Breaking news .. Lazy fat boy eeks out another PB

Well, it's been a little while hasn't it dear reader?  Hopefully you've all been out there scurrying around, fitting in training and racing into your hectic lives and generally being the good athletes I know you all are?

Meanwhile, your man here has been feeling very sorry himself in a not at all attractive way.  I've used work as an excuse far too many times, that it has slipped way beyond the bounds of the believable now.  I have applied myself almost exclusively to perfecting the art of giving reasons why I can't train today instead of just getting on with it.  Speaking to a number of other IM Wales entrants from within the club this seems to be a pretty common theme, so may well be a part of the whole IM journey that we just weren't prepared for?  I'm sure a sports psychiatrist would have a field day with us lot - perhaps Antonio has some connections  that would just love to use us all for a study paper?  You can see the headline now - "Mad Sports Shrink Let Loose on Mentally Unstable Athletes - Has Care In The Community Let Us Down Once Again?"  Gotta be one for The Guardian surely ....

So - how the hell does today's blog title fit into all this gibberish?

To cheer myself up, to give myself a little kick start and ...., to be brutally honest, ...., to prove to myself that I can still get out there and put the hammer down, I entered the Hastings Half pretty much last minute.  I tried to convince myself that I would run it nice and easy, especially as I have the Sussex (full) Marathon in two weeks time.  So ..., I turned up yesterday in near perfect conditions, and ran my arse off.  I managed a finish time of 1:40:58, which represents a course PB of 2 minutes and 19 seconds.  Not bad and it certainly cheered me right up.  One worrying point is that it felt decidedly like all gels and water I was taking on board was just slosshing around inside my stomach, and was not absorbing properly!  This may be why I got to Ore village and started to die on my feet.  I had flown up Queensway like Concorde, ran the Ridge in pretty good form and then all started to go down hill (and yes, I know the course does just that at that point ...).  I just ran out of steam.  Emma Faulkner caught me along the seafront and was running like the wind.  I tried to get on her heels but that thought only lasted for about 10 seconds - that girl was cruising!  Still - a PB is a PB.

And then I got up this morning with an absolute onset of the D.O.M.S. extrordinaire.  In short my bloody legs hurt like hell, and still do for that matter - which serves me right.  All my training has been long slow, base heart rate running.  So to suddenly crank up the tempo for well over 1 and half hours was only ever going to end one way.  Do I regret this rash decision?  Of course not, this is me after all ...

So - The Marathon next, which REALLY will be run sensibly.  I need to come off the back of that in a position to start training a lot more consistenly for IM Wales - especially on the bike.

These next two weeks will see me doing a bit of recovery running and a bit of swimming.

And before I leave you today - just keep a hold of this thought .... I am out there making all these stupid, dumb arse mistakes and then reporting back on them, so that you don't have to!

Take care goodly folks.