The Walker With Heart

I have a niggle, shouldn't be a surprise, and its a return of an old friend - the puffy foot.  In the words of my GP, "you've got chronic soft tissue damage - what do you expect, how many times have you twisted it?" So when I've hammered it, it puffs up... Not a lot I can do about it, if it gets too bad then I'll pop to the doctors and get tablets that are banned in horse racing and normally induce a whole cascade of rumours - water tablets are well known to my dicky ticker community, and normally for heart failure.  So the rumours do circulate.  Trust me, everything is working as it should... So, a week of recovery (that was in the plan from the start), just walking and pottering about to keep things active.  I don't often blog about work, because quite frankly one bloke sitting at a desk drafting stuff isn't that exciting.  However, this week Civil Service Live came to town and I ended speaking at it twice.  It is very easy to be very cynical...

I tried a new memory technique for recalling my runs for this my one and only Ultra I've gone back and done more than once... The list in my head trots out as: Friendliest Runner Kestrel Frilly Knickers They're Lost - I'm not last Mitch Benn Wrong way up Win Hill Jane's Mate Magnum Cement Cup of Tea Success I - not lost Wedding - man in chef's hat Stepping Stones party Success II - not jumping a wall Friendly faces Success III - The right path Success IV - The right bridge Frilly Knickers Cows - potentially viscous Success V - not lost II Victory - 2h faster than last year... Well, that's exhausted me and I've not added the detail... I was determined to go out slow and stay steady, the weather was a lot gentler than last year (16C instead of nudging 30) and I've done a hell of a lot of running between then and now (by the Garmin 1400km / 870 miles) so all was looking good.  Mentally I was in the right place for a PB, and physi...

The marathon part of my year is almost up, my two fastest marathons in the bag, a second fastest half marathon, some sexy running bling and the usual collections of aches and pains. I know myself moderately well, which means I know my tolerance of "doing the same thing threshold" is beginning to reach its limits with running.  I know, shocking, I can get bored of running. It's also been a long slog, from the 31st December I've pushed myself fairly hard - my Garmin (which only gets worn when I'm doing something "proper") reports over 700 km since then - not bad for someone whose first "challenge year" was to do 1000km... My Fitbit, picking up the days I go off stomping along the canal to get to town as well as the running is floating at over 2500km. This time last year I was facing an Ultra marathon injured and with a lousy training record, this year I'm facing the same Ultra with a shedload more training, and a specific recce day and ...