Junk Miles

I change my original plans to drive to work and do the weekly food shop, instead I cycle to work. No, I can’t carry the shopping on my bike. Panniers you say... don’t even go there. We’ll all have to starve... I feel I need to crash course my base fitness.

As I rejoin my fellow Mamils, L runs to work. ‘Pure junk miles’ she says and appears rather proud of it. Junk miles are supposedly miles that you run purely to clock up a certain weekly or monthly mileage total. I say there’s no such thing as junk miles. If I run thirteen and a bit junk miles in... let me see... 26 days time, I will have completed the Nottingham Half Marathon.

After work I go to the pool for some junk lengths, thirty of them. On twenty eight I somehow bash my toes on the side of the pool as I turn. I limp, if you can limp whilst you swim, the last two, probably looking a bit like a crab.

On closer inspection I think I’ve dislodged a toe nail. I stop closer inspecting; it’s not a pretty sight and I feel slightly faint.

I still manage to hobble a few junk metres around the garden to get a bit of junk training in for MD over the hurdles.

After which I’m knackered, which is a good excuse to talk L into an early night. Junk sex? Of course not, no such thing.

(Tuesday 17th August)

Phantom Limp

There's a Crufts Team qualifier today. Can Doggo and I make it three years in a row at the NEC. Probably not on this evidence. Doggo, running first, refuses the last jump. I think because there was a dog the other side of it, which is the nature of team, it’s a relay. Still unusual though. So that’s the end of that for now. There may be other qualifiers if we can raise a team.

In fact he doesn’t seem himself all morning. He was not all interested in his second course and it was so us. In that one we should have done well on. Perhaps he’s ready for retirement.

Then when I take him for a walk his phantom limp is back or perhaps it’s a real one. Perhaps that’s why he’s having a bad day. I consider skipping his last run but then later on he seems fine, so I run him and he goes ok. Weird.

MD does ok but all his courses are a bit too advanced for him but he’s decide he's skipping weaves today anyway.

Son’s mates all crashed at our place last night and camped, in his bedroom. We gave Son a tent as a birthday present, as he’s going to the Leeds Festival. It’s now pitched in his bedroom and full of hung-over teenagers.

STOP PRESS: I'm seriously thinking of a career change. People are continually asking me advice on getting fit, improving their times, how to get back from injuries, all sorts of stuff like that. I’ve got friends asking, colleagues at work asking, people at the dog club asking, even L... in fact she’s off to the gym today to try out some of the workout ideas I gave her. So perhaps I could do this for real?

I have already got my name down for a coaching programme that the council a running. Which, yes I know, is hardly going to be dynamic but it’s a starting point.