How did you use your extra hour...

The clocks went back in the UK this weekend... And a "meme" started hitting Facebook, asking people to think about how they used their extra hour and think about doing something good with it.

I slept through my extra hour... But I had a good excuse, I was awake until about 10 minutes before it happened.  This weekend was a meeting of the European Congenital Heart Groups' Working Group (that is a mouthful - we're the ECHG!).  This is the merry band of people, all born with heart conditions, who are trying to work through a long list of things before the next big meeting in Switzerland next year.

So why was I up so late, I'd love to say it was because I'd convinced them all to go to a pub and we'd had a lock in.  However, it was simply because I had probably the easiest journey, and thus had the least tiredness to face down.  So meeting notes of the first 3 hours were written, drafts were made ready for the next morning and in the side window of the laptop Strictly Come Dancing was being watched (I'm a huge Susanna Reid fan - as a side note she's only 60s faster than me over the GNR)...

Ten hours of meetings all told and a tour of the Thames by night fitted in - a gentle walk through Ripper territory, past the Gherkin, then the delights of the Tower of London, Tower Bridge and the final view of St Pauls that is both classic and still magical.

The other benefit for me was its a distraction from not running, I'm deep in my taper, focused on this weekends fun by gently increasing my carbs, letting my body relax and heal itself from the abuses of previous months.  The weather is looking right up my street - 8degrees C, with enough wind chill to bring that down to feeling like 0degrees C.  With rain...

I'm smiling, a good hard 26.2 miles with 3000ft of height gain, and potentially foul weather to boot - yippee!!!! 

This weekend is the last formal run I'm doing this year (as far as I know... ) I have a spectacular finish to this year of madness half planned - think ultra distance, think night-time, think circular path, think racing the sun around the world... More details to follow, but I think I'm going to hurt.

So I spent my extra hour in the land of nod between two days of meetings - but I think that's allowed this time

TTFN
Paul

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