A year ago, pretty much to the day, I came on here whining about how I'd managed to morph my physique into a giant, pink, vaguely human shaped blancmange. I sat here and looked you all in the eye (screen) and told you I was going to change, everything was going to be different.
Funny, huh?
Here we are, another year gone. Another whizz around that fiery orb and the earth is back in the same spot and I'm still mushrooming out of the top of my trousers, needing a coffee break between shoe laces. I still feel like I've been badly sewn together from the contents of a hospital dustbin. I'm still annoying my wife...mind you, I never resolved to stop doing that, not even two-and-a-half bottles of red into New Years' Eve. There is a limit y'know. I'm still whimsically dreaming of being fit and active. Still dreaming of being human shaped. Still pledging to quit smoking.
I loved it last year. I really got into the running, but then struggled with my knee and just lost my way. I do that a lot. I'm like one of those robot vacuum cleaners that you see that's inexplicably ended up 3 miles from home. Programmed to just do some back-and-forthing in the living room, was fine for an hour, someone turned their back momentarily and then something spontaneously glitched and all of a sudden it's off to go hoover up the M6.
That's probably the most apt analogy I've ever made of myself. I'm like one of those.
I've needed to get back into this for a long time. In June, I thought to myself, "well it's Christmas soon, you may as well get that out of the way first".
I've moved house since my last little foray into fitness. Back then, I had a lovely (flat) harbour walk to run up and down with beautiful views; now I live in what appears to be Peppa Pig's home town - there are bloody hills everywhere. Steep ones too. You think if you go uphill going somewhere, it's downhill on the way back. Irrefutable logic right? Wrong. It's uphill both ways. Don't ask me for explanation, I've got nothing.
Actually, I'm on the toes of the New Forest which is going to be fantastic in Spring. The problem with that is that by then I'll probably be back on the sofa in a pair of Y-fronts that have surpassed their life expectancy further than Keith Richards, and a string vest that's bespeckled with unpopped popcorn kernels. I'm a recidivist, from the Latin recidīvus, if that means anything to anyone. I always wonder why dictionaries do that. Who's the person with the scrunched expression at the reading of a word, only for the Latin origin to be produced and they go, "Ohhhhhhhhhhhh yeeeeaaaahhhh".
Anyway, I can't go in with this negative attitude.
I need to devise my run-route that provides minimal uphilledness and, counter-intuitively, minimal downhilledness. Big trucks need big brakes an' I don't have 'em. I'll end up through someone's fence.
I need to spread on that goose fat and wrench myself into that lycra. I need to get back out there and get the zoo keepers scratching their heads again at the footage saying, "No. 'e's definitely not one o' mine".
I need to be sensible though. I need to respect the fact that I'm about as nimble as a walrus. I can't get over zealous. I can't boom and bust.
So, where was I. W6R3 I think...
Happy running, you bunch of fitwits. If anyone spots a flare on the south coast, send help. I'm probably stricken like a tortoise on its back with much, much less chance of self-correction.
The Beast from the (Far) East
wk7: The return...not good
I'm binning it off
Back from the Summer
How does Strava et al measure elevation?
