Like the tortoise...

Slow and steady but progress is being made...managed thirteen and a half km today in an hour and a half by doing circuits up Welly Hill and down St Saviours then round the one way system up Welly Hill again and down Mont Millais. Managed that flaming thing four times before my sanity took over and pointed me homewards. I think I have my race strategy about right in my head so fingers crossed.

Zone K - clearly the organisers believed me when I told them I was lamer than an ITV sitcom. Still, less pressure in the cheap seats! Anyone else three miles from the start line or are all of you RNLI scroungers in G or higher?

And finally two quotes: one motivational and one that just tickled me a BIT;

"Failure lies not in falling down. Failure lies in not getting up." (traditional Chinese proverb)

"It's not something you can just run away from like a hotel bill or a crying baby..."

Tick, tock, tick, tock...

Another training week lost due to sickness throughout the family. I spent the first few days looking after t'Mrs night and day as she evacuated her body of all liquids then young Ms D got an ear infection and now I have taken up close residence to the bathroom so please excuse me if I have to go suddenly. Hopefully I will be able to train next week but I don't feel very good right now and am severely deprived of sleep.

Now, pass me that bucket if you would be so kind...!

An albatross about my person...

My daughter has decided that I am not training hard enough and now thinks that it is her duty to sit on my back and make me do press ups all the time shouting "Come on Daddy, hurry up!" Bloody slave driver keeps insisting that she doesn't want to go to nursery either but would rather "go running with Daddy. I am very fast." this is usually followed by a sudden burst of speed down the corridor/across the lounge etc. I haven't got the heart to tell her she can't come because she would show me up. I think I have got away with it, just, so don't anyone tell her okay.

Yikes

Am most impressed Mr C...I have gone in t'other direction and am struggling with even the shortest and least demanding of runs now. I am trying not to worry too much about it but even so it has not been a good development. Any suggestions for inspiration?

The joys of summer

Hayfever has come again and now running out in the wild is even less fun than it was before what with the streaming nose, weeping eyes and the rash down one side of my body from running too close to the pre-branchage fields. I will be switching to the treadmill for the forseeable or else I fear I may fall back even further in performance terms.

Have run out of drugs to try and vaseline around the nostrils and glasses aren't helping much so short of running in a big hamster ball (which may be a bit warm!) I am out of ideas.........

To blog or not to blog

Played in a cup final last Monday for my current team (Rossendale Amatuers 4th XI - I know!) and we were awful. Having already secured the league we decided to let in 6 in the cup! At 4-0 some irritating dwarf like oik decided I had no futher use for my right leg so put both of his feet, studs first, through the side of it with my ankle being the lowest point of contact (no laughing at the back Davies!). Of course I pointed out that this was most unpleasant not to mention unsporting in my usual calm.........

Anyroad, that has meant I haven't run since the 7th when I was well chuffed with 6.5 miles (bloody kilometre's, you should all hang your heads!) in 46 mins. A sort of slow Nick The Greek pace if you will. Rubbish, rubbish rubbish. Mind you the weather has been to good and the lawn has needed mowing!

A change is as good as a cliche...

After a fairly miserable week ( I missed my 100km in four weeks target by 300 bleeping metres;hurt my shoulder, calf and wrist; and adding insult to injury felt more rubbish with each run) I have finally done something worthwhile managing my first sub 1 hour 10km and the world now feels just a little better albeit slightly creakier too.

Things seem to have gone a bit quiet on the blog (I imagine that this is because we are all busy bunnies)...but I would like to find out how things are going generally. I find it quite a help in pushing myself to hear what you lot are doing and achieving.

P.S If you haven't already done so, check out www.teamatko.org (courtesy of Mr Hoooooolin).

P.P.S Christina, at least you don't have to deal with errant milk tankers, Polish street racers and Chelsea tractor steering yummy mummies when you go out in the mornings. It's like a really weird version of the old Atari classic 'Paperboy'.

Ho hum

It has been a difficult week running wise, having been quite chuffed to have managed a half distance run seven days ago I was confident but alas I have struggled each and every time I have been out including coming back this morning with a very sore right calf after only five km. Perhaps I need some inspiration. I will have a rest tomorrow and maybe try Sunday.

Getting there

Inspired by Mr H's efforts I have managed my first 10.5 km run (in 1 hour 8 minutes). I now have a very sore shoulder which is a bit of a worry.

Beer and Burgers

Now then. After a heavy weekend on the pop, as in Friday, Saturday, Sunday I decided to get back at it today. Had a burger at about 3pm and went out at about half five.

All the above should be clues that your either going to be sick or knackered very quickly as any decent PE teacher would tell you, oh well!

As an aside, why do people who pack flat pack furniture put empty boxes inside the boxes? And are tiddly-wink factory workers counter productive? Answers on a postcard.......

Wooyay again.

My first one hour run completed and managed 9km (5.6 miles for you Imperial measurement fascists - you know who you are) !!!!!! Quite chuffed actually. Maybe being ill wasn't such a bad idea after all.

The difference engine

Reading Mr Morris' posting leads me on to a problem I am finding when I run on different surfaces, namely that my range changes dramatically...I can put away 8km on my road circuit, an understandably slower 7-7.5km on the gravel of Queen's Valley but can't seem to go much beyond 5.5km on the treadmill although the time is decent. I haven't worked out why there is such a disparity when I move indoors. Any ideas?

p.s Any benefits yet from using the tights Mr H?

It was bound to happen eventually...

Sunday morning managed my normal run. Everything nice and comfortable and feeling good.
Monday morning sore throat, bunged up nose, dodgy guts. Fingers crossed but am expecting to miss training a bit. Two steps forward, one back eh?

T'isn't nobler in the mind to suffer hills and valleys in silence.

Christina, you are not alone. My iPod and more recently my Nike+ plugin thing have managed to drag my sorry ass onwards more than once. Just like the decision to run or walk it comes down to personal choice and comfort. Rhythm may be a dancer but phat tunes and trance anthems are runners! You can even drop in a high tempo special at the point you know you might start to struggle (after about two minutes in usually does it for me). I wonder what the experienced runners in our group think....

Managed 7.5 cold, grey, rain-assisted kilometres today in 44 minutes and I couldn't have done it without my little Nano.

On a bum note I read that some marathon courses are banning music devices in future events.... humbugs.

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, you've created a monster.

I have bought a copy of this month's Runner's World.

Yes, let me repeat that for you: I have bought a copy of this month's Runner's World.

I didn't even realise I was doing it until I got to the counter and there, beneath my copy of Top Gear like some sordid surreptitious delve into top shelf territory, it sat beaming up at me. A little later it hit me (no, not the magazine, that would be ridiculous) that I am actually starting to enjoy this running lark. In and amongst the motivational quotes I found this which I felt was fairly apt for those of us 'running impaired' folk and made me think of one Mr I Atkinson at the same time:

"Get up and walk if you have to, but finish the damned race." (Ron Hill)

What a wheeze (literally)

New best for my Queens Valley circuit, woohay. However chuffed I may feel at having taken a full ten minutes of this particular circuit in ten days is somewhat tempered by the fact that the 5.5K it involves (twice round in case you are wondering) is merely a quarter of what will be required in October! Don't think I am getting full of myself with times etc. far from it...I have no doubt about my Red Bull Racing status but I like to think that being relatively open about what I have and haven't been able to do will make others feel better about their own times and achievements thus far.

Remember, there is always someone worse at something than we are. Now, if any of you could point him out to me....?

p.s My three year old daughter is now insisting on "going for a run with daddy" every time I don the running gear but I don't want to get shown up so for now she stays at home!

Tales of the Unexpected

It's always good to see a little flurry of activity on the blog and it is perhaps understandable given the time of year but it is also nice to know that we are all hurting as much as each other. I had this nagging suspicion that come race day I would watch the other twenty or so Team_Atko members steam off into the distance hoping against hope that they wouldn't be waiting somewhere at the end trying to be positive and supportive (whilst checking their watches) and that I would deeply regret getting involved at all but listening to the painful and breathless team zeitgeist in this blog is actually, and rather perversely, giving me a boost as it does actually feel like a proper team effort. I am not sure I even care how long I take any more as long as I can continue to feel part of the collective achievement to do our best. Thankfully this hasn't stopped me pushing myself harder and harder, hell I took five minutes off my 5Km time today!

Feelings of inadequacy

And I quote:

Great North Run

Paula Radcliffe won the Great North Run in a world-best time. She completed the 13.1-mile (21.1 km) half marathon course from Newcastle to South Shields in 65 minutes and 40 seconds.

Cow.

What was that Tim, it is going to hurt....it already is mate , it already is.

Some pain, some gain

Back in the saddle and Nike+ to the hilt have now managed a distinctly underwhelming 7km of laddered interval training over the course of two days (15 mins and 30 mins respectively) and a whole load of strength training to boot. But hey, some progress is still progress. So in the wholly unlikely event that I can maintain that pace that gives me a feeble 2' 15'' GNR time! Damn you Father Time, damn you all to hell.


The shame of it.

Excuses....prepare yourselves Ladies and Gents!

As Mr Morris has already mentioned Avoriaz did indeed have some fantastic conditions for damaging oneself but as a unit we managed only one piffling medivac situation and even that thankfully was not as bad as it could have been. However (here they come...batten down those excuse hatches), on my return I discovered that my entire family has come down with dengue fever or something similar, my wife has done her knee in and aggravated an old skiing injury and now needs a chauffeur and even the bloody cat has gone and got its leg in plaster and requires a taxi to and from the vet during my free time so this, of course, has made something of a dent on my already chocolatey teapot of a training structure. I have also just discovered that part of my childcare arrangements for a month or so is going to be compromised thus reducing the potential for training time and of course the school holidays are also about to start.....aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgggggggggggggggggghhhhh!

Does anyone know if I can defer my entry to the 2028 race?

p.s. Mr Macready, since when has your 'annoying' energy only been evident after a hard day at school?