The Walker With Heart

This is going to be a race review and a rant... I should apologise for the rant, but it happens almost every run I go on, and I'm grumpy about it... The Rock and Roll Marathon was hot; 20 degrees of heat, 26.2 miles with the added fun of the humidity of a couple of parks. The first half was a dream, I deliberately (because of the heat), ran well within myself, sticking to the 5:15 pacer like glue up out of town, around Goodison and Anfield and up the terror of St Domingo's.  Coming down back into town I had to allow my legs to run themselves, to run slower than felt comfortable would've have been harder and more likely to get me tripping over myself than the risks of being over exuberant. However, one eye was on the Garmin and I was still clocking 30s a KM slower than normal on the downhill, the flat was fine and took in the front, a couple of awesome bands and the Chinese Arch (complete with Chinese drumming group) and the second really nasty climb up Upper Parliament ...

I've said before that I don't know where this streak has come from, and I'm desperate not to jinx it... But the runs are flowing and the PBs are falling. Last weekend was the Spring 5K & 10k in Sefton Park - good runs, well organised, flat and enjoyable.  I did the 5k as Ironman, so went out with no expectations... Hmmm... No expectations... That'll be 74s off a PB that has lasted since 2012, on a busy field, on a distance I hate - its far too short, I don't get into my stride, never feel warm, never feel comfortable.  Add in a mild panic attack as there was a thumping in my chest... that'll be the arc reactor I was wearing... Yup, that thing was bouncing on my sternum... and I forgot about it... Until hammering around the course, it bounced and those demons of living with a dicky ticker came back for the merest of seconds to disappear in an amused instance...  And then there was the 10k, I'd come so close to dropping below the hour th...

No, this is not a new direction for the blog - Virginia Woolf is not high on my reading list.... So the hour... It's another arbitrary target, another random point in time that is utterly meaningless... and means everything... And I'm very conscious this is a running thing... and probably a me running thing. Ten kilometres... 6.2 miles... in an hour.  Ten sub-6 minute kilometres, one after the other.  No let up, no easy kilometres in the middle, no real time to warm up - at least not for me. And the hour has sat there, its something that's been discussed with my running mates, the fast ones giving hints and tips, the others commiserate and wonder if they'll ever get near too. I'd all but given up, that elusive hour seemed to be slipping away... And I'm marathon training, so the mid-week runs are meant to be looseners, gentle plods that help the legs recover.... Apart from something didn't quite go to plan on Thursday, the first couple of k's ...

It's been a funny old week (insert old cultural reference here); the mental push to get an OU essay in, the fear gnawing that my run of good runs was over, bad news and good news in almost equal measure, irritations from work (yes I know that's my fault for turning the blackberry on) and then the run itself. The guts settled down about Wednesday, but I felt drained and was conscious that I'd not eaten a lot for more than a  few days.  A night out with old friends; a decent steak and a share of a decent bottle of red seemed to cure that, if not leave me in much position to tag a training run in on Friday morning. For those not used to marathon training plans, they have two main components - the LSR, the long slow runs that systematically break your body down a little bit more than the last one, just enough to build the muscle during the recovery week.  And the recovery runs, for me two are planned each week, and in a good week I do the two... Most weeks I concentrate o...

There will be three things... 1) the cold 2) the injury scare 3) the bug... Until Sunday my training had been subject to 1) for a week of a head cold and then immaculate, perfection personified.  It was too good to last, and this Sunday my stomach decided it didn't want to play - yes I may have had a bad week at work and with other stuff, and then a busy day on Saturday but it was a very good day.  Yes I had a drink, but I've run further on more... Eighteen miles was the plan, and it didn't happen. Ten grumpy miles did, however ten that included the two hills from hell on my training route and on the run itself, and was the sixth fastest 10 miles I've run. It's easy to overanalyse and get yourself into analysis paralysis (trust me, I'm an analyst I can put myself in spirals over data at any time and if I'm being mean can sucessfully argue that night is day and day is night with other analysts), however it was 3) the bug... I know it was a bug becau...

Ok, as with the MDT blog I wrote a little while ago, this is not a patient information leaflet – but as I’ve never been sent one it might help some people. So, the dreaded exercise test, the test that some of those in the congenital heart defect community hate more than any other. The letter comes, in my case without a patient leaflet, and suggests you dress for exercise… Not the most helpful statement in the world – for those who don’t do a lot of exercise, or for me, who has a range of “outfits” for exercise, ranging from skimpy shorts through to full on winter walking gear (complete with crampons & ice axe) – think of me as a cheap rate Action Man figure… So, based on having done these tests twice – shorts, or not too baggy leggings, and trainers.  If you’re male don’t worry too much about the top half, ladies a comfy bra – they’ll be attaching a 12-lead ECG to you.  In my case they shave the bits they want to attach the electrodes to, and just for fun abrade it f...

This is one of those messy blogs that will dart around; part of it is a conversation I need to have with someone, so if they (and I doubt they will) read this they should know that this is the Willgoss-lite version... Part of it is the first part of a new adventure and the other bits are the running and climbing, and hopefully something will pop out of the wittering that makes sense. So in my traditional way - I'll start in the middle, I've recently become one of a fairly small group - a member of a small cohort of around 300 people on the Civil Service's Levelling the Playing Field Positive Action Pathway - a year long development scheme, that is intended to give me, and the others, the skills and confidence to progress to the next level in the civil service. The only way to get the best out of these things is to challenge yourself, to get external challenge and to add to that with information, details about yourself you may not like or want to know, but that you need ...