Stumble status. March 2009.

Sitemeter tells me that there are still some of you out there keeping an eye on my RSS feed. So here an update on whats happening in my life:

Running. I've had my longest ever injury free period of running. So that's sure to jinx that! Strangely, this has coincided with starting to use the Nike+ Sportband I bought back in September 08, so maybe there are some other secret protective whizzy functions in there (now that would be worth paying money for). Alternatively, it might just mean that I'm taking things relatively easy and not overly worrying about it all.

My pace has improved over that time, from averaging 9:44 pace in October in averaging 9:08 pace now, all without doing very much new. However, my last run did include something new - I've started adding in some short 100 to 200 meter bursts of speed - something like a 7:30 pace - to see how that helps and to add in a little more interest to my regular circuits.

In terms of distance, I've really just kept it at 3 to 3.5 miles over winter, aiming for a weekly total of 10. And I've managed that in the main - a few weeks I've only done 2 runs rather than 3, but they have been the exception. However, I've now got a couple of goals in mind, the Stourbridge Stumble 10K in June of course - how could I miss that - and a half Marathon as part of the Wolverhampton Marathon in early September. With both these in mind, I'm increasing my circuit distances very gradually, starting Friday last week with a 4 miler.

As work has me in London for a couple of days each week, the weather is now a bit better and mornings lighter, I've started sampling the delights of running in some of Londons large parks. Last week was in Hyde Park and next week I've a run scheduled on Tuesday in Regents Park, which is pretty close to my hotel. All assuming that all-hell doesn't break loose early in the week with the impending G20 and its counterpart demonstrations.

Work. Just really, really busy. And it looks like remaining so for the next 9 months. On the plus side, this should see me through the worst of the recession. On the negative, it would be nice to get some respite from it all, having worked at a sustained higher pace - 22 months now - than ever before.

GTD and other fads. I'm still interested in GTD as a means to just trying to keep my head above water. I'm partly implementing it, but I know my rate of input of tasks exceeds my ability to complete those tasks. At least I have a better idea about which of the balls-in-the-air I'm letting fall. Blogging, sadly, has been one. I have replaced it to a degree with Twittering though. Got Steven Covey's "Seven Habits ..." as an Audible freebie about a month ago, and although I found the man's voice initially annoying, there's probably a fair amount I can take from those habits. I aslo found, strangely, that he was no longer annoying once I knew what he looked like. What's that about?

Current Podcasts listened to / watched (generally as an accompaniment to some other chore; driving, early trains, washing up ...):

• Dawn and Drew
• Phedipidations
• You look Nice Today
• Macbreak Weekly
• CryptoGram
• Robert Llewellyn's Carpool
• Mark Kermode and Simon Mayo's Film Reviews (my favourite)
• Friday Night Comedy from the BBC
• Rocketboom
• Running from the Reaper
• 4 Feet Running
• 43 Folders
• GeekbriefTV

Tech. Still hanging on to my old Palm 750V phone. It was a nice freebie from Microsoft and still does what I need it too, especially as I now am playing around with Evernote mobile and some Twitter clients. Still, a little under powered now. Lovin' my MacBook, which is now nearly a whole year old. Bought a second hand Canon 350D SLR off eBay a couple of months ago and am enjoying taking higher-def crappy photos with that. Some day, I will improve.

My iPod shuffle 2G remains a constant companion, but has started to act wierd with podcasts. It started putting them at the end of my playlist, rather than the start which is a real pain in the *rse - and no end of resetting and synching in different priority orders has worked. So, I'm listening to more music as a result and I think a replacement for my old 20GB iPod 4G brick may be in order, with a new Nano over the coming months.

Other. Need a new car, but am also saving for that rainy day - just in case. We'll just have to see whether the-right-deal emerges alongside the-right-finances. Am taking up sailing again this year and am looking for a 2nd hand Lark dinghy. Should be dusting off the wetsuit again fairly soon though.

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So, that about wraps this update up. I'll try to keep more up-to-date with your own goings on over the next few months.

Mr Stumble.

Leg Calibration.

First run with my Nike+ Sportband thing this morning. I have to say my experience with the thing has been a little mixed. When it arrived, there was of course that jolt of excitement about a new toy to play with. However the instructions that come with the thing are somewhat basic and it's one of my delights with new gear to eke out (perhaps geek-out) those hidden features from the manual - non of that joy here.

Essentially, the instructions are "install software", "stick unit in computer", "charge for a bit", "go take a run", "stick unit in computer". There's a bit on how to press buttons too, but it does look designed to be as idiot-proof as you can make something with 2 buttons. My Garmin is not idiot proof, as I've proved on more than one occasion.

I think my main complaint so far would be that it has no screen backlight, and the display - gold on black - is difficult enough to read under overcast skys 52°33´North, and impossible in the dark before sunrise. However, on the plus side, this does encourage you to just start it up and then ignore it, just to enjoy the running.

I also found that it's not a perfect fit into the USB slot on my Macbook - there is a small locating pin on the bottom of the recording unit that is used to lock it into the strap on your wrist, and this means it puts a bit of strain on the USB port unless you put a book underneath the computer. Minor niggle.

I always knew the thing would need calibrating, and I found that it was quite optimistic about distance. If I were 6'2" it would probably be right, but with my 29' inside-leg pins it was about 10% out for the run. The software allows some calibration, so I've told it that what it thought was 3.45 miles was actually 3.11. We'll see how it does with my next run. I suppose the alternative is to re-calibrate my legs somehow. Stilts?

The real bonus though is the completely automatic upload of the run data, which is what I wanted it for. That worked a treat, and the Nike+ site allows you to link a graphic for the run, and here it is:

So, on balance, now that I've used it properly and have some data captured, I'm very pleased with it. I'll probably post some more about it once I have a dozen runs with it under my belt.

Mr Stumble.

Erratic schedules

My job continues to take me up and down the country, so that running is getting a bit like a guilty pleasure. However, I am trying and now have a regular set of hotels in London, the various Radisson hotels dotted through London, and they all seem to have a gym with a treadmill.

I've been trying to run from home on Monday's and Fridays, and on the 'mill Wednesdays - and this worked for a few weeks, but my schedule has got more and more erratic since July, so I take what I can.

Keeping motivated has certainly been a problem. The main two things that are keeping me going are:

1) weight control - I managed to shed a few pounds in Nigel Runner's 10-in-10 challenge a couple of months back and I'm trying to keep them off.
2) I know that when I stop for more than a couple of weeks, the likelihood of crushing migraine attacks increases 10-fold.

So as I write this, I'm again in my hotel, and aiming to get 3 miles in tomorrow morning. And I've also just bought myself (via Amazon) a new gadget to try out - one of these Nike+ Sportband things. I always find gadgets are good for at least a few weeks motivation (simple mind, easily pleased) and I'm hoping that this one will also give me low-effort access to the Nike+ community, which itself acts as a sort-of running club/community thing.

And two more feet on Nik and Dan's Million Feet Running challenge can do nothing but help.

Mr Stumble

Update
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When I got to the hotel gym at 6:30 the following morning, I found it closed - they had the decorators in and it was full of paint buckets and dust cloths! Bah.

After March - 2008 Stourbridge Sumble.

Thanks for the prompt Phil. Almost every week since my last post I've thought "I really must update the blog" but the whole weight of time since my last post just got heavier and heavier. I'm sure only a couple of people will actually see this now, most having subscribed to stuff far more interesting and regular.

However, regardless of it's size, I have a duty to my audience to respond.

When I last posted, there had been no running, only training on the elliptical. I was beginning to get concerned about my ability to run my "signature race", the Stourbridge Stumble, a race I really have no real claim over, having only done it once and finished about half way down the pack. Still, it gave the blog a name and, to my embarrassment, if you search for Stourbridge Stumble in Google, I appear on the first page.

This must annoy someone.

Back in January or February, I had visited my GP and got a referral to a physio requested on the NHS. I was too shamed to use my medical insurance again for a self inflicted injury, so I just got on the list. March and April passed with no sign of an appointment and work more or less consumed me - although I did manage 3 times a week on the elliptical. The Stumble itself was scheduled for 14th June, so as May dawned, I hit the road to see if I could get some sort of form together in the 6 or so weeks to the race.

The first big change in my training is that I was to take set walk breaks whilst training to relieve the impact on my various ankle tendons. Initialy, I set out and run for 5 minutes and walked 1, quickly went up to 8 minutes and then settled at 1 mile run / 1 minute walk. In 2 weeks I was back to 4 miles and starting 2 miles run / 1 minute walk reaching 5 miles per run by the beginning of June.

Whilst training, I roped a collegue of mine, also called Andy, into doing the race. He has been running for around 8 months having been started on a get-healthy-kick by someone else we had both been working with. A group of us had been running on and off from a hotel we all used when we gathered for weekly project meetings. Andy happens to live on the edge of Stourbridge and fancied a go at entering and completig a 10K.

Meanwhile the longest I had managed to run before 14th June was 5.5 miles, so I can't say I was that well prepared, but I couldn't not run the race.

I met up with Andy and his family about 15 minutes or so before the race started and gave him as good an intro as to what to expect as I could remember. It wasn't long before we were trying to find the right position to start from - not too forward as to get our heals trodden on, nor too far back to get delayed by the few people who would be slower than us.

Then we were off, me trying to keep an easy pace at the start and ensure we didn't both burn it all up too early. Fat chance.

We covered the first mile, including a rolling hilly grass section in 8:46, about a minute faster than I had wanted, considering I knew I was going to pick up an injury. We were soon out into countryside and at a pace that allowed us to chat about stuff without too much difficulty finishing mile 2 in 9:47. The course rises up over miles 2 and 3 and the tracks are of rock and dirt, ocasionally through fields and across a golf course. Soon enough, we passed the half way marker having completed mile 3 in 9:57 and through mile 4 - the whole race meeting some people walking their dogs along a narrow country track - they weren't best pleased.

Then, having passed along a narrow downhill path with nettles on all sides we entered a bridlepath and suddenly our section of the race ground to a complete halt. A horse had been ridden out onto the bridlepath (despite the fact that about 80 runners had already just run past) and had promptly got panicked by a cohort of approaching neon clad mad people.

The lady riding had to then control the rearing horse and settle it enough to return to it's field, not particularily helped by shouts of frustration by some of the runners. Some harsh words and bad language was exchanged.

The delay here probably cost us about 2 minutes but I think my Garmin noted that we'd stopped and automatically stopped the clock, and we tried to make some of that time up, finishing mile 4 in 9:33. However, this is where things started to get unhinged for me as my right calf started cramping as we were waiting for the horse to turn around, and the increased speed only made it worse. A commented to Andy about this and then we just pushed on and I did my best to ignore the warning signals. This next section was a long uphill section, first along a muddy track in trees (last year there was a huge pool of water we had to clamber around - not this year) and then up the neverending sandy trail to the top of the course.

I kept us running and Andy just followed looking, there was no chatting now as this was the most difficult part of the course, and he later commented that if I hadn't kept running, he would have stopped and walked. I think I would have stopped and walked if Andy hadn't been there!

Finally we completed mile 5 in 10:20 and began the downhill return across the golfcourse and back into town. My calf really started burning as we went downhill and I hobbled on, somehow managing 8:44 for mile 6. As we got back to Mary Stevens Park Andy and I were shoulder to shoulder and I called to him to go for the line. I couldn't sprint this time (probably a good job) and came in 2 seconds behind Andy.

Out of 259 finshers, we placed 191 and 192 (joint with 3 others) in 59:08 and 59:10 respectively. My 59:10 beat my PB of last year, 59:36. So I'm pretty pleased with that.

As it happens, my physio appointment came through just before the race scheduled for the following week. So I took my new injured calf and sore tendons in for assessment and got some good advice, ultrasound therapy and stretches to do. My last appointment is schedued for Monday. Next year, I'll probably go get request a physio appointment again in March and I'll probably get it through in time to fix me up after the 2009 Stumble.

Having taken several more weeks off to repair my legs, I've now just about restarted running regularily in the mornings. this week, 3 x 1 miles on the local roads on Monday, on a hotel treadmill on Wednesday and planning a further 3 x 1 tomorrow from home.

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Well, having got all that off my chest, I'll try to post more regularily again. I've some Holiday photos from the English Lakes to post; it was overcast most of the time, but there are a couple of nice shots. And let you know how my autumn training goes. It'll still be with walk breaks but that's the best way I have to reduce the risk of injury, and keep me running more consistently.

Hope all is well with you.

Mr Stumble.

March

Bah. Leave a blog for a month and all these weeds start growing. Not a lot to report since my last entry. There has been no running, unless you count the half mile dash through Southwark to get to London Bridge tube station, only to find all trains out of London from Euston were cancelled. Very late home that day.

I've kind-of kept up with training on the elliptical. The past 2 weeks though have been not so good as I've been away on business (I did get one session in a hotel gym) and then the Easter holiday and the kids home. I restarted this morning and certainly felt that two weeks off plus chocolate eggs had taken their toll.

My Achilles remains not too good. I have been icing and stretching, especially over the past week, and got a doctors appointment last week to get yet another physio referral. The tendon still has some thickening, which I know has been reduced by ultrasound before, and still aches in the morning until it gets warmed up. We'll see how long an appointment takes.

On the home front, my five year old daughter has had an ear infection resulting in a perforated eardrum. A couple of weeks ago, I sat with her and told her I wanted to do a little test of her hearing, I'd whisper a number in each ear and she had to tell me what it was. I started with the good ear, the right one and whispered "eight". "Eight", she says straight away. I try again - "two". "Two", she says. Then I switch to the left ear. "Four". "I can't hear that", she says. I try again, "Nine". "I can't hear you", she says.

I start to panic. I go through a couple more, to each she says she can't hear what I'm saying. So I say to her, "You must tell me if you hear anything, because if you can't we'll have to take you straight to the doctors". She waits a moment then cracks a huge smile and says "I was only tricking you dad!" Total poker face all the way through. She can be so cheeky sometimes.

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We've been on a few local walks over the past couple of weeks - having joined the UK National Trust, we're working our way through as many places as we can get to. Certainly had our money's worth already! I'll grab some of the photos and post them up over the next week or so.

All the best.

Mr Stumble.

Elliptic Curve.

February already? Where does it go? Time for a quick status report.

Achilles injury: there is still a dull ache in the tendon in the morning before it warms up a bit from walking around. I can feel that there has been some thickening of the tendon, so it must have torn and now needs a bit of care.

This has meant I am still not running, but did buy myself a nice elliptical trainer off eBay a few weeks ago. This is now installed in my downstairs office and I’m now using it three times a week. The model I got is a pretty solid, robust monster, which thankfully folds up so it doesn’t block up doorways when not in use. It has generated some interest within the immediate family, and my son has had a brief go on it – he likes the display which tells him how fast he’s going – and D has even mentioned (in a non-committal don’t-even-think-about-pressuring-me kind of way) that she might give it a go once she is through her current spate of colds.

We have all had a series of colds over the past month brought in mainly by D from a local school where she does some volunteer work at the moment. Schools are just factories or pestilence, especially this time of year. The teachers tell her that after a few years you build up a resistance to it, but in the meantime we get everything that passes through that school.

So, the Elliptical is working out fine, and when I’m working away, I’ve found a hotel with a similar unit to maintain the schedule. Currently, I’m simply aiming to maintain a 30 minute session getting my HR to around 145-150. Two months off running plus Christmas had left me in a sorry state. And so far I'm keeping to schedule.

The first couple of sessions were not too easy. I managed to go for 10 minutes, then staggered off for some fluids and a short sit down before getting back on for another 5 minutes. but pretty quickly, within a week, I was handling 30 minutes of consistent exercise and was fiddling with the various settings. I tried a programme that sadistically increased the tension for the equivalent of 5 hills over the exercise period, and decided that it was too soon for that sort of thing.

Now having completed week 3 on the elliptical I've started racking up the tension a bit so I get an easy start and finish, and build towards a 5 minute section at a level 3 or 4, admittedly out of 8. However, it's fine for me, and as my very cheap HRM chest strap transmitter is magically compatible with the elliptical, I can adjust the tension as I improve to keep me in the right HR zone.

What else is going on? Just bought a big family tent and am planning a couple of camping excursions with the kids this summer. Looking forward to that! Ben doing a bit of walking. Got a couple of photos to share with you here.

A Spanish Chestnut tree near Croft Castle. This is one of a line of trees reputedly grown from nuts that came from the wrecks of the Spanish Armada in 1592.


Kingswood Park, near Kinver, Staffordshire.

Also, trying to get my life a bit more organised with this Getting Things Done thing. It does actually seem to be working for me (must add "do blog" to my todo lists though!) and am enjoying listening to Merlin Mann over at 43folders, who has an interesting take on all this.

Hope all is well with you.

Mr Stumble.

Review of 2007

2008 hasn't started as I'd hoped, what I'd hoped being with a nice refreshing run through empty streets. My ankle is still not up to the pounding, and I wouldn't be surprised now if this remained the case for another 4 to 6 weeks. Looking back at my last lay off, 8 to 10 weeks was the recommended time my physio advised me as needed to heal this kind of injury.

This said, I am now considering buying a elliptical trainer to sit in the corner of my home office. I might even use it. This would give me at least some means of running-like training, and prevent further decline. I shall be consulting my Financial Director (the wife) on this shortly.

Looking back over the past 12 months, it's been a mixed bag. My efforts don't really stand any comparison with many others I read about in the blogosphere. I entered a single race and broke myself. I recovered and got back on the road, then broke myself. And then went through the whole thing again in November.

However, I did really enjoy participating in the Stourbridge Stumble 10K, and so at least that is something for me to aim at again for 2008. A couple of 5Ks wouldn't be a bad thing either.

As far as what the stats say, this is what I pulled off RunningAhead.com earlier about 2007

Entries: 99
Distance: 306.0 miles
Duration: 48:22:17

So that's two solid days of running from the whole year, covering a distance equivalent to travelling from Trafalgar Square in London to the centre of Carlisle in the far North West of England. Almost corner-to-corner of England, using the shortest corners possible.

It would be nice to get into Scotland by this arbitrary means of measurement for the running year, 2008.

Thanks for sticking with me.

All the best.

Mr Stumble.

December Status.

It's Christmas Eve. 8:15pm. Youngest is in bed and might actually be asleep. She's had a busy day, culminating in being Mary at the children's Christmas mass this evening. Joseph didn't make it through the whole service as he was a bit under the weather. Poor lad.

The teens have now hijacked the telly. I finally feel I have a half hour to write my blog, which kind-of says something about the past 2 months.

It probably comes as no surprise that, in November, I managed to damage my ankle again, or more accurately, my achilles tendon. I know exactly why it happened. I've been sticking with a 3 mile course as it's been getting darker and darker in the morning, but familiarity breeds recklessness, and instead of taking it nice and easy, increasing distance gradually, I've been gradually increasing pace. Now this isn't to any blistering speed. It's increasing from around around a 9:40 pace to 9:0X or slightly sub 9, and not really on purpose. It felt comfortable.

However, however comfortable for heart and lungs, my brittle tendons can't handle it. The damage occurred on November 19th and I left it for 2 weeks. On 3rd December I tried again and it felt just as bad - and I was undoing any healing that had taken place. So I find myself on the wagon again, waiting for things to mend.

The consequences are, of course, rapidly declining fitness and I can't wait to be able to pick things up again. Other forms of training just don't fit in my life at the moment.

But I've not stopped. The spirit is definitely willing, and with RICE, the flesh will heal. I just wonder how many times I'm going to have to learn this lesson over pace! New Years day looks like a reasonable target to pick things up again, so I hope to be back with some reports about that shortly afterwards.

In the meantime, Merry Christmas to you all.

Mr Stumble.

Tada.

Hi. My name is Stumble and it has been 40 days since my last post. 40 days, it both flies and crawls by. Once again, all I can do is apologise for another long gap and hope to do better.

In the gap, I have managed to reach my 30 minute running target again. This was actually accidental, as my vague "don't push too hard" plan had me run walking for another week or two. However, on Friday 12th my head was in too much of a fog, falling out of bed at 6:00 to run through our now dark streets (as yours must be too!), and I just hit the start button on my Garmin without programming in my normal intervals - which should have been 3 x 12 minutes with a minute between.

Nope, on Friday I just started running, and when the little "haven't you run a bit far for 12 minutes" alarm went off in my head, and the stopwatch said 13 minutes, I just kept going, thinking Blondie had drowned out the alarm - I do crank up Hangin' On The Telephone - and would take a rest at 24 minutes. I was just having a giggle thinking how un-rock-and-roll I must have been looking whilst Steppenwolf was playing, when I noticed I'd passed 25 minutes and realised what I'd done.

So I just kept going again and watched for 3.1 miles to come up. Done. Milestone reached. Thinks: Should blog this.

As far as physical injury and pain goes - nothin' doing at the moment and I'm feeling great again. I think I'm now addicted to running just because I know how bad I feel when I don't run. Things pretty much fell apart after 3 weeks resting my hip, despite regular visits to my local swimming pool.

I don't have any events planned at the moment and this is something I might take a look at now. 5Ks seem to be a nice distance to have a go at, and I've another 8 months till the next "Stourbridge Stumble 10K", although they do have another event called the "Stourbridge Stagger", which might be fun. I'll find out about that and let you know.

In the meantime, I'm traveling a lot at the moment and really not enjoying treadmills in hotels at all, but they are a necessary evil right now.

Very much hoping to get back to reading and commenting on your blogs again.

All the best,

Mr Stumble
===============

Training:
Date    Distance    Time   Pace   Run:Walk
12-Oct-07    3.11 Mi    30:38   9:51   ----
11-Oct-07    2.99 Mi    29:15   9:47   12:1
05-Oct-07    2.84 Mi    25:11   8:53   8:1
02-Oct-07    3.1 Mi     31:00   10:00   8:1 treadmill
28-Sep-07    2.81 Mi    25:49   9:12   8:1
26-Sep-07    2.61 Mi    25:12   9:40   8:1
21-Sep-07    2.78 Mi    26:24   9:30   5:1
19-Sep-07    2.78 Mi    26:23   9:29   5:1
18-Sep-07    2.4 Mi     24:00   10:00   3:1 treadmill
14-Sep-07    2.56 Mi    24:00   9:23   3:1
12-Sep-07    2.14 Mi    20:00   9:21   2:1
10-Sep-07    2.1 Mi     20:00   9:32   2:1
07-Sep-07    1.76 Mi    16:39   9:28   1.5:1
06-Sep-07    1.75 Mi    16:51   9:38   1.5:1

Stumble, rebooted.

To those of you who have kindly chivvied me along and gently prodded me for more news from the House of Stumble over the past 6 weeks or so, thank you. And apologies for being so lax in my blogging. Very poor form.

As Phil pointed out, this should be more than just a running blog. I think I've established I'm more of a run-to-live person than a live-to-run person. I have certainly enjoyed the benefits of being fitter, and boy have I been paying in the past few weeks for loss of form.

So, since last episode, I've been on holiday again. This time, a week in the county of Devon in the South West of England, specifically in Dartmoor. We rented a lovely little cottage in the middle of no-where ...



... and had a week of excursions and walking on the moorlands and coast of the area. Such as Bellever, in Dartmoor



... and the beaches around Exeter and Dartmouth ...




This area is close to where my dad's family come from, so there was the chance to visit places I'd last been to 30 years ago with my Grandparents, now long gone.

So a good time was had by all and it was with some grumpiness that I returned to work on Monday morning.

However, before doing so, I got in my first run of my new season of running. And it was a very gentle run. As many of you know, I have a habit of breaking something by going out too hard and fast - and also then going entirely the other way and making painfully slow progress for fear of repetition.

I know that I'm more or less starting from scratch now after 6 weeks off, so I'm going to follow a C25K plan, starting off slow and then maybe taking a week or so off the whole plan as I start to get my legs back - we'll just see how it goes.

Monday morning, it was very simple 1 minute run, 1 minute walk for 20 minutes, just to get the measure of things. And they measured up OK. This completely back to basics approach might seem a bit extreme, but as I see things now, I've got plenty of time and no particular target other than simply to reach a point where I get a consistent 10 to 12 miles a week in for fitness. I might run an occasional 5 or 10k for fun, but only for fun - pushing myself only gets me into trouble!

So there we go, I'm back on the road again. Hurrah!

Mon: 1.1 whole miles, 10 minutes in 1 minute chunks with 1 minute walking.

All the best.

Mr Stumble.

Cumbria.

That perennial problem. What to write in a running blog when you aren't running. And of course, the longer you put it off, the bigger the mountain. Well here goes ...

For the past month I have been mostly:
- working
- driving long distances
- swimming
- going on holiday (aka vacation)

Work. My recent switch of jobs has taken a bit of acclimatisation. Despite the hokey phrase, no-one really hits the ground running when taking on something new and challenging. I prefer to think of it as hitting-the-ground-digging. So there's lots going on and this has resulted in the frequent long distances en voiture.

Clearly, with running banned I've needed to do some other sort of activity to try to maintain at least some level of fitness. So, I've been off down the local swimming pool a couple of times a week to get in 40 laps before breakfast. This has been OK although my work schedule has been preventing me from making 3 weekly visits up until this week, when Friday shall be #3.

Before I get onto holiday/vacation, I have now had my latest osteo assessment for may hip. The outcome is fairly positive, in that it seems most likely to be a ligament/muscular problem rather than bursitis and that the 4 weeks of rest put me in a good position to restart running in 2 or 3 weeks, these things usually taking 6 weeks to settle down and heal. I will be back to a very gentle re-introduction - it'll be another lengthy walk/run programme (won't that be fun to read about) but I am so looking forward to it. I've really missed having running as part of my life.

So, finally, the holiday photos. Last week we had the distinct pleasure of spending a week in Cumbria, the English Lake District. This is my absolute favourite part of the country but despite visiting many times in the past, I've never actually climbed a Lakeland Fell until last week. The photos here are of Cat Bells, off Derwent Water. It's a classic family climb with lots of people on the fell. We arrived in Keswick and took a motor launch across Derwent Water to Hawes End, at the foot of Cat Bells.



As we took the launch, this was our view of Cat Bells.



The route is to climb from the woods on the right hand side of the photo, up the first peak, across the ridge and then up the second peak

This photo is from about halfway up the first peak and shows my boots and a view across Derwent Water to Keswick on the far shore.



This is heading from the first peak to the second, across the ridge.



And finally, one of many views from the top. This looking North towards Bassenthwaite Lake.



I took this one late in the afternoon, after returning to Keswick.



If you've enjoyed these, I'll post a couple more from around Ullswater from later in the holiday.

Hope all is well with you!

Mr Stumble.

Stumble's end.

After struggling last week, I began this one hopeful that I'd put my injury troubles behind me and I'd take it gently while my bones healed up. Oh how wrong I was.

Monday was a great feeling 3 miler at a moderate pace, but Monday night, I couldn't sleep properly with the pain in my hip and sitting in the car for long distances has not been helping. I again left it till Thursday before trying again. The same 3 miles and again, everything eases up after the first mile so I'm almost not limping, but then I'm living off Ibuprofen.

On Thursday evening, we went to watch a local amateur production of an amateur production of Macbeth (that was the plot - I forget the real title!) which was essentially a farce and nicely done. At the interval, I was in such discomfort, I knew something had to be done, so I called the doctors magical-automated-appointment-system and got an appointment - the earliest available - for a week Friday! However, it was a start.

Yesterday, I called the doctor's surgery to moan about the wait. It turns out that they have a "bookable appointments" system for extremely un-urgent stuff, and then their normal daily appointments system for everything else. Being more urgent than extremely un-urgent, I got myself a same-day appointment, that very afternoon.

So, I go in and see the doc. He doesn't need to tell me to take a break from running - that's a given before I go in. The hip problem is not straightforward to diagnose, we agree on "dicky hip" (dicky being a very British term for "dodgy" or "not working properly) so I'm referred on to a hip specialist, for which I expect an appointment to materialise within 2 weeks. If not, then I'll be calling on my Medical Insurance once again.

Being on the Internet and thus having all manner of medical resources at my disposal, my own otherwise untrained diagnosis is bursitis. What started out as joint pain is now ligamentish and possibly muscular which might be bad. But hopefully, this will get sorted out with mainly rest and no high-impact activities. At worst, I'll have to get the bursa drained. Yummy.

So that's me done running for some time. I broke myself on the race I named myself after. I'm planning to do some swimming over the coming weeks to try and retain some fitness, but will need to balance this against the need to rest. In the meantime, I'll be reading the posts of all you fine running folk out there and feeling envious. And I plan to join you again in good time.

Mon: 3.16 miles, 30:32 minutes 9:39 pace. 11C HRAve:151 HRMax:162
Thu: 3.1 miles, 30:41 minutes 9:53 pace. 13C HRAve:148 HRMax:158

All the best.

Mr Stumble.

Getting hip.

Apologies to all for my dearth of entries for the past 2 weeks. I changed job on 1st July (in the same company) and promptly found myself travelling up and down this fair isle of ours, getting to know the inside of my car and the view along the West Coast train line more than I cared for. However, the interference with my running has only been minor from the job perspective, other things have happened ...

It was such a surprise how much my legs degenerated over just two weeks off. I knew that I'd need to take things easy, so on Monday (last week!) I set myself an easy 2 miles shakedown to see how things were.

Things seemed not bad' although my left hip still hurts after the 10k 2 weeks previously. So for Wednesday, I planned on a 30 minute easy run. However, on Wednesday morning, I found myself on a 3 hour car trip to Basingstoke with an early start, all day meetings then a dash back to chair the committee for the local scout group.

I finally got time to run just after 9pm and didn't want to loose the opportunity so headed out for my planned 30 minutes. My hip continued to ache for a mile or so and then settled down, but then at just over 2 miles, my right calf started cramping up. It was runnable, so I jogged home, but with little improvement by Friday, I ditched that run and iced and rested up.

I went to see my physio that Friday and she said to me "do you think you're not actually built for running ...?" but I dismissed this on the basis that nearly everyone I know as runners (that's you) run with pain at one time or other, and I've managed pain free before. The rest I took to help my ankle has simply shifted my aches and pains around. Its not going to stop me!

Monday came, so with the calf feeling twitchy but alrightish, I headed out for another easy 2 - a period of acclimatisation seeming necessary. With both hip and calf now giving me some pain, but not as bad as the previous Wednesday, I've started taking glucosamine as a supplement to try and help the hip and been doing more regular stretching to try and ease the calf.

I had planned to meet up with a local club run on Wednesday evening as an intro, but as I had another 6 hours in the car down and up the country, I wasn't back in time. I do think joining a club would be good for me, so it's on my list of things to do. Having left early and arrived home late, my Wednesday run got ditched. Thursday saw me back in London, but I got away at a reasonable time and managed a run after the kids were all in bed. This one was planned as another easy 2 miles to see how my calf was shaping up - hip pain being a given for the moment. With 2 miles under my belt and everything loosening up nicely, I added another easy mile on with no calf pain. I was very pleased with that and I think for the moment, 3 miles may stay my target distance whilst I try to get my hip sorted out.

If it's not one thing, it's another!

My ankle now feels a lot better and so my course of physiotherapy has stopped - I just need to take the time to get regular daily stretching in. Of course, if I end up back at my doctor with my hip and get a referral, it will be months again before I get an appointment.

Training for last 2 weeks.

Mon:2.1 miles, 20:05 minutes 9:35 pace. 13C HRAve:xxx HRMax:xxx
Wed: 3.22 miles, 30:01 minutes 9:19 pace. 13C HRAve:158 HRMax:168
Mon: 2.21 miles, 21 minutes 9:31 pace. 11C HRAve:135 HRMax:156
Thu: 3.03 miles, 29:06 minutes 9:37 pace. 16C HRAve:158 HRMax:177

Hope all is well with you!

Mr Stumble.

Waking from stasis

You couldn't say that its been a particularly dull week in the UK. New man in No.10, biblical floods and bombings at each end of the country. It's all go. I happened to be in London on Friday, and despite all the media's best efforts to tell me what was going on, I didn't know that anything had happened only a mile away from my meetings in the early hours of that morning, until I was reading the front page of the London Evening Standard belonging to the guy sat opposite on the train back home. Where I'd been, off the far West end of the Oxford Road, everything was business as usual.

Back at home, physio seems to be going OK at the moment and my ankle is feeling pretty good. The exercises I have now are a little odd - I have to stand on one foot (the bad one) and then dribble a soccer ball in a circle around that foot. I actually dribble an imaginary soccer ball as I'm so bad a football I'd only end up having to stop and fetch the ball every 10 seconds. Also, the only half-descent ball we have is in a shed defended by our new moat, courtesy of recent heavy rain.

I'm finding that the exercise really demonstrates how much my foot needs to re-learn about balance - it's been protecting the ligaments by shifting some of that work around, but the balancing on one foot exercise needs that ligament to do it's stuff. Hopefully it's starting to build strength again now.

My weight is currently down by 2 or 3 pounds on when I last ran. I guess this is down to to muscle atrophy effect Phil was talking about recently. I know I've lost a lot of what little form I had, and I'm needing more sleep at night now. Hopefully I can keep the weight off and get some fitness back over the next 2 weeks...

... because the good news is that my running starts again tomorrow morning. I plan a nice easy 2 miles shakedown and then probably a couple of 3 milers by the end of the week. However, nothing is set in stone as I don't know how bad things have got.

I shall once again be accompanied by Music as D and I bought each other iPods for our wedding anniversary this week. Tradition would have this as our "ivory" anniversary, but we feel that iPods are a much more environmentally acceptable and useful gift to give these days. Perhaps this will start a trend. "Save an elephant. Buy an iPod." You heard it here first.

The clippy arrangement works really well, so I'm very hopeful it won't fall of my shorts tomorrow.

Hope all is good with you.

Mr Stumble.

Stourbridge Stumble - Official results

It seems that official times were kept for the Stourbridge Stumble, I just hadn't noticed the timekeepers! Stourbridge running club published them a day or so ago, so I now have an official time:

59 minutes 36 seconds, placing 154 out of 203 finishers and 29th out of 39 in my category. This gives me a nice baseline PB to improve on in the coming months and years!

I had already planned to take a 2 week break following the race under instruction from my physiotherapist. This has turned out quite good for two reasons:

1) my left hip is not very well, I suspect because I overdid the finish in the race. It needs a bit of time to heal. My left calf also gave me trouble for a couple of days but has settled now.

2) we've had extremely wet weather over this week, especially in the mornings I would have been running. I don't mind light rain at all, but this has been the sort of rain which turns streets to rivers. It looks like this will run through to next week too.

So, in the meantime, I'm doing my stretches and ankle exercises and plan to hit the roads again on 2nd July, possibly with the start of a half-marathon training plan. After a lay-off, I know I'll need to keep things easy - but I have plenty of time ahead of me.

All the best,

Mr Stumble.

Mr Stumble Stumbles!

This week, I've mainly been taking things reasonably easy so I didn't get a blow-out to prevent me running The Stourbridge Stumble. On Monday, I ran an easy five and Wednesday an easy three and a half. Everything seemed to be ticking over nicely. What's more, I borrowed my wife's iPod shuffle which I have found really helpful. It's like when I run without music, all I can hear is that voice in my head moaning about the time of day, wouldn't it be better if I hadn't started out in the first place and why not make it a shorter run today. That voice gets drowned out with even the fairly low volume on the Shuffle.

Mon: 5 miles, 47:49 minutes 9:33 pace. 16C HRAve:141 HRMax:155
Wed: 3.67 miles, 33:51 minutes 9:14 pace. 14C HRAve:148 HRMax:166

I took the rest of the week off so as not to overdo things before Saturday.

Race day finally arrived! This particular race is run at 6pm, which means a lot of finding things to occupy yourself with through the day. Family life generally means that Saturdays are busy anyway, and this particular one also coincided with my eldest daughter taking a keyboard exam and then heading off for a sleep-over. The logistics of this meant I had no-one to come along to cheer me on or take photos, so apologies for the lack of any footage in this report!

This race is a pretty low tech affair. My number had already arrived in the post last week, so All I had to do was show up at the start line. No chips, nothing to sign in. Nada. The starting point was a big "START" banner strung between a couple of trees in a public park and I spent 15 minutes shooting the breeze with a bloke, talking about a possible 10K in September, at Enville, slightly closer to home. Then, the massed hoards - well about 300 runners - followed the starter up to the trees. There was a fair old mix of club runners from at least 4 local clubs, plus various unaffiliated folk like myself. I knew my target for this was somewhere just under 60 minutes so I lined up at the back.

The course was loosely described to me before we started. A hilly grassy start through the park, then local roads and then into countryside. It's muddy in parts and there are some sections on sand, which would probably be better this year than last due to the enormous amount of rain we've had here since Thursday. I really mean enormous - we've had areas flooded, railway sidings turned into canals, abandoned cars and everything. My own back garden resembled a swimming pool for most of Friday - we've never seen so much standing water out there.

Thankfully, although it had rained on and off through the day, it stopped an hour or so before the race, but surfaces were very wet.

Then we were off. The first section was fast, even though I was telling myself to keep the pace under control, but once you're with a bunch of people surging forward, you can't help keeping that pace. By the time we exited the park, I'd got some better control and was hitting around 9:30 pace. We had already settled into groups and once through some streets and onto an open field, I could see all the leaders streaming away into the distance. However, I was with some club runners, so I couldn't be doing too bad!

As we neared the end of mile 1, I passed some people struggling up a grassy hill before entering a very narrow section, very overgrown with barely any elbow room between the vegetation, and a lot of nettles! This was now trail running and there were gates to negotiate and then a road. Unfortunately, we had to stop for about 30 seconds as the marshals let through several cars who has waited for the leading pack to go past, but then we were off again and into more open countryside. Much of this was uphill work and we followed the trail past a water station and then along the edge of a wheat field. By this time, I'd passed a few more people as they slowed back and kept on the tail of a guy in black top and tights who pulled me up through the field. Once through there I was passed by a couple running and then followed them past the man-in-black. They then slowed their pace within a half mile and I spent the next mile as we headed into muddy trails switching positions with them.

However, the trail became a fair incline and was very slippery with inches deep churned up mud and no dry path. A lot of people in front started walking which allowed me to catch up and pass a few. I was refusing to walk any of this and just plowed on through mile 3 until I hit the pond at 3.8 miles. Here the trail went through a 20ft long puddle the whole width of the trail. All you could do was edge round the side or plow through the unknown depths. I edged, but lost some time doing so. Then another climb and onto a sandy path that steadily rose back up to the central high point of the course. That was just knackering, but again I passed 3 or 4 runners, keeping my stride short and moderating the effort.

Then we were at 5 miles and it was all downhill, returning along the sections we had already run. As we ran through the nettle-alley I joked with the guy in front about it and then the pace started to pick up again as we were back into the open field. There were three of us in this little group now, a guy in a blue top and a tiny lady in a pink top. Pink top had passed me as we exitted nettle alley and had pushed on 20 yards in front. I kept on Blue top's right shoulder and refused to let him get away. We stayed like that for a half mile weaving through some roads. At this point, I'd fully recovered from the hills a mile back and was feeling the best I had through the race.

As Blue and I increased the pace, we closed the distance on pink and then we were back in the park. 300 yards to go and I realised I had a load of gas still in the tank. I put the peddle down and passed blue and pink turning into the last stretch and sprinted for the line like I'd sat on a wasp. I don't think they tried to keep up!

At the line, I tried to read the "official" time which looked like 59:06. My watch made it 59:25, and I started my watch when I crossed the start line, a good 10 seconds after the leaders. Anyway, as my head was a bit fogged up, I'll use my clock time as I don't think I'll get an official time posted from the race.

Once through the shoot, I stopped to speak to the guy in Blue - Mick and shake his hand as really he'd paced me through the last mile. And then it was over.

Splits were (bearing in mind a lot of tree cover and some lost GPS)

Mile 1 9:13
Mile 2 9:57 (including a stop for traffic)
Mile 3 9:29
Mile 4 10:03 (including swimming alligator swamp)
Mile 5 10:29 (sandy hill climb)
Mile 6 8:48 (thanks Mick!)
final 0.2 1:23 (7:29 pace)



















All finishers got a commemorative horse brass, and this one is mine.

All in all, I really enjoyed the event and am looking forward to more over the coming months.

Mr Stumble.

Preparation.

Bit of a mixed week for me, this week. I had planned to try out running shorter distances more frequently, with a longer run on Friday in order to start building my base mileage up. Last week was a mileage peak for me as I had two 10K training runs in there, but this Monday, I was feeling the results of running too far and walking too many hills - things were a bit more of an effort.

When Wednesday arrived, I rapidly found a little tightness in my right calf had turned into a nasty knot. This didn't worsen any further, but meant I shortened the run for safety's sake and subsequently cancelled all further running to allow my calf to settle down. I'm more and more grateful for the endless supply of ice from the fridge/freezer we bought last year.

In the meantime, the physio appointment which I got referred to back in January/February finally came through. Actually the letter permitted me to call for an appointment, which is almost an appointment! Being a "mobile worker" and essentially flexible in the way I apply time to my job, it wasn't a problem to take a mid-morning appointment, and I was offered Friday 8th (just gone).

This appointment was for a ligament in my ankle from damage done way back last year, but that didn't stop me from talking about all the aches and pains I'd had since Christmas. With all the history taken, yet again, we settled on the likelihood that I had some residual scarring in the ligament, and so I'm back on a programme of more stretching, frequent ultrasound therapy and a likely short layoff (2 weeks) starting right after the Stourbridge Stumble 10K.

Speaking of which ... I sent off my race entry at the beginning of the week and on Thursday got my bib number and race instructions. This is all getting pretty exiting now! The course map is a bit hand written so I've not really been able to figure out the route on map-my-run. There are certain sections which I can see and one or two roads and features named (like "golf course") but the rest could be on marked roads or unmarked paths. The description does say "There is a short section of pavement/road but most of the course follows well marked country trails." I guess I'll find out next Saturday.

I'll be running for the benefit of my son's cub-scout group, for which I am a committee member this year.

Training for the week:

Mon:3.52 miles, 32:12 minutes 9:09 pace. 13C HRAve:153 HRMax:158
Wed: 4 miles, 38:00 minutes 9:30 pace. 5C HRAve:138 HRMax:150
Fri: rest up calf.

It looks like Wednesday wasn't much of a workout anyway, with my HR ave at 138. I suppose it is a sign of progress though.

For the coming week, I'm planning a 5 miler tomorrow, then 3.5 on Wednesday, two rest days and then the race on Saturday. I really don't want to break anything between now and then.

All the best,

Mr Stumble.

Harvington.

This is our cat, Spats.



As with most cats, Spats is inquisitive. This week, Spats decided that it would be fun to squeeze through a pretty slim drainage hole in the deck only to find she couldn't get out again. Cue deck disassembly. Of course as soon as she was out it was as if nothing had happened. "What, me! Get trapped? Nah. I could have got out any time I liked." Bah.

It's been half-term this week, so kids home from school and I took a couple of days off to herd them around. Not that this meant any holiday lie-ins of course as my youngest tends to get up between 7 and 7:30 so I try to get out running well before that to allow D more Zzzzz time.

On Monday, things were feeling pretty good so I set myself the 10K target I spoke of last week and set off. These longer runs are now starting to involve at least partial double-loops of my regular circuits and I now have a couple of these add-ins which put either a half or full mile on the end of a run, depending upon how well I've managed to estimate to mileage on the rest of my course.

Funny thing is that when I start the second loop, I feel so much better than when I go first time round. It's like, regardless of mileage, the second half always feels better than the first.

Anyway, I managed the 10K in 57 and a bit minutes and was quite pleased with myself, although my hips were feeling a bit sore. On Tuesday, we took the kids off into Wales to go climb a mountain. Well, walk up one anyway. This was Moel Famau, a 554 meter bump in the middle of a country park West of Wrexham, in the North East of Wales. From the top there were fantastic views over the coast and across to Mount Snowdon some 50 or so miles to the East. Snowdon is the highest peak in England and Wales, only Scotland having anything higher.

It was pretty blowy at the top with a couple of rain showers on the way up. However, we all had to alternate between T-shirts and 3 layers with waterproofs as we climbed, the weather being so changeable.

My eldest daughter was off at the Brighton Fringe Festival with her theatre group, so we had to get back for her being dropped off, and then got in a quick celebratory Chinese take-out; her successful show and our making it off the mountain alive. I should have learnt from last time though as my run on Wednesday morning was just rotten, and I struggled home after just 3.5 miles. It's time to cut out the junk!

On Friday, things were better and I got a second 10K in around the same route, although this too was more of a struggle than Monday. I'm considering now trying to run shorter distances more frequently, and having a longer run at the end of the week. Some juggling of schedules needed to achieve this though.

Yesterday, we all headed out into the countryside again, this time closer to home. I've found a website called Walking in Britain and dug out a walk near Harvington Hall, just outside Kidderminster, about half an hour's drive away. It said it was only 5.8 miles, but I think it was more like 8 and the kids (and wife) were all flagging after taking more than 5 hours to hack across some pretty overgrown countryside. Here's a few snaps from various parts of the trek.

Training for the week

Mon:6.21 miles, 58:20 minutes 9:24 pace. 10C HRAve:149 HRMax:155
Wed: 3.55 miles, 33:13 minutes 9:22 pace. 5C HRAve:150 HRMax:156
Fri: 6.21 miles, 59.06 minutes 9:32 pace. 10C HRAve:154 HRMax:158

All the best.

Mr Stumble.

The bust.

To get in my 3 run commitment this week meant running on consecutive days. I'd already run on Monday (previous post) but as Wednesday and Thursday were away days, this meant Tuesday and Friday would make up the numbers. Given my attempt at doing a 5K failed in the small print last week, I ended up sponsoring the wife of a colleague to do a similar event elsewhere in the country and setting up my own 5K course to have a go on Tuesday, and see what sort of pace I could maintain.

This turned out be a fun thing to do - I didn't manage to make myself feel too sick as I did the last time I tried running at a sun 8:30 pace, and it was good to have this sort of target to hit. I managed a 3.2 mile circuit (I had brain fade at the end and added 0.1 miles by failing to look at Mr Garmin in time) in 26:36, an 8:19 pace.

The other thing I wanted to do this week was to extend my running time to 50 minutes, regardless of the pace. I added in a couple of roads here and there to my normal route and came in within 30 seconds of my target end point of the run, a red post-box down the end of my road. This run came in a smidge under 5.5 miles, as is becoming usual, the first two miles felt clunky, mile three was OK although it's on concrete slabs for a good half mile, so uncomfortable, then mile four onwards felt just great. Plus it was in light rain which also helped with my temperature gauge.

The plan for this week is to extend out to 55 minutes, perhaps just tipping over 6.2 miles. This will be a milestone as it means I can run 10K, giving me 3 more weeks training for The Stourbridge Stumble to improve fitness. I know that 10K will be harder than on the roads as it is on track and grass, and not flat!

Training for the latter part of the week:
Tue: 3.2 miles, 26:36 minutes 8:19 pace. 10C HRAve:155 HRMax:167
Fri: 5.49 miles, 50:31 minutes 9:13 pace. 12C HRAve:163 HRMax:166

It does seem strange that my recorded average heart rate on the longer run was higher than shorter, faster run. I suspect that this has more to do with my cheapo HRM than what my heart was actually doing. Whilst on the train earlier this week, I calculated what my 70% and 85% heart rates should be: 144bpm and 163bpm respectively. These are using the "subtract your age from 220 ..." method, rather than having actually finding my maximum through genuine effort. I think this is pretty reasonable to work with for the moment.

Meanwhile back in real life, all sorts of things have been going on. My son now has a school to go to, it's all confirmed and the costs are covered. My daughter is off in Brighton with her theatre group, and they have a few performances of a show which the kids themselves developed and wrote. We get to see it when they get back, later this week.

Meanwhile, the house next door to my brother - the adjoining semi - was raided by the police on Friday. He lives a couple of streets away and I run past his place on most of my circuits. It turns out that this neighbouring house was a sizable hydroponics lab! It was one of several houses raided last week around our quiet suburban district which seem to have been purchased with the sole intent of growing cannabis. It's one way of paying the mortgage I suppose.

Thanks Phil for your comment on movies. Here's another bunch of favourites which nearly made the list:

I love "Delicatessen", especially the saw-playing scene, and when they are trying to find the squeaky spring in the bed! Then there's Twelve Monkey, Fargo, Brazil, Blues Brothers ...

I'll add on your suggestions to my Amazon rental account, always good to see new stuff. Mind you, Wizard of Oz always scared me as a kid - it was a regular X-mas movie on the BBC and the flying monkeys made me hide behind the sofa.

I'm a regular at the cinema, but this year has been slim pickings for good movies. Hopefully, things will pick up again second half of the year.

And finally for this post, I managed to leave my iPod Shuffle in my shorts, and so it's been for a swim in the washing machine. The initial prognosis is that I now have a 1GB memory stick. All of the bits which use the internal battery don't work. My daughter's Samsung mobile phone went for a similar swim two months ago, and after a lot of drying out, lived. However, it was fully discharged and switched off when it went through, something I can't say of my Shuffle. Bah.

All the best

Mr Stumble.

Prawn Crackers.

It has been a long week, and a while since I posted. In my defence, my time has been taken up doing a truck load of tech support, partly for my nephew's notebook PC which has been very ill, and more bizarrely for the local convent. Once you've done a favour for a nun, you're more or less in their grasp forever, even though they reimburse you with offers of cash or alcohol. Or both. They do appear to be extremely tax efficient in the dealings though!

The particular incident this week involved a nun of uncertain age (I wouldn't even hazard a guess) having been sold a laptop by a spotty teenager in a local PC World store. Of course, to the teenager, a new notebook running Vista is easy peasy, and installing Office 2007 a trivial matter. To Sister M.M. here, getting past the warranty card for some OCR software with the bundled scanner / printer was already too much. Too much information demanded which she simply didn't know how to answer. We started by ripping that card up.

I don't know about you, but I'm seeing more and more people getting left behind in the rush to "technologize" our lives, mainly because society (and a certain OS manufacturer in particular) has an expectation that everyone knows how to operate a PC.

Of course, in reality, most people don't really have anywhere near the level of knowledge to know how to protect themselves and their IT investment in the way they are expected to, and the elderly have an even tougher time because it is so far removed from the majority of the lives they have led. This isn't their fault. They want stuff which just works. You don't have to patch your dishwasher every week in case someone modifies the water in some nasty way which will turn all your plates pink and melt the cutlery. Really, if we need to use it, why should IT be different.

So, in the knowledge that in 30 years time, I'll be asking my daughter to do the same for me, I try to help out where I can.

Amidst all this, I did manage some running. I was actually aiming for a 5K racing being run this weekend (well, yesterday) as our previous plans for this weekend got altered, leaving an open slot. However, when I rechecked the small print, the "Race for Life - Telford" turned out to be a women only race, and there was nothing else doing within a reasonable distance. Aside from dressing up, I wasn't going to get past the start line. Sunday, also happened to be my birthday, so a busy day in other ways, topped off by a delicious and not-good-for-me Chinese meal. Plenty to run off this morning then.

Recent training has been:
(last week)
Mon: 3.37 miles, 31:14 minutes 9.16 pace. 10C HRAve:X HRMax:X
Wed: 4 miles, 37:00 minutes 9:14 pace. 9C HRAve:151 HRMax:X
Fri: 4.2 miles, 38:14 minutes 9:06 pace. 12C HRAve:X HRMax:X
(this week)
Mon: 4.85 miles, 47:49 minutes 9.52 pace. 8C HRAve:145 HRMax:157

Those prawn crackers really did slow me down this morning, but then again, my target this morning was just to run for 45 minutes and then jog back home. As I'm travelling on Wednesday, I plan a short run tomorrow morning and then to pick it up again on Thursday with a 50 minute run at just under 10 minute pace.

I'm aiming to get up to around 6.5 miles in the next couple of weeks and then work on improving pace to get a 10K practice time under 60 minutes. The race I'm aiming for is this year's Stourbridge Stumble on June 16th. This is a multi-terrain race and not flat, so I expect my pace will be more like 10:30 on the day. We'll see eh!

Hope all is well with you.

Mr Stumble.