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