Third-life crisis

It's a sad but inevitable fact of life that i am now too old to realistically refer to myself as having a "quarter life crisis". Barring vast leaps in genealogical science, i ain't gonna see the big one two oh. I've suffered a crippling fear of getting old since around 2002, when i turned 25. I'm still not out of it yet, and an evening spent in trendy hipster joint 93 feet east hasn't helped. It's not so much that i felt old, more that, sitting there in my suit and surrounded by young enthusiastic weirdly attractive oddballs, i remembered when i was like them, out in the twilight zone of mid week clubbing. Needless to say, my attempts to persuade louise to stay out and get wrecked were unsuccessful, and i'm currently bumping my way home to the south east london suburbs on the night bus, with a 6am start for work awaiting me. I miss being young and on the fringes of something potentially exciting. Night night.

Like, wow....

I had a dream last night. A vivid, lucid dream where the meaning of life - or at least an explanation of the opening up of my untapped subconscious - came to me. It all seemed totally simple yet utterly mind-blowing. I woke up in a sweat at about 4am with the most immense feeling of contentment, and realised i should write everything in my head down before it faded into the mists again. Of course, i couldn't be arsed looking for something to write it on, so resolved to just make sure i remembered it when i woke up again. 2 hours later? Nothing remains except vague fragments of words, most of which seem related to the book i've just finished and a variety of events that happened yesterday. The self-serving cynic in me thinks my dream was just the usual jumbled bunch of neurons firing in my brain, enhanced by not having any booze yesterday. The more depressing voice in my head sees it as a metaphor for my life in general - "you had the world in your grasp, if only you'd made some effort to do something about it". Ah well. At least the sun's out, eh?

The curse of tattie

So, another team i was supporting are unceremoniously dumped out of euro 2008. First poland, then sweden, and now italy. I seem to jinx every team i follow. So my new favourites.... Turkey and spain to win their semi-finals, before germany win the final. Come on russia - lose!

Little help please

I'm currently downloading a whole raft of songs to add to my new training playlist on my ipod. The focus is on "rawk" and up tempo stuff which I hope will drag me round the hard yards. One of the features of the Nike+ kit I've just bought is the option to choose a "power song" whenever you need that little bit of extra help. I'm at a bit of a loss as to what to go for - the obvious Eye of the Tiger excepted. Any ideas?

If anyone wants to offer some thoughts on good tunes to stop me collapsing, answers on a postcard to the usual address (or comment post if that's easier)

No stopping me now.

Ooh yeah. The nike marketing behemoth claims another victim. And i have another gadget to play with!

Forza Italia

Despite being seduced, along with the rest of football-spectating europe, by the sublime counter-attacking prowess of holland and russia, i am pinning my hopes on italy's renaissance seeing them through to another triumph of defending a one-goal advantage over total football at euro 2008. My reasons for this a purely fiscal - the bet i placed on them to win will just about cover the overdraft charge i incurred in doing so. Damn my too-close-to-pay-day over-excitement. And the current bank charging policy.

Time for a new job

I've just walked out of the toilets at work, humming Sinitta's 80's hit "So Macho" to myself. Judging from the look the guy on the way in gave me, it may be time to look for alternative employment. And therapy.

Thieving gypo scum

I left my socks on the line overnight on saturday. When i woke up, 7 of them were gone. The dirty schemey west norwood birds must have had em away. I wouldn't mind, but i've now only got 3 running socks left. It could severely limit my chances in the 10k and opens up the possibility that craig has trained a murder of crows (or even - shudder - a skulk of foxes) to carry out evil schemes at his behest. When the dark apocalypse comes, don't say you weren't warned

The Human Race

Just went on to the Run London website to see if I could work out exactly how far I ran today...

...and managed to come across my next race!!! I know I'm getting a bit ahead of myself, but given that it's happening on 31st August and that basically will involve me continuing to train for a further 2 months after the British 10K, why the hell not?

It's fits quite neatly as well - using the British 10K as warm up for the "World 10k"

Who's with me?!

Anyone got a couple of spare calf muscles?

I've broken myself. Not majorly, but I'm in pain.

I woke up at 7 this morning, as J was heading off to Greenwich on a work field trip. We stayed in last night so, besides waking up panicking at 5am that I was hungover and had to go to work before remembering I hadn't been drinking and it was Saturday (no better feeling!), I felt absolutely fine this morning.

I put off my run yesterday because I knew I was going to be free today - so I had to go. The actual driving factor was the fact that, as usual on a Saturday, I was craving a fag to go with my morning coffee. Reasoning that I hadn't smoked for almost 12 hours and that if I did, I'd then not be able to have another one for hours to give myself a fighting change prior to going jogging, I dragged my bones out into the morning sunlight at about 10am.

It was a really nice morning here - not too hot and sunny. On Wednesday I managed to run around 5-6 km, the distance from my house to the park and back. The park is an extra 3 km round, so I decided I would run to the park, do a lap, and then try and get as far back to the house as I could.

It was weird running through the park at that time on a Saturday morning - there were quite a lot of joggers but also a fair percentage of people winding their way home from the night before. At one point there were about 7 of us boring pavement pounders streaming up a narrow section of the path, whilst a glamorous girl tottered her way straight down the middle in the opposite direction, all fluffy jacket, big sunglasses and contented smile. If I ever make a film, I'm going to somehow work that scene into it.

I was running really slow and ended up making it the whole way without stopping - bit of a shock and I was starting to hurt well before the end, but one of my worst/best traits (in running terms at least) is a determination not to stop until the finish.

I now have two red hot pokers where my calf muscles used to be, but a new feeling of serenity and relaxation with the race only 3 weeks away. This is the way I did it last time - training but not progressing for weeks, then suddenly just accidentally doing pretty much the whole race distance. There's something comforting knowing that I will be able to make it round the course, all things considered.

Smoking may be bad for your health

Two of my house mates are also doing the 10k, one of whom only started training on monday. "the fool!" i cried, smug in the knowledge i wouldn't be the worst prepared athlete in the field. He came for a run with me on monday night, saying he probably wouldn't keep up. I made lots of reassuring comments to him but secretly saw it as my chance to show him how far he had to come. 5 km later, i was purple with exhaustion whilst he'd barely broken sweat. The fact he's an ex-squaddie is some small consolation, but i think his limited drinking, non-smoking lifestyle has more to do with it. I'm utterly demoralised. And in need of a fag to cheer myself up.

Mobile blogging

I can now post from my mobile phone, thanks to the wonders of modern technology and the very funky opera mini browser which opens up the whole of the interweb to my texting thumb. Whether this increases the frequency or quality of said blog is debatable. What it does mean is that i'm writing this whilst sat on the toilet at work. Happy Monday.

3 - the magic number

Bearing in mind it's pretty much exactly a month to "the big race", i'm continuing to take my training seriously. Having woken up to 3 cigarettes and 3 cups of coffee for breakfast this morning, i have followed it up with my choice of fried chicken for dinner. That will be the third night running, then, that i've gorged on deep fried, battery fed, half formed grey tasteless poultry. I bet paula radcliffe has a smilarily strict regime

Rules of blogging # 2

Posts are never as funny or interesting or well-written as you think they'll be. Conversely, if you don't have to think about what you're writing, you often come up with a teeny nugget of bloggy goodness.

Pretty sure I've just proved half of that theory....

Rules of blogging # 1

The more full and interesting your life becomes, the less time you have to blog about it.

See that Goudie Run!

Congratulations to my mate Helen, who completed her first 10K yesterday in a highly respectable 66 mins. Helen, I salute you and you have managed to inspire and terrify me in equal measure.

It's given me hope, as apparently Helen achieved it through 2 training sessions a week for 6 weeks - which, given we still have four and a half until the British 10K on 6 July - should mean I'll be alright. Not 100% sure about J, who finally (huzzah!) got round to getting her trainers on Sunday and went for her first run this morning, but we figure that by taking Helen's training schedule and adapting it in the style of my approach to Home Economics at school (bake at 150 degrees for 25 minutes? I've not enough time, I'll just do it at 300 degrees for 12 and a half minutes - same difference. Only subject I've ever failed. Apart from "technology" (i.e. metalwork) the same year. And Management Studies at University. Twice. Ironic I now produce Management Information for a major bank for a living), she'll be able to do it - so it's 3 sessions a week for her from now on!

My fears of not finishing have been somewhat allayed by the two most recent outings I've had - the first, last Thursday, was good in that I did my usual route without feeling like death by the end; then yesterday I extended it by a significant amount and as a result managed to run 5K without too much pain.

I think we might just be ok.