Liz & I are having a couple of days’ rest and recuperation in High Bentham. Boys have declined to come with us. Who could blame them? Today I’m supposed to do a 30 minute recovery run but have decided to trade this in for a four hour walk in the Howgills. Get up to find drizzle/wintry shower going on. Make morning cup of tea and break bad weather news to Liz. Neither of us has a Plan B for inclement weather. Decide to do domestic tasks until weather clears. By lunch time it’s obviously set in for day. Set off for Lancaster to mooch around shops and have a coffee. Come back and start blog of yesterday’s run.
Review Sunday run. Negatives: (1) Liz has Memory Mapped it for me and I’ve only run 12.5 miles. (2) I’ve only run for 125 minutes when I should have done 130 minutes. (3) I’ve knacked my ankle. (4) I’ve managed to run for 125 minutes and have thought about running for less than 2 minutes. (5) Wasn’t expecting to solve Fermat’s Last Theorem or come up with an innovative way to resolve Northern Ireland’s policing and justice problem, but am disappointed with my record of thoughts whilst running. Positives: (1) I feel that I’ve actually started the solo running bit of my marathon training. (2) 125 minutes is the longest I’ve been on my feet. I’ve done this same run before, but at 8 minute pace & I’ve done five half marathons all in the 1:28 to 1:38 range, but this feels like new territory. (3) I settled into a running rhythm of 9 minute 30 second miles without giving it a thought. Whether 9:30 miles is the right pace or not is by the by. (4) Even though I knacked my ankle I carried on and managed to get back up to speed after a brief interlude.
Tell Liz that I’m going to give up chocolate and biscuits until after the marathon. This isn’t greeted with the reverential response I was expecting. She points out that I “don’t really like chocolate and hardly ever eat biscuits”. This is wounding. Piss on my chips why dontcha? I respond with I’m also giving up alcohol. I have no idea where that came from, but I’ve said it now, it’s out there. We’re both silent for a minute. Stunned. She gives me a way back by saying there’s no point in making myself miserable. I stand firm. We compromise by agreeing I can have the occasional bottle of Crabbies alcoholic ginger beer – because that’s not a real alcoholic drink. I consider whether this might open up a whole new field of untried alcopops if the going gets tough. Decide it won’t. I’m against alcopops and not just because it’s such a silly word. Perhaps I do have a moral compass after all. Having stupidly given up alcohol I backtrack on the chocolate thing. I’m allowed to take hot chocolate when I go to Boundary Park, but only for evening matches. We agree. I like this because (a) the hot chocolate may take my mind off the dross that passes for football at BP nowadays; (b) taking a flask to a football match will embarrass my son and it’s a parent’s bounden duty to embarrass their offspring whenever possible; and (c) Bovril is disgusting, I’m sure its made from cows unmentionables even though cows don’t have unmentionables. Liz further expands this by saying I should be allowed Options Hot Chocolate sachets. Sixteen varieties and only 40 calories a cup. Great.
I wander down to Spar for sacrificial last chocolate (Magnum). Scour house for last alcoholic beverage and have to settle for Sauvignon Blanc (good) from winebox (bad).
Monday has been and gone and I’ve done nothing physical in the way of marathon training, but am feeling reasonably positive.
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