Journal Entries
Another Wild Weekend of Sport.
Posted Apr 4, 2006
Last weekend my girlfriend came to see me here At my parents’ house. She arrived Friday evening early enough that we could dash out to the cinema. Once again we went to the Electric (that place I was enthusing about early in March). This time we saw Transamerica which is the story of Bree, a pre-op, male to female, transsexual. Bree, played by Felicity Huffman (who is apparently in Desperate Housewives), is facing something of a crisis when he/she discovers that he/she has a son, Toby. Toby, has been working as a rent boy and has been arrested and Bree travels to New York to bail him out. Unable to tell her son the truth, Bree claims to be a missionary from a church and agrees to drive Toby to L.A. where he is hopeful of building a career in the movies. Along the way Bree’s carefully constructed lie begins to come unravelled and Toby eventually discovers the truth.
Though Transamerica is certainly an original film, it trades on more than just the quirkiness of the story. There are some truly funny and also quite touching moments, such as the closing scene when Bree takes the cap off a bottle of beer when Toby can’t manage himself. But the most impressive aspect of the film surely has to be Huffman’s performance. Since seeing the film I’ve seen pictures of Huffman in Desperate Housewives and it’s genuinely difficult to believe it’s the same person. But there’s more to it that just badly applied makeup, sensible shoes and women’s institute dress sense, the way she walks and talks and behaves actually has you believing that you’re watching a man on the verge of becoming a woman (rather than a woman pretending to be a man on the verge of becoming a woman). I find it not at all surprising that she was nominated for an Oscar and won a Golden Globe for this role.
I think the Electric Cinema is rapidly becoming a favourite of ours. One of the coolest things about Friday evening was having at least one transsexual/transvestite in the audience with us. Somehow I can’t see that happening in an Odeon.
On Saturday we didn’t really do much. We got up late and watched the World Cross Country Championships in Fukuoka, Japan. Kenenisa Bekele was simply awesome, winning both the men’s short (4km) and long (12km) courses without looking like he was even trying. This means he has now won both races five years in a row, equalling Paul Tergat’s record. The British didn’t really feature with the exception of 17 year old Sian Edwards who put in an impressive performance by finishing 10th in the junior women’s race, the top placed European. Apparently this is the best result for the British team since Paula Radcliffe won the race in 1992.
After that I was inspired to go out for a swift run myself before cooking dinner. My girlfriend and I made gnocchi and Bolognese sauce for my parents. I’ve never made gnocchi before, but have always wanted to know how and since we didn’t really have anything else to do we thought we’d give it a go. It was quite a lot of trouble, but turned out okay for a first attempt. It was a bit heavy for my liking and I think the recipe needs a little refinement (we may have put a bit too much flour in) but we’re considering it a work in progress.
On Sunday we got up late again and this time watched the Australian Grand Prix which was another cracking race. I’m becoming a big fan of the new qualifying system, and if, as hinted by the commentators, they tweak the rules slightly and have the final session on low fuel loads like the first two rounds it’s only going to get more exciting.
This time around there was some controversy right from the outset when Yuji Ide spun his Super Aguri onto the racing line and the session had to be stopped while he found reverse gear! Later he managed to get in the way of Rubens Barrichello costing him vital time on his flying lap and causing him to be eliminated, only qualifying 17th, especially annoying for Barrichello since his Honda team own the Super Aguri outfit. In the second session Felipe Massa spun out in his Ferrari earning himself a pitlane start and causing qualifying to be suspended for the second time. As if that wasn’t excitement enough, a short rain shower at the end of the session ruined a few flying laps and resulted in Michael Schumacher failing to make it into the top ten. After an action packed thirty minutes, watching the top ten cars parade around for fifteen laps in the final round, was a something of a welcome relief. Aside from an inspired drive from Jenson Button to earn him pole position there were no real surprises, with the main players (Giancarlo Fisichella, Fernando Alonso, Kimi Räikkönen, Juan Pablo Montoya et. al.) all lining up close behind him.
The race itself proved no less exciting. Predictably Jenson didn’t hang on to first place for very long, but it wasn’t entirely his fault. There were no less than four safety car stints during the race and for whatever reason the Honda doesn’t hold heat in its tyres well at the low speeds behind the safety car and Jenson kept getting passed at the restarts. Once again there was drama right from the outset. Firstly Montoya spun out on the formation lap and was left at the back of the grid, but luckily for him Fisichella stalled on the grid and a second parade lap allowed him to retake his grid position. When the race finally got underway it didn’t take long for further excitement to manifest itself. In the first corner of the first lap Massa buried his Ferrari in the back of Nico Rosberg’s Williams; Jarno Trulli also managed to put himself out of the race by bouncing his Toyota off David Coultard’s Red Bull. The safety car was on track for a handful of laps and cold tyres meant Button lost the lead to Alonso at the restart. The cars had only been at race speed for four or five laps when Christian Klien drove into a wall and the safety car was deployed again. Once again in the restart cold tyres meant Button again lost out, this time to Räikkönen. Button then lost further places during the pit stops and finally put the icing on the cake of a perfectly dreadful race when his engine blew up, forcing him to retire from fifth place just yards from the line. There were two other safety car stints, as a result of crashes by Michael Schumacher and later Tonio Liuzzi in the Toro Rosso car, which led to more jockeying for position at the restarts. The final result wasn’t especially surprising with Alonso and Räikkönen occupying the top two steps of the podium and Alonso never looked like loosing the race after the first lap. But nevertheless it was a thoroughly entertaining afternoon.
Well that’ll have to do for now. I don’t have much on the cards for the next couple of weeks. I’m going to get my head down and write until Easter when my parents are going on holiday and my girlfriend is coming over again for a few days. It would be nice to relax for a couple of days without feeling guilty.
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Latest reply: Apr 4, 2006
In Cold Blood.
Posted Mar 29, 2006
I just got back yesterday from another weekend in Bath. I caught my usual train and my girlfriend met me at the station when I arrived. We crammed in a quick lunch in town and headed up to campus for the afternoon. Friday evening was mostly spent polishing shoes and ironing shirts in preparation for the wedding on Saturday. It was fortunate that one of my girlfriend’s housemates had some of her friends over for the weekend. She’d cooked a huge vat of really tasty curry (a Nigella Lawson recipe I believe) and invited us to eat with them saving us the trouble of defrosting something for ourselves.
The wedding on Saturday was really lovely. I like weddings and this is the first one I’ve been to in ages! The whole day was at a place called Priston Mill, an 18th century barn that has been overhauled and renovated to convert it into a venue for private parties (mostly weddings I think) and corporate entertainment. The building was really pretty and, given the weather, it was nice to be able to stay in one place for the whole day.
The ceremony was very nice. It was quite short and functional as is the case with civil ceremonies in my experience, but there were a couple of nice readings which were really appropriate for the couple added a personal touch. Afterwards we were all well fed at the wedding breakfast and enjoyed ourselves dancing until late. There was an impressive fireworks display as a surprise at about ten o’clock and after that we all enjoyed bacon and sausage baguettes (a brilliant touch in my humble opinion).
On Sunday I got up late and went for a long run, then relaxed for the afternoon before going out for dinner to celebrate our “sort of” anniversary (it’s “sort of” complicated). We’d planned on going to one of the remaining new Italian restaurants in Bath (if you can still call them new) that we haven’t been to yet, strangely they were closed on Sunday and Monday, but we ended up having a lovely meal at a Thai restaurant instead.
I stayed over for an extra day so that I could pop into the department on Monday and speak to my boss. I feel like I’m loosing my way a little with my thesis and I needed to bit of a chat (and something of a kick up the backside) to get myself motivated again.
Anyway, since I was around for an extra evening we decided to go to the cinema. We saw Capote with Philip Seymour Hoffman. The film focuses on the seven years of the author Truman Capote’s life while he researched and wrote In Cold Blood, the last novel he ever completed. For anyone who doesn’t know (and having not read the book, I didn’t really know) In Cold Blood is about the gruesome murders of the Clutter family in Kansas in 1959. Capote researched the book religiously and had extensive interviews with one of the killers, Perry Smith.
Hoffman’s performance is brilliant. Aside from the obvious challenges of the role, the almost cartoon voice and the fact that Hoffman is far taller than Capote (dealt with by the magic of modern special effects), Hoffman plays a wonderfully understated Capote. Everything from the way he holds a martini glass to a simple gesture while telling a story at a cocktail party is precisely carried out. I’ve long been a fan of Hoffman as an actor and this movie only serves to reinforce my esteem.
The portrayal of Capote is also admirably candid. It is often touching to see him empathising with and even befriending the killer Perry Smith, but it is made clear, though it is not forced down our throats, that Capote is really only interested in writing his novel and will exploit and lie to his “friend” to get to the truth. There is a wonderful scene where Capote, who is quite drunk, complains to his friend and research assistant Nelle Harper Lee (of To Kill a Mockingbird fame) that he is unable to finish his book because the story doesn’t yet have an ending. He means of course that he has almost the entire story, but the book cannot be finished until the two killers are executed. He describes the wait as torture, much to the disgust of Lee. Later, when Smith requests that Capote be present at his execution because he wanted to have a “friend” there, it is only after being bullied and cajoled by Lee that Capote eventually capitulates.
The director allows a small explanation of Capote’s behaviour towards Smith. The real turning point in their relationship, when Capote all but abandons Smith, comes when Smith finally reveals the details of the crime, though whether Capote shuns Smith because he was sickened to hear that Smith was truly guilty of the horrific crimes or simply because he had outlived his usefulness is left up to the viewer to decide.
Nevertheless the film’s epitaph relates how deeply affected Capote was by the experience of writing In Cold Blood. He never completed another book and descended into alcoholism and drug addiction and eventually died from a drug overdose. The implication is that he never quite managed to get over the guilt he felt for wanting the two killers to be given the death penalty.
Capote is an excellent film albeit mostly because of Hoffman’s outstanding performance which is entirely worthy of the Best Actor Oscar it earned him.
I got back to West Bromwich yesterday afternoon. There’s only a handful of days until next weekend when my girlfriend will be coming here for a few days so I’m going to try and get my head down and get some work done in the next couple of days.
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Latest reply: Mar 29, 2006
Bath Half Marathon 2006.
Posted Mar 22, 2006
Last weekend was Bath Half Marathon. I hadn’t taken this race quite as seriously as I did Bristol last year. I mentioned in my annual summary a couple of months ago that I wanted to run a full marathon this year. I’ve entered Cardiff Marathon in October and for the last couple of months I’ve been tuning my training towards longer runs and more endurance work. I still wanted to do well at Bath though because I still consider it to be my “home race”. But if I’m honest I didn’t rest up enough in the week preceding the race. I did a handful of short fast runs in the early part of the week and I don’t think I really gave myself enough opportunity to recover.
On race day itself it was warm, but quite windy, especially heading back into town (down the Lower Bristol Road for anyone who knows Bath) and on both laps I found myself running on my own into a strong wind with no other runners to shelter behind. I also made the mistake of starting off too quickly and paid for my exuberance in the second half of the race. I really should have known better, after all this was my 6th half marathon and my 3rd at Bath.
Still despite these “mistakes” I managed a respectable time of 1:16:18, only about a minute slower than my personal best at Bristol last year, and I finished 56th, which puts me well into the top 1%. I’m pleased with the time, but a bit annoyed at myself for not being more sensible with my preparations and for not running a sensible even paced race. I feel that I could have done better. Still there will always be another race. I already have an entry for Bristol Half in mid September, which will hopefully set me up nicely for Cardiff the following month, and I’m going to keep my eyes open for a small local half marathon during the summer.
Aside from the race, I had a pretty lovely weekend. I arrived in Bath early in the afternoon and almost instantaneously was whisked away to the pub with everyone else to celebrate with one of the girls in my year who had passed her viva that morning. As usual I wasn’t drinking, but loads of people came out of the woodwork to celebrate and it was nice to catch up with everyone. The guest of honour got horribly drunk and had to be taken home early, so my girlfriend and I, both a bit too sober, had an early night as well.
Saturday was spent shopping. We’re going to a wedding this weekend and my girlfriend still hadn’t got the jacket she needed for her outfit. Knowing we were short of time, we were ruthlessly efficient, storming through clothes shops like a crack commando unit. We were so efficient in fact that I even had time to get my hair cut and buy a tie as well. Ironically we ended up getting the jacket we’d seen a couple of weeks ago, but at least we knew it was the nicest one in the whole of Bath.
After shopping we had a quiet evening in with some good food and a movie and another early night to be ready for the race. While we were asleep the Commonwealth Games Marathon was running in sunny Australia. I remember mentioning a guy called Dan Robinson who won the Victoria Park race at the beginning of November last year and saying that he was going to be running in Melbourne. Well he managed to win the bronze medal so now I can say I raced against a Commonwealth Games bronze medallist.
After the race, Sunday afternoon was spent relaxing and recovering, me from my physical exertions and my girlfriend from the bitter wind she had to endure for an hour and a half while cheering me on. But my girlfriend’s housemates were both away so we had the place to ourselves. We crashed out in front of the Grand Prix and had an amazingly decadent fondue lunch.
I made it back to West Bromwich on Monday afternoon and had a nice surprise when my granddad phoned me to tell me he was getting a new car on Thursday and to ask if I would like to have the old one. I said yes please and so tomorrow I shall be the proud owner of a 1996 998cc Nissan Micra. I haven’t owned my own car for about for years so I’m quite excited.
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Latest reply: Mar 22, 2006
Bahrain Grand Prix.
Posted Mar 13, 2006
Another weekend over, time for another journal entry. This weekend is the first of three in a row that I shall be spending in Bath. I managed to get out of bed at a reasonable time on Friday morning and had a steady hour's run before I caught the train. I got to Bath just about lunchtime so my girlfriend met me at the station and we went for lunch in a pub in town. Went spent the afternoon in the chemistry department, though I hardly did anything except chat to people I haven't seen for a few weeks.
On Saturday my girlfriend had a dance competition (the nationals no less!) and she had to get up really early in the morning to drive to Surrey. So we had a quiet evening on Friday and an early night. I got up fairly early myself on Saturday and went for a gentle run then spent the rest of the day working and watching sport on the television.
My girlfriend didn’t get back until about three in the morning so she was pretty exhausted when I dragged her out of bed before eight on Sunday morning so we could go to the last Team Bath 10K race. But it was the last race in the series and I was fairly confident of holding onto third place in the overall standings. Imagine how annoyed we were when we got to the Sports Village on the university campus only to be told that the race had been cancelled due to the weather. It had snowed a bit during the night, but I couldn’t see how they could describe it as “dangerous.” They’re going to judge the series on the results of the first three races which I think means I end up with third place since the guy I was tied with has beat me in two races and I’ve only beaten him in one. This is pretty much what I expected to happen, since the guy would most likely have beaten my on Sunday anyway, but I would have liked to have at least been given a chance to race him for it. Disappointed, we went back home, ate the post-race picnic lunch we’d planned and then my girlfriend took a nap for a couple of hours while I spent a disgruntled eighty minutes trail bashing to make up for not racing.
This weekend also saw the start of the 2006 Formula One season with the first race in Bahrain and since I don’t have a 10K road race to write about I’m going to rattle on about that for a bit instead. The have been rule changes aplenty this year so I was interested to see how things went in the first race. Tyre changes are back (no bad thing in my opinion after the debacle that was Indianapolis 2005) which means softer compounds, better grip and faster cornering speeds. To counterbalance this, the engines have been scaled down from 3.0 litre V10 to 2.4 litre V8s (supposedly a drop of around 200bhp if that sort of thing floats your boat). There is an exception to this rule. Low budget teams were allowed to apply for special exemption allowing them to use a restricted V10 engine. The problem is that the engines aren’t necessarily as restricted as they should be. And in any case a V10 running at far lower revs than it was designed for is surely going to be enormously more reliable than a V8 would up so tight the elastic bands are on the verge of snapping. Last year the Minardi team applied for and obtained such an exemption. They were then bought out by Red Bull who are currently exploiting this “advantage” to the maximum. After all it’s not like Cosworth don’t have a V8 engine if Torro Rosso want to use it (it seems to be working very nicely in the Williams this year) and it’s not like Red Bull couldn’t afford to by a couple of these should they need to.
But perhaps the most significant alteration to the regulations is the changes made to the qualifying system. Gone is the boring one lap qualifying of 2005 and instead there’s a three part knockout bonanza! When I first heard about the new qualifying system I thought it sounded like fun, but I didn't quite appreciate the details of how it all worked. The basic idea is that the qualifying "hour" is divided into a three parts. In the first fifteen minutes all twenty-two cars will be out on the track. They can run as many laps as they wish with whatever fuel they desire, it's something of a free-for-all and clearly traffic is going to be an issue. When the fifteen minutes are up the first part is over. If a car finishes a lap after the fifteen minutes has expired then that lap will not count, this is in contrast to older qualifying systems where maestros like Michael Schumacher or Ayrton Senna would cross the line to start their final lap with seconds left on the clock and complete their flying lap with no other cars on the track to distract them. After the first fifteen minutes the six slowest cars are eliminated and occupy the lowest six slots on the starting grid. There is then a five minute break and in the second fifteen minutes another six cars are eliminated. Any of the cars eliminated in the first two sessions may carry whatever fuel they wish for the race. Then, after a further five minute break, the real fun begins. In the final twenty minutes the remaining ten cars battle for the top ten grid positions. Just to make things a bit more confusing, this time when the twenty minutes have expired drivers are allowed to complete the lap they are currently on. Also the cars must begin this last session with the fuel they wish to carry at the beginning of the race. But as the twenty minutes tick away and the cars post more and more laps they will get lighter and thus faster. The fuel they use in these last twenty minutes will be replaced before the race. The final consideration is that if a car crashes out at any point during qualifying then it will be recovered to parc ferme and that driver will play no further part in qualifying.
In practice qualifying was generally fun to watch, but a bit strange at times. Kimi Räikkönen trashed his McLaren in the first fifteen minutes (a pretty spectacular suspension failure), Kimi was eliminated and would thus start from the back of the grid, and the clock was stopped while debris was cleared from the track. By this time plenty of cars hadn't yet posted a time and they all had just enough time in the last four and a half minutes to post one fast lap. Nineteen cars jockeyed for position in the pitlane before the clock restarted and then fought like a pack of wild dogs on the track. And all of this was just to ensure they got into the top sixteen grid positions. After all that drama the second session was a bit more sedate. But the final twenty minute session was the most bizarre of all. For fifteen minutes the remaining ten cars paraded round burning as much fuel as possible, then darted into the pits for a new set of tyres before driving their socks off for one last lap. I can’t complain though, I haven’t had as much fun watching a qualifying session in years.
And the race itself didn’t disappoint either. The first race of the season is always interesting to watch. You’re never sure how successful the teams have been developing their new cars during the winter break. And these days there always seems to be a whole bunch of rule changes for them to cope with so it’s never just a matter of refining last year’s design. Also there’s usually a rookie or two stalling on the starting grid generally getting in the way when getting lapped or even barging one of the established drivers off the track at some critical moment (hell, Takuma Sato still does that and he’s got two seasons under his belt). Add to this the general confusion when a handful of teams get bought out or just get bored with the same old colours and change their livery so you can’t recognise who’s who anymore. This year it’s particularly bad, Red Bull are now running two teams (the second of these is imaginatively called Torro Rosso) and they’ve cleverly painted them almost exactly the same and it wasn’t until one of the “restricted” V10 Torro Rosso cars grunted it’s way past a standard V8 Red Bull that the subtle differences were apparent. The BMW Sauber looks spookily like last year’s BMW Williams, which we might be able to get our heads round if this years Williams Cosworth didn’t also look quite a lot like last year’s Williams. Best of all the Midland team (who used to be Jordan) have decided to paint their cars almost the exact same colours as the McLaren. Luckily these cars will be occupying opposite ends of the grid so there shouldn’t be too much confusion.
Bahrain is usually good fun to watch, it’s one of the new crop of circuits designed by Herman Tilke which means overtaking, and this year was no exception. The start was fairly clean. Jenson Button managed his usual trick of qualifying well (3rd) then throwing it all away with a start my grandmother would have been embarrassed about. The only real casualty of the start was rookie Nico Rosberg (Keke Rosberg’s son) who had an altercation with Nick Heidfeld in the first corner of the first lap and got his nose cone knocked off. Other than that the top drivers more or less maintained their grid positions and Michael Schumacher led Fernando Alonso for the first few laps. Alonso narrowly avoided an incident with Felipe Massa who’s Ferrari seemed to materialise out of nowhere and flew past Alonso sideways. All was fairly quiet until the second round of pitstops when Alonso, having stayed out for a critical few laps more than Schumacher, snatched the lead by the narrowest of margins. Though Schumacher didn’t give up, Alonso hung onto the lead and went on to win the race. Räikkönen made an impressive comeback by fuelling his car up to the gills and turning in a solid drive on a one stop strategy which eventually netted him the last spot on the podium (though he looked as miserable as ever collecting his trophy). Jenson managed 4th in the end which was probably what he deserved. The most impressive drive though, had to be Rosberg. After his incident on lap one he kept his nose clean and steadily worked his way through most of the field to eventually finish a very respectable 7th, on the way he set two fastest laps and sprung an inspired overtaking manoeuvre on Christian Klien in the closing laps. All in all an exciting race weekend. I’m counting the hours until Malaysia next weekend.
I’m hoping this week is going to be fairly quiet. It’s Bath Half Marathon next Sunday so I’m going to try and be gentle with myself and take it easy with the training. Apparently it’s good to take an easy week about one a month to give yourself chance to recover and there’s no way I’m going to be able to run a respectable half marathon if I turn in a week of training like the last couple of weeks. I’m really not sure what sort of shape I’m in currently (which is another reason why it would have been nice to race on Sunday) I’m not sure I can duplicate my time at Bristol last year, but I’d still like to put in a respectable performance at Bath next Sunday.
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Latest reply: Mar 13, 2006
Living for the Weekend.
Posted Mar 6, 2006
I guess it’s been a while since I’ve written anything, but not much really happened last week so it didn’t seem worth the effort. Anyway, my girlfriend came over for the weekend which was really nice so I think I’ll write about that.
She arrived on Friday night and we ate dinner with my parents then went out to the cinema. We drove into Birmingham to a movie theatre called The Electric Cinema. It’s a lovely little independent cinema a bit like The Little Theatre Cinema in Bath. They only have one screen so you have to watch whatever film they happen to be showing, but from the looks of their programme, they usually have pretty good movies on and change them regularly.
I’ve never been there before, though I must have walked past it a thousand times. It’s a pretty unassuming building on the outside, but inside it’s really gorgeous; the décor made me feel like I was in a 1950s cinema. They have a fully licensed bar (they even do cocktails!) and you can take your drinks into the movie with you. Best of all though, they have sofas at the back which you can book (£20 per couple) and watch the movie in real style and comfort with waiter service (via text message) so you don’t even have to leave your seat if you run out of popcorn.
It was a really cool little place and we’ve resolved to go back as often as we can and maybe if there’s a special occasion we might even splash out and have one of the sofas.
Anyway, back to the movie. Showing of Friday was Syriana, with George Clooney and Matt Damon, a complex story of corruption and espionage in the oil industry. The plot is hugely complicated and I confess I kind of lost track of some of the intricacies at times. I felt I missed some of the subtleties and would actually like to see it again for that reason. Maybe the filmmakers took on a bit too much in trying to capture the entire spectrum of politics behind the story and at times the movie felt fragmented and disconnected, or maybe I just wasn’t paying enough attention, but nevertheless it was an engaging and interesting film.
On Saturday my Mum wanted to get the family together for a meal so my brother and his girlfriend and my two nephews came over for the day. They got here before lunch so we all went for a walk round the local nature reserve in the afternoon and then had dinner together. My girlfriend and I made an easy trifle as our contribution to the meal. It was really nice to spend a whole day with them. My eldest nephew is now six and my Dad found out some of my old toys for him to play with which was nice to see.
On Sunday we had a bit of a lie in and had pancakes for breakfast (alright lunch) then went to the NEC for the Destinations travel show. My girlfriend is lucky enough to be going to a conference in Mexico in early June and will be turning the trip into a bit of a holiday. If I’ve managed to get myself gainfully employed by then, then I might be joining her out there so we went to the show to get as much information about Mexico as we could and figure out where she (or we) would like to go. While we were there we obviously picked up loads of brochures about every country we’ve ever wanted to go to and spent the afternoon dreaming about holidays and working up some real wanderlust.
At the exhibition they also had loads of demonstrations, everything from Tai Kwan Do to Salsa dancing and they had a display of travel photographs which we spent some time looking over. We also took advantage of the last day sales and returned to my parents’ house loaded down with cut price Danish pastries and apple strudel.
My girlfriend decided to stay over for an extra night so we spent a nice quiet evening last night in front of the television. We watched the new BBC wildlife documentary Planet Earth which was quite, quite stunning. But we made sure we got an early night because we had to be up early so she could drive back to Bath this morning.
After my girlfriend left I went for a really long run and have spent the rest of the day in a bit of a haze. I’ve decided to start focusing my running towards Cardiff Marathon in October so I’m trying to get some heavy mileage in over the next few months including some weekly long runs stretching out towards 20 miles. I’ve covered about 150 miles over the last couple of weeks which is apparently a reasonable average for a marathon runner. I have the last in the Team Bath 10K series on Sunday and I’m expecting to be pretty tired so I’ll be interested to see how things turn out. Then the following week is Bath Half, so I’ll probably have an easy week leading up to that.
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Latest reply: Mar 6, 2006
Evil_Duncan
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