if it was easy...

4 weeks until the Liverpool Half Marathon... Last year it was a stepping stone to the Edinburgh Marathon, this year its a stepping stone to the Coast 2 Coast...

4 weeks to get the timings and speed right, 4 weeks to perfect any race strategies I want to try... Part of me would dearly love to be one of my mates who can just blat out 13 miles without thinking about how to do it... But if it was easy I probably wouldn't do it.

As regular readers know I'm also type II diabetic, so as well as keeping an eye on my heart rate I need to balance my bodies cravings for carbs with my bodies inability to process them properly... Not always an easy balance, as my diabetic nurse will testify, and this half of the year I'm trying a different approach, so we will see at my 6 month diabetic check up if the balance is better!

As regular readers also know this blog was always going to be honest... Another GUCH friend, and member of the GUCH Walking Club, died a little while ago. I don't particularly like recycling blogs, but everything I said here http://walkingforheartkids.blogspot.com/2010/05/this-game-of-ghosts.html holds true...

So, my next 4 weeks are planned out, miles to run and carbs to chew... The 190-4-190 is beginning to pick up momentum, my walks are now all with a pack with the gear in I'll be using, the sponsorship letter to outdoors companies is ready to roll and this week I try and get a draft press release to CHF for their ok - so if you're interested let me know.

TTFN

Paul

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Something a little bit political...

Well the legs still don't want to run, walk and climb is fine, run makes them feel a bit leary ... Probably the two most contentious words in the congenital heart world (UK branch) are "safe and sustainable", a quick trawl of the support websites or facebook will show many a group being set up to save a hospital or a ward. I won't be joining any of them. Not because I don't care, but because I care too much. The origins of Safe and Sustainable go back to the Bristol Hospital Enquiry, and quite simply this is designed to ensure that the surgery that heart kids get is the the most appropriate, done by well trained and supported surgeons who are used to doing the operations and are in a surgical setting which are designed around the needs of the child going through the surgery and their family. Is that too much to ask? I don't think so. I want every heart kid to get the best surgery available to them, I want their parents to be given the best advice, support...
Read more

12% of a plan…

  It’s been a month.     A month since the new heart valve was inserted… the chaffing has died down, I’ve been sensible and built my walking up, restarted my apple fitness plus bits and bobs (boy has it been a long time since I bent like that, or cycled/spun like that) and I’ve been for two runs – a gentle 3k which worked as a prelude to my return to my local parkrun… I finished, my tally went up 1, and I remembered just how tough it is to run the first mile on so soft, dry sand… In hindsight I would’ve been better to walk the first third and conserve my energy (and pool of fitness) to the prom and the grass thirds…   Relive 'Return to Parkrun!' Yes, it does look the first bit is out to sea…  Monday was a random day off work to get out and do something, so with a bit of head scratch and some nifty plotting on the OS Mapping app I wandered along the canal, and then down the Transpennine Trail & “loop line”… Almost pancake flat, I know...
Read more

It’s a kind of magic (the science kind)…

  Well, operation done – I have a funky new valve and a bit of a sore groin.     I was in hospital for 28, sleepless, hot, hours and unconscious for about 4 of them.     While the insertion points for the three catheters I had in me in at the same time heal it’s a case of taking it easy, let my body get over the various manipulations (sore throat, the impact of the still there frozen shoulder) and the simple lack of sleep from stress and some noisy neighbours on the day ward I was on.  There’s really not a lot else to say… I went in, did the usual pre-op checks, had a chat with the interventionist, had a chat with the anaesthetist, signed the all-important consent forms (kids – that’s when you know you’re an adult; parents, that’s when you know your kid is in charge), was wheeled across to a hybrid cath lab… laid down, bit of banter with the team and the next thing I knew I was waking up, sore and not actually knowing whether the funky valve had fitted me…...
Read more