh. ten bottles of lucozade and half an hour in the medical tent later i finally felt fit enough to get a massage done and go home, via the pub with a few friends from portishead running club, before i retired home to lunch followed by a dark room before i felt fit enough to show my face with familly visiting. felt ok the next day did a steady 8 miler followed by one of mike downs speed sessions on bristol downs the next day. i'm probably doing stroud at the end of next month so im doing a 16 miler tonight so its time for me to sign off again for the while

happy reading

pete

edinburgh 2010 here i come

its official i have just entered the edinburgh marathon. i have declared my target time as sub 3 hours. i, unlike some one we all know, am not deluding my self about the scale of the challenge that is in front of me. any marathon, even for the very best athletes in the world, is a huge challlenge. in order to fulfill this there are several things i need to do like lose some weight a few kilos which doesn't sound like a great deal but i'm not blessed with the quickest metabolism in the world but there are products onthe market that help to facilitate fat burning and weight loss that i intend to have a close look at. the one that was recommended for fat burning was a product called L-Carnitine. there are other legal products that help to put more oxygen in your blood that my gym instructor recommended to me, but i can't remember what it was called off the top of my head. if any one can knows of any other products that may be useful then please feel free to recommend it to me via the comments section of this blog

pete

welcome to winter everyone!

or at least it feels that way, its been my day off from work today, and so far i have spent most of the afternoon sat in front of the telly as it has been absolutely throwing it down, apart from this morning i have managed to get my mountain bike that my brother donated to me a little bit closser to being up and running (watch out alberto contador wait until i have a road racer). been feeling a bit run down recently as i have been doing a high quantity of training, like the 10k time trial i did on saturday evening up and down the length of portishead esplanade, 25 x 400 meters. it was mentally tough as i never felt as though i was going any where. 41:28 was my time so i'm still some way off my best which is a rather depressing thought but i always said i would take some time to get back to my best and it going to be a long hard road back to recovery. i've acquired someone elses place in the bristol half marathon this weekend butthat will probably just be treated as a long run.

the situation at work is not helping me either with more strikes this week (portisheads out on friday). although this has been nothing like as bitter as the last dispute two years ago when there were regular rows between scabs and strikers and my grievance against kelly my manager has caused tension between us with her not speaking to me, accusing me of lying behind my back (shes a fine one to talk about that as i now know that she's lied to me about several things to try and justify her lack of respect for me, sexism and unprofessionalism) on my grievance form and generally being a two faced devious little bitch. just wait until my hearing i will tear her to pieces, not physically i hasten to add, but i am determined that i am going to win this hearing

on for a record mileage week

since last monday i have now done 47 miles. that is far and away the biggest week since my come back to the sport. taken on a average that should put me on for around about 70 miles this week. tonights run with my mate paul consisted of running about 11 miles all down rural tracks and roads, for those that know the area, i started at sheepway ran down the dirt track towards portbury village, but when i got to caswell lane instead of going left towards portbury, i turned right towards clapton in gordano, straight through clapton and to the bottom of the road just before clevedon. about turn repeat the same, only on the way back, nortons wood lane and clevedon lane were run hard, covering that 4.2 mile section in 27 mins 30 secs. still a way off the olympic qualification times that i dream of but i'm used to losing now so what difference does it make at this stage in my career? paul finished about 5 minutes behind me i was really in the mood to absolutely crucify my self today as a few things have gone wrong today oversights that i have made and i'm just really annoyed with my self for being me and just being generally a crap person.

getting the miles in...

i'm off work this fortnight and i have decided to use the oppertunity to try and get some miles in. 30 so far this week up til last night broken down as follows. 16.4 on monday night 6.25 on tues and 8.2 last night. all done in the name of building up the miles before i go in to maraathon specific training early next year. it is a challenge that i am very much looking forward to, but at the same time i'm not sure as to whether or not its the right move career wise for a number of reasons. firstly the injury risk is significantly higher due to the number of miles that you have to run. secondly i don't really have the physique of a runner let alone a marathon runner as i am about 30 or 40 kilos too big even when i'm at my leanest. unfortunately though even a sporting perfectionist who is highly competitive like my self can't find a solution to a problem like that short of lopping off an arm or some thing. there must be one but i don't know it so for now i'll have to use that pathetic tiresome excuse about how my genetics aren't good enough. i have often, especially recently thought that i may be a better cyclist than a runner with the long legs etc and the fact that cyclists can generally get away with being heavier than distance runners can.

as well as the miles i'm planning on doing the speed work quite soon to bring my 10k time down to some thing more respectable like about 37 or 36 minutes and marathon training will certainly help with that but you do have to prioritise and if it came down to the choice between doing a long run of 22-24 miles and running a 10k pb the miles have to come first in marathon training although it is still important to get the speed work in when preparing for the big 26.2 miles, which will probably be in edinburgh on the late may bank holiday in 2010. i am keep ing my options open over what race i do but that looks like the most likely option.

do all royal mail managers have their brains amputated?

i just can't understand royal mail some times they really seem to like shooting themselves in the foot. to the extent that i have now put in a grievance against my manager. why? well here's the story...



last friday i was asked to cover a delivery over in wrington, about 15 miles from portishead. if you get asked to do this nowadays you have to do it as part of the flexibility agreement that came in two years ago. ordinarily i would have no problem with doing this as long as i am transported to and from the relevant office within my contracted hours. after being transported out to wrington i phoned my manager at portishead to ask for a lift, i was told that there were no vans available. fine not an unusual occurence, i'll wait. and so it waited for an hour and a haf before i phoned back. and when i did i was told to my absolute astonishment that i would have to make my own way home. so i had to get a taxi which had to come from clevedon to pick me up. there's no taxis in wrington so it was lucky i knew the number of one of my bros mates whos a taxi driver. cue a phonecall to the bristol cwu hq, my manager has now had a severe bollocking off her manager and had to pay me £20 for overtime out of her own pocket, and is now not speaking to me apart from to call me someone who goes 'snivelling to the union' every time something goes wrong. and gave me a whole list of excuses, that i now know to be lies. like her car was in for mot. three people saw it in the car park. or nigel osmond the driver designated to pick me up was delayed on collection. he told me himself that this wasn't true that he had told her at 8am that he would struggle to complete his workload with giving me lifts. so she said to leave the lifts and she would sort some thing. only she didn't and she left a small problem to fester and it became a huge problem. the excuse that she gave me was that he was delayed on collection, which i now know to be a lie...so after a huge bollocking from her boss, you would have thought that would have been enough. but no...mike newport, the area union rep put out a press release about the incident, an interview was broadcast on local radio, which also commented on the current dispute between the bristol area bosses and the union. so basically my manager has spoon fed propoganda and her boss has given her a right bollocking and the union has caused her and the royal mail severe embarassment. needless to say now i will be supporting saturdays strike and with the proposals they have about 'improving the service' like making our job 10 til 6 for a start a six day week, so there goes our social life for a start and in return we get, you guessed it, absolutely sweet fuck all apart from we been told to save another 10% of hours from the office next year. some people are saying 'oh just get another job', but where? i know people who're 'working ' at the car import centre at portbury docks and not working for whole shifts because there's nothing to do.

but things have been given a sense of perspective this weekend with ewan kelli and isaac staying down with me and it has been hard work even with three of us keeping an eye on him. we have got off quite lightly with just a ripped table cloth and a few attempted cup smashings and playing a game that was a combination of british bulldog and hide and seek. it involved isaac hiding behind the curtains and when we found him he would run at us and try and fight his way past us all good fun and it gives you a sense of whats really important in life...

music to my ears

The latest edition of peak performance magazine dropped through my door the other day (or should i say i nicked it out of the prepping frame at work before my postman ben had tied it up) and i was intrigued to read an article about selection of music for different training sessions depending on what the aim of the session is. now i don't run with an ipod or an mp3 player because i don't know how to use them as i am a complete technophobe, and running on fast rural roads where you can't always see whats around the corner they can compromise your safety by disturbing your concentration. i do though often think about what songs i would like to be listening to on a run. for instance if i'm on a long run like i was today then i may have something rythymic like i'm on fire by bruce springsteen-that just the song that i've got on at the minute-or hayley westenra (for any fans of easy listening music i really recommend this young bird as being a new zealander she's not that well known in this country yet but she has a great voice). i would never choose some thing with a fast tempo for a longer jaunt because although that might help you in the later stages of the run, it also increases the likelyhood of going to fast in the earlier stages of the run, meaning severe pain later on in the session. for a faster paced session like a tempo run or even a run some thing with a really fast tempo. basically the essence of the article was that firstly listening to music does slightly improve performance, but you have to get the pace of the music to match the effort levels that you will be putting in to get the best results from listening to music.

13 miler today like i said, so i think that totals 53 miles this week, with a tempo run on thursday, this is the strongest i have felt for some time. i'm doing the towpath 10k on friday for portishead so that will give me a good indication of where i am with my training and more importantly how far i have progressed since clevedon about 5 weeks ago. i'm not doing any out and out speed work at the minute and in a way i feel like i'm reaping the benefits because i'm not beating my body about so much and am able to save my best for when it really counts

the rules of nature

rule #1 if you don't go before you go out running you will get caught short before your run finishes.

rule 2# if you don't make sure you're balanced properly you will fall over

rule #3 if you do fall over and there is a bramble bush nearby you will fall face first in to it.

so you can probably work out from that what happened to me tonight. the net result is that my upper body is currently covered in cuts and scratches. what made it worse was that the bramble bush i fell in to was below foot level, making it doubly difficult to get out of without shredding my skin. no real harm done though.

on a more positive note my long sunday run is now up to 13.5 miles. i said to my old coach mike a couple of weeks ago that this coming winter i aim to run more miles than ever to really build up for a proper assault on the longer distances. for a half marathon the long run ideally needs to be a minimum of 15-17 miles, maybe even up to 20 as long as it isn't compromising too much on your speedand i aim to be doing a lot of that this winter and so far, although it isn't winter yet i am holding true to that promise.

the situation at work is now deteriorating fast. unfortunately and to my eternal embarrassment portishead delivery office is the weakest and always has been historically in terms of support for industrial action. during the last dispute the office had about 20 scabs out of a staff of about 50 people. compare and contrast this with other local offices. clevedon 5 miles away had a staff of about 60. 1 person broke the strike. avonmouth a staff of about 40, 3 scabs, 2 of which have now left the business. one of them developed a mystery illness after he had flicked a double 'v' sign as he walked across the picket line. not a wise idea.

the vote will be close though. this is not officially a national dispute like last time although it may well become one. i voted for strike action and i hope that the majority would have the sense to vote for it but there are far too many people in our office who a) can't see the long term and b) are too selfish to see past the end of their own noses. in spite of the scabs though there are some real hardcore srikers in our office though like my self, i would have too fmuch pride to ever contemplate crossing a picket line, so the vote could be close. what has annoyed me though is two non strikers from the last dispute, saying that the union has never helped them. well one of them has had nearly half his round taken off him in the past year because its too big and the other after an accident at work is suing royal mail for negligence with the help of, ahem, the cwu...make your own minds up

i am very pissed off at my work

over their failure to book annual leave for my trip to brighton next week. and because one of the days i applied for, well i say applied, they actually told me i had it has now been announced by the union as a strike date on the proviso that we get a "yes" vote, which i hope we will. the date in question is the friday and because of the backlog from the friday that puts the saturday in question as well. so sorry for messing you around like this john and rosie but it was gonna happen to me at some point. its funny how people (but not me that time) had similar problems about the time of the last strikes two years ago.

enough of work though, on the running front i managed my longest run of the year last sunday, 13 miles from portishead to clevedon, along the coastal path, around the old town and back through walton in gordano, and up the old coast road. its funy how running along a path can slow you down so much. i covered the distance in 1 hr 45 mins approximately and by the time i got back home i was in quite a mess with the amounts of fluids that i'd lost.

since then i've just done some steady running apart from 4 very easy miles this evening. about 6-8 miles every night, steady but unspectacular. its funny how these things work out though. walking around my duty this morning i felt fantastic, but when i woke up from my afternoon kip i was groggy as and i never really managed to get it out of my system. better it happens now though then on a race day. i have one mre day of work this week though so i'm going to retire to bed to read "shirley" by charlotte bronte, for a bit and then it'll be lights out until tomorrow.

night night everyone

pete

an eventful day

well saturday did prove to be an eventful day with the cotswold relay and a concert at gatcome park in the evening. i found the pub where i was supposed to be sarting relatively easily and that was about the easiest thing about the race. i spent most of it not knowing where i was or where i was going about 2/3rds of it up hill. the oppressive combination of extreme heat and the terrain meant that by the end of the third hill i and many others were reduced to wlking parts of the climbs in order to get up there in one piece. after approximately an hour of running we were in formed by the attendant at the water station 'its all down hill from here mate'. imagine my joy at hearing this. and imagine my horror when i found out it wasn't. due to national trust concerns the last mile or so of my leg deviates from the official cotswold way and goes along a towpath instead. now i had an image in my head of being able to enjoy the last mile or so some thing that many people get which often proves to be a false dawn. instead with the temperatures rising it proved to be a slogand by the time i reached the finish line near ebley mill i was just about ready to die. thoroughly dehydrated, the last 30 seconds or so of the race are just a blur, and it was a good half an hour before i was ready to move again. the muscles could have taken more but the lack of fluids in me just wouldn't have allowed it.

so then it was off for lunch in sainsburys car park where i quickly woolfed down some pasta and whatever else i could get my hands on. i managed to get find an open air swimming pool in stroud and it worked wonders for my legs in the cold water, helping them to recover far quicker than they usually would of. with so many kids messing about though it was only a matter of time before i lost my patience so i did the minimum amount of time i could get away with before i made myself scarce.

and then it was on to gatcome park where i was due to watch mezza soprano katherine jenkins in action and that was an amazing experience. to give you city dwellers an idea of how big a place gatcome park actually is it's 720 acres. i walked about half a mile from where i parked my car and the house where princess anne lives was no where near bing in sight. she has a reputation for being very down to earth and she thoroughly lived up to that reputation by the way she engaged the audience during the performance. the support act all angels lived up to their emerging reputation and they will one day be as big a star as she is. even getting lost on the way back (old country roadsigns don't show up in the dark) and the hour wait to get out of the car park all contributed to making the day worthwhile.

hello again

following my abject display last week at clevedon i have been selected for another race-the cotswold way relay. although it is not technically a fell race as there are no fells involved it is organised by the fell running association. the race is about 130 miles in total split over 10 legs. there are no markers and you have to find your own way. my leg is about 12 miles with 500 odd meters of climbing and about 300 of descent. although the cotswolds isn't a serious race it is a new challenge for me and i shall look forward to reporting back on how i get on. i reckon i'm now getting up to about 40 or 50 mpw so which even when i was fit would never of been enough so i'll probably just treat it as a long hard training run

another painful lesson at clevedon

well i ran at clevedon tonight and it proved to be another painful lesson in how not to judge the pace of a race. here are the split times 1k 3:32 (projected 5k time 1740, 10k 35:20). 5k split 19:17 (projected 10k time 38:34). final time 41:17. lets just say that the last 2 or 3k i was absolutely hanging. the heat made it a real slog over the last couple of miles but i'm not going to make bad excuses for a race in which i showed appalling pace judgement and appalingly poor levels of fitness. the only positive i can take from tonight is this. i have learnt a lesson namely that i am a piss poor runner and if i ever want to make a mark on life i will have to find some thing else that i am good at or i will forever be consigned to the dustbin of pisspoor mediocrity. some people think that cycling might be the answer but i just don't know. what ever i have no plans to stop running at any point in the near future because lets face it my life would be unrecognisable if i ever won any thing and i just wouldn't know how to cope. at least failure is some thing i'm used to. i'm running a leg of the cotswold way relay on saturday week, sorry doing, not running, that is far to strong a word and it may give some of you the misleading impression that i'm some how an above average runner which is most certainly not the case. i'll sign off now before i start dragging the rest of you down to my level.

pete

collateral damage

i've had to ease back on the training for the past couple of days. i've strained the collateral tendon in my knee and it hurts if i run too much on it, hence the title. i think there may be some damage to the patella tendon as well. for those of you that don't know the collateral tendon is the one on the in side of of the knee while the patella tendon is the one that runs accross the knee cap. whilst i can manage a steady 4 or 5 miles on it any thing hard is just out of the question but hopefully i can be fit for the clevedon midsummer 10k on tuesday night. i have absolutely no idea how fit i am but i would like to think i could break 40 minutes. pretty pathetic really but i have no right to expect any thing good if i haven't done any proper speed endurance work for 6 months apart from the odd tempo run. i was planning on doing a 13 miler tonight but the dual effects of dehydration and the race on tuesday night and the minor niggle i'm carrying at the minute meant that common sense prevailed at least until next week when i will start to build up the miles in preparation for marathon training. let you all know how it goes

there must be something i'm better at then running

i tried rowing the other day and i have deicded to ditch it completely. i just didn't feel that it suited my mentality working as part of a team and i didn't feel comfortable with a lot of elements of it like being on the water for example. i nearly got pulled in to the water on several occasions because my blade got stuck under the water or because i just had no rythym. so bollocks to it i'll just have to stick to running for the time being or in other words stick to being shit at all sports. there must be some thing i am better at than running. i mean i am allegedly some one who has an above average level of fitness but my running abilities are approximately equivalent to that of a parapleigic with no legs. with that in mind how can any logical rational person say i am even up to the standard of a piss poor runner?

i'm going to enter a marthon next year haven't decided which one yet. the aim is to try and do it in less than 3 hours but i'll probably fail in that as i fail in every thing else in my life, so it wouldn't be any thing new in my life. not sure how wise that is as my knee has been giving me some trouble recently, but the fact is that i need a new challenge in my running career. edinburgh or taunton or loch ness are the most likely options. i have even flirted with the idea of doing the ilses of scily marthon or the isle of wight one although i gather that is quite hilly. the isles of scily one is 26 laps of a one mile course so that might be a bit boring. the other option open to me is stratford on avon. thats on the same day as london and its about as much as i know about it. i think the real problem with me at the minute is i need a fresh challenge in life. running 5k's and 10k's whilst they do undoubtedly have their benefits, they have lost some of their appeal although i may be doing one tomorrow week at clevedon. i have only a very vague idea how fit i am at the minute. i did a seven mile tempo run the other day which i completed in 47:54. over quite a hilly course. that was within 30 seconds of my pb so i must be doing some thing right but its still not good enough for the standards that i should be hitting. there may well also be a few halfs over the course of the winter to see if i can improve my pb but that wouldn't be the main objective. the big 26.2 miles will be the main challenge!

i have some very difficult decisions to make

these are regarding work. the first one is regarding potential industrial action over pay and privatisation. royal mail have just announced the biggest profits in their recent history in spite of apparently falling mail volumes (don't believe what you read in the press i haven't seen any evidence of it). on first issue, whilst it would look bad when the rest of the country is getting wage decreases or freezes, which is what we have been offered, and i can certainly understand why that would look bad, postal workers earn well below the national average wage and if the profits have doubled, then i think it is fair that some of the money is filtered down to those who make royal mail or indeed any company what it is. also someone may go in to work during an industrial dispute doesn't make the same sacrifices that the strikers do but still gets the same reward and my conscience would also find that difficult to deal with. on the issue of privatisation, hypothetical scenario is that we may force the government out next year, but then we will end up with the lib dems or the tories who both want to privatise fully which could mean having to go through the same thing all over again. according to mike newport our area cwu rep though, tnt and cvc the potential buyers have seen the hostility from both the public, the union and the royal mail employees and are apparently now not so keen on the idea now.

the other issue going on in my mind at the minute is forthcoming european elections and specifiacally with regard to the british national party. as is the normal situation with royal mail we have been told two completely different version of the rules, one by the union who say we don't have to do this because of the 'conscience agreement' and royal mail who says we do because of freedom of speech under the representation of the people act. my personal opinion of the bnp is that they're the biggest hypocrites and hatemongers in politics and are just the modern day version of the national front or oswald moseleys blackshirts under a different name. this after all a political party that a) claims not to be racist but has it written in to its constitution that members must believe in segregation of all races b) has a leader that confesses that he admires hitler c) denies the holocaust d) claims to believe in the principle of free speech but are always the first to condemn muslims for speaking out about the iraq war saying that these people should be shut up. this is also an organisation that claims to be democratic but would probably become a dictatorship if they ever came any where near power and would quite probably introduce 1960's style apartheid in this country. with that in mind i wonder how any person who is of sound mind could ever contemplate voting for them. i appreciate that there is a problem with immigration in this country but the bnp solution of repatriating every foreigner will only lead to violence as it is unlikely that they will all go quietly as many of them have built lives for themselves over here.

on the runnin front i have had a couple of easy days after doing 11 miles on wednesday night, the longest i have covered after my come back started. i felt good after the end of the run but come thursday morning i was rather tired and this lasted right the way through til last night. the thought of doing a marathon is still something that is very much at the forefront of my mind and with this in mind i will be looking a training plans for a sub 3 hour marathon some time soon, hopefully planning for london either next year or 2011. not doing any speed work at the minute concentrating on getting the strength up for the winter season, but once again this is all if i am running again next year and anyof the rowing clubs haven't been in contact.

swine flu

not to worry i haven't contracted it or at least not yet. it has though made an appearance in the bristol area, which has been all over the news and i have just spent yesterday delivering the leaflets containing all the information that you need to know. there is having had a quick shufty through it my self a section for the government to wallow in self aggrandiosement (is that how you spell it?) saying how brilliantly well they have done in controling this crisis. still at 2.45p per leaflet plus my normal house hold deliveries for 500 odd houses it should make a nice boost to my weekly wage packet.

running wise i'm still building up the miles no fast efforts just want to get stronger for the minute. i have made up my mind that i want to have a crack at the marathon either this coming winter or the one after. with that in mind i have formaulated a vague training plan of the sort of training i want to be doing. this though is on the proviso that i'm not rowing competitively by then as if i have an opportunity to do that it is some thing that will take priority over every thing else sport wise because i believe that i can be exceptionally good at either rowing or sculling. with this in mind i have started a programme of weights both upper body and leg with the aim of eliminating some of the body fat that has accumulated over the past couple of months and generally building a more all round athletes body that you would need for rowing. i am training with the portishead club at the minute and whilst at the minute me and a few others are well ahead of the majority of our group in terms of our standards but i have no realistic hope of hitting the heady heights of a year ago some time soon. did one long run last week was hoping to do a second on sunday morning but felt rather tired having been woken up on sunday morning. two individuals who read this blog regularly know why, and i wont bother explaining, i'll let them explain to you lot who read this, but i will say it took me over an hour to get back to sleep!

breaking double figures

i have achieved a milestone today in my come back. i have run further than ten miles for the first time since i started my come back covered the distance in roughly 73 minutes so there's room for improvement. 10.2 miles is the exact course measurement to be precise. the conditions were hot and sticky and that made the last few miles ahem rather interesting. i will probably do it again by the end of the week as i am thinking that if i do decide to continue running then i might do a half marathon or may be...no i'm not even gonna mention a thought that stupid on here, its a crazy idea, but its a must do thing for any distance runner. not training tonight as i have a golf lesson down at tickenham golf club with one of my work colleagues. golf will only ever be for fun with me but i'm still determined to have a go at it and see how far i get

oh and another thing

sorry just forgot to mention its my bitrthday tomorrow

just running the miles and having some fun

thats all i'm doing at the minute. nothing fancy no speed work, but there's no pressure and quite honestly my calfs don't feel like they could stand up to the pounding that running fast would give them. they will get stronger over time but its also a question of whether or not i still have the desire to run competitively once my rehabilitation is complete. a the moment i definitely have the desire to compete as a sports person but i am still very much keeping my options open in that regard. i still think that rowing and/or sculling would be the best option for me competitively, but the fact is that i am in love with running as a sport. in fact it goes beyond being a sport for me-running is a way of life. i run nearly every day so to that end it is even more routine than going to work or getting out of bed in the morning. put simply if i could be an olmypic or world champion in any sport i could choose it would be as a runner and if had control over my genetics i would choose to do it in the marathon. why choose that i hear you say when you could be either usain bolt or michael johnson in a much easier discipline? well the answer to that is that it simply is the distance runners distance. or maybe cross country if that ever makes its way back on to the olympic programme and i think it should because cross country races are the greatest test of a distance runners ability. every competitor in one race every competitor faces the same challenge, the same obstacles and there can be no saying that some one had it easy because some one else wasn't in the same race.

but life is about making the best of the hand that you're dealt. i've long ago accepted that i'm not going to make it as a premiership footballer and make millions out of sport, but a lot of those guys in the premier league are big headed arrogant twats and if they produced the same standard in any other sport as they do in football they would never even of been heard of outside of their clubs certainly non of them are driven by the pursuit of excellence like the world leaders in other sports are. like the great rower tim foster said recently on the boat race coverage "winning an olympic gold medal made me a lot of money but it didn't make me a better person or a better rower". michael johnson was some one who was continually striving to improve standards even though he was yards ahead of any other 200 or 400 meter runner of his generation. football is a sport that is totally driven by the desire to possess material objects whether that be medals or vast sums of money that people like my self admittedly are stupid enough to pay to watch these prima donnas.

building up the mileage and losing weight

since we last spoke my body has slowly transformed back in to the shape of a runners or may be a triathletes rather than rowers. the fact is that while i do feel i could be ugely successful as an oarsman i feel more at home training outside in the fresh air rather than in the confines of the gym on the ergometers. if the rowing club do finally get back to me with the chance to row for them then obviously i would be foolish not to give it at least some consideration. but for the time being the emphasis is on running cycling and swimming, the main priorities to get my swimming up to scratch which is some thing that i will need to do if i want to row any way and to get a racing bike with a frame that fits me. i'm training with portishead running club tonight but thats about all there is to report at the moment

a long time since we spoke and a lot to report

since we last spoke my life has been an endless succession of injuries and illnesses, infact i can probably count on the fingers of one hand the number of days i've been free from any sort of ailment. i have though stopped using the rowing machines, and i am now training with portishead and clevedon triathlon club, well swimming training at least and it is providing a challlenge to say the least. i was at least comforted by the fact that many of the triathletes who come from a running or cycling back ground struggle with the swimming or at least that was the gospel according to the clubs swimming coach jackie and it was backed up by many of the stories i heard from former runners i knew from my competitive running time who couldn't swim 50 yards when they started and can now cover the full 1500 meters needed for an olympic distance triathlon. at the moment the aim is merely to get my self fit and to get a triathlon bike as well! i've had such a poor winter that the thought of doing any thing spectacular this winter is well and truly banished to the darkest areas of my mind.

the reason why am not rowing any more is purely because the local rowing club (bristol) were being funny about when novice rowers joined them and i was frankly getting bored using the machines in stale gyms. although they get you fit they don't stimulate you mentally in the same way that running or cycling does. i only knew of the triathlon club through a guy i know through work so i decided to give it a go. everyone who has made the switch says that the training is so much more fun and it is a challenge that i am very much looking forward to.

the swimming sessions were run along very different lines to the running sessions with mike in that the shorter repetiitions come first and we gradually build up to longer reps at the end of the session. more importantly though there was some very pretty females in bikinis which always helps to make time go by quickly.

just another update

since we last spoke i have been on the ergometer every day. very little to report there except that i have done 2 hard 2000 meter efforts one on monday and one tonight. 6:43.6 on monday and a bit slower tonight although i didn't seem to be getting the same response from the machines tonight for some reason, whenever i pulled harder it seemed to slow down. may be i wasn't getting enough length on the strokes. i wanted to make it count tonight as i'm not going to have time to go to the gym tomorrow as i am due to be meeting ewan for lunch and playing squash so if i want any cardio i might need to go for a jog in the evening for 20 minutes or so instead. apart from that very little is happening over here as you are probably aware if you have been watching the news. we had about a foot of snow last night and it has made the roads incredibly treacherous. on the mile or so journey to the gym tonight my car skidded about 4 or 5 times and each time i was only travelling at about 4 or 5 miles an hour. postal deliveries have been suspended in some areas (sods law i'm on annual leave this week) because the underfoot conditions are just too dangerous for people to be going out in and also because of the rather unsurprising lack of preparation my the mail centre management who didn't bother gritting the yard at womac (west/worst of england mail centre) meaning that the lorries couldn't get any where! its just typical of royal mail management that in spite of the advance warnings of dire weather they still did precisely sweet fa in preparation for it!

consolidation and consistency

that seems to be the name of the game with my times and performances on the ergo at the minute. 6:49.4 last night just 0.6 seconds behind my best time since coming back from illness. i was annoyed i didn't get the best time but i was close to it so its not disasterous by any means. big improvements will come its just a matter of time. might do an easy 40 mins on the machines this morning dependent on how i feel, followed by a trip to ashton gate (first of the new year) to watch the mighty reds thrash barnsley 5-0. well hopefully anyway.

back on track

after so long out of hard training once you get in to the really hard stuff again, its a bit like people say about going back to work, in that you don't really feel ike you've been away only a little bit worse because you're not used to the lactic acid and more specifically the hydrogen ions which are a bye product of lactic acid which is what really causes the pain associated with intense exercise. and i certainly had a large dose of that tonight with my second 2000 meter time trial post illness which which was a marginal improvement on the one i did on monday (6:49.6 compared to 6:50.1). by comparison i think it was marginally less painful (i wretched about 10 times after the one on monday) and slightly quicker so obviously i'm fitter than i was then although its hard to quantify some thing like that without doing a test in laboratory conditions. i am though still not close to my all time best time, 6:39.8, but i reckon i can beat that within a couple of months. still a nice easy day at work tomorrow in pill, no manager there its an SPDO, a nice stroll around easton in gordano. well its quite a long hilly walk with a lot of steps actually, but being an out and out country boy that i am i enjoy the rural deliveries. easton in gordano is a name that martin might recognise from his john o'groats to lands end jaunt, just after what he described as the low point of his journey in what sounded to me like the lawrence weston suburb in bristol. talking about low points i've just heard that scott has got drunk and thumped a prostitute.....again.

a change of plan

having stated in my last entry that i would not be doing any 2000 meter time trials until at least next week i promptly went and did ine last night-and i did ok. 6 minutes 50.1 seconds a full 10.3 seconds off my best time but no where near as bad as i expected it to be. i was thinking i would do well if i broke 7 minutes but now i have set the benchmark and i have to beat that. the first 500 meters were ok physically and mentally. psychologically the worst bit for me is always the middle 1000 meters from 500 to 1500 while physically the hardest bit is the final 1000. its always the same in that regard, but you do get a little bit of an energy boost for the final 100. i felt good before hand but it sure was a shock to the system having to work at that high intensity again after a couple of months in the wilderness, but now i am officially free from running and totally free to concentrate on where i want to go with rowing. like i said a couple of days ago the first step is to get the ergometer times down to some thing a bit more respectable sub 6:30 being the initial target and then we'll see how we go from there. fundamentally though i wont be doing any thing different to what did when i was running for the while a least i'll just be doing it on the rowing machine.

same old same old

i've not been on here for a few days but thats precisely because i have nothing to report. rowing wise i am building up my fitness levels slowly but durely and i have now finished the course of anti biotics that were prescribed to me by the doctor. steady state stuff but i'm enjoying it and i feel like i've had a new lease of life. for the moment the days when i would wake up feeling like an old man because my joints were so stiff have gone. i've put on about half a stone in muscle because of the upper body work that i'm doing. i'm still jogging once a week but thats all it will be for the while. the aim is to get my 2000 meter time on the ergometers down to under 6:30 before i join one of the local rowing clubs, then go there claiming i've never rowed before and astonish them with my talent, which is only strictly true in the sense that i've never rowed on water before. i'm planning to do 11400 meters steady tomorrow and the first hard 2000 meters will probably be the week after next.

apartf from that there is very little going on at the minute with no competition and work feels quite dead by comparison to the long days we had in december and i'm now very much looking forward to the summer and the lovely weather we will hopefully get and one thing i certainly wont miss is having to train on the track and the monotomy of having to churn out endless 400's 500's 600's etc running past the same markers time after time after time. whilst i still run for pleasure i thought that i would have real difficulty giving up running competitively but that has not been the case and i really feel like i have made the right decision

getting fitter-finally

after months of frustration and heartache i'm finally moving in the right direction fitness wise. the course of penicillin is working it's magic and aerobically i'm significantly stronger than i was before. i managed 10800 meters on the ergometer today in about 40 minutes at a reasonably steady pace about 41 minutes in total so i'm progressing steadily towards the target of 12000 meters per steady state row (i started off at about 9000). i'm already starting to feel a change in my body shape, i can feel the extra muscle on my chest and i have really been working those muscle groups hard-i had to ease off temporarily today for about 10 seconds as i could feel a twinge coming on in my right bicep. mark the gym owner was getting a bit annoyed with me as i stayed on the machine past the gym closing time and he wanted to get home understandably but there was no way he was shifting me from that machine until my workout was complete.

training on the rowing machine

its now official-i have for the while at least decided to quit running competitively in order to pursue other interests. in all honesty it was some thing that was on the cards for a while as my enthusiasm for training was on the wane. i have though not stopped running competitively and i am now building up the mileage on the ergometers and playing squash for fitness (i have even considered entering some tournaments) and i will sooner or later be joining a rowing club and possibly portishead squash club. so there you have it. official. the only problem though is that i've been getting blisters on my hands. if anyone has any suggestions on how to stop this then pleas feel free to write a post in the comments section on this blog.

the idea on the ergometers is to build my steady state aerobic training up to about 12000 meters at a time once i have finished the course of antibiotics (penecillin) that i'm on before i start doing any of the hard 2000 meter efforts on the machine that will help build up my anaerobic fitness. i do though intend to take a fair sizeable chunk off what my time would be currently, before i join any of the local rowing clubs. so it's rowing 6 days a week and running on the saturday just for old times sake and to give me a bit of variety in my training as well as playing squash 3 or 4 times a week.

back on the subject of running i was sad to read the interview with local bristol runner and olympian and friend of mine kate reed about her experiences post beijing this year before during and after the games and the way she was treated by uk athletics inparticular. it brought back memories of the post race interview i saw with her where she lamented the fact that she was forced to do a time trial before the day before the race in order to prove her fitness. she was also falsely accused of being a drugs cheat and had her room searched when she was supposed to be resting before the race. i know kate has never been one who's particularly good at avoiding scandal and for this reason she doesn't get any help from uk athletics (note she doesn't get any lottery funding in spite of the fact that there are athletes who performed far worse than her this year who will get top tier funding next year) which to my mind is a rather uneven handed way of treating people and is hardly a recipe for success for uk athletes. the jist of the interview published in both the bristol evening post and the clevedon and portishead mercury was that a)she had learnt a valuable lesson that you can't please everyone in life and b) she currently never wanted to run for great britain again and c) she was thinking of selling her gb olympic kit on ebay because it held so many bad memories for her and she hated putting it on for official functions and she kept it buried at the bottom of her drawer. knowing what i know about the way she was treated over there i can hardly blame her for feeling that way and it puts life in perspective in a way. people think that with success comes happiness but this proves that is certainly not always the case. being happy and feeling good within yourself is far more important than anything else in life and success will follow but only if it is the path that you're destined to take

i've been using the rowing machine!

i'm back on the ergos and i'm slowly building my mileage up to make it some thing like i was doing before when i was fit around about september time. i will start doing some 2000 meter time trials in about a couple of weeks time or may be a couple of weeks later depending on how i feel my fitness will hold out. for now though it is a question of concentrationg on the endless long sessions that build up your basic fitness. the difference between running and rowing though is you can work at a much higher heart rate as a rower because and recover quicker because the muscle and joint damage sustained through exercise is significantly less. whilst it is a wrench to give up running competitively, no matter how good you are at any one thing no one has infinite amounts of talent, so you have to accept your limitations. but remember that as one door closes another one opens, and i'm starting to view this as an opportunity to better my self, once i can shake off this throat infection, which touch wood is in its death throes. i have looked at the cost of joining rowing clubs, and it is quite extortionate compared to running but i see it as a investment in my future if it is some thing that i am going to be good at. in the mean time i have discovered scrabble on the facebook website (go to the search engine on the top right hand corner of your home page once you have logged in to your account and type in scrabble and it should come up) and if any of you fancy a game i'm more thn up for it!

getting nearer the truth

after a visit to the doctors on tuesday i finally seem to be getting closer to the truth about what has been wrong with me for the past couple of months. he took a quick peek inside my mouth and very quickly diagnosed a throat infection which has caused my glands to swell up. you can imagine my relief that its finally been confirmed that its not full blown glandular fever because if it is that could wreck the immediate future of my sporting career. so i have been prescribed some antibiotics to take for a week or so and hopefully that will be that with this chapter of my career and things can look up again. whilst i'm typing this though i'm clutching on to a humungously large piece of wood as i don't want to put the kiss of death on any chance of improvement. i went for a run this evening and managed about 7 miles at a fairly steady pace which is more than i have been averageing, so that is a sign that things are moving in the right direction and i felt quite comfortable even running up hillside road, thats about 3/4 of a mile and about 1 in 3 in parts. not the most viscious hill in portishead but still fairly steep by comparison to some parts of portishead. tomorrow i will give my self a go on the ergometers for the first time in about 2 months and see how i get on with them. it wont be an all out workout just a steady 45-50 mins at a reasonably brisk pace its still going to be a couple of weeks before i think about having a bash at my best time for 2000 meters, but for the first time in a long while i feel optomistic about my prospects, so lets build on it but not get too carried away. i'm currently lisening to katherine jenkins on cd and that has helped to sooth my mood no end.

the latest news from scotland is that young isaac smith is now crawling (only a little bit) and has uttered his first words. at 8 and a half months that is quite young to be making any discernable noises or moving unaided