It's amazing how that small packet expands, and other innuendos.

Wednesday 19th December 2012
Running
(3.01 Miles / 00:09:44 per mile)

Saturday 22nd December 2012
Running
(4.01 Miles / 00:09:50 per mile)

FINALLY – I managed to string 2 runs in to a week.
It has been a painfully (literally) long time since I have been able to put 2 runs together in a week because of the dreaded Achilles injury.

I stuck to the instruction of my Podiatrist and held off until Wednesday before venturing the foot out the door in a pair of trainers.
I purposely held back on both runs to make sure that I just used them as an opportunity to get running again and not worry about pace or Heart rate or anything. Quite literally just putting one foot in front of the other and hoping to remain pain free.

Thankfully the old body held together and there was no adverse reaction to the runs.

What is painfully obvious is how much fitness I have lost over the last few months. If I am honest part of this has been down to lethargy on my part and the rest has been down to an inability to string together a decent period of training without injury. Either way, a lot of fitness has gone and a lot of weight has come!

I am glad that I wasn’t paying any real attention to my Heart Rate during these runs as that monitor was clearly going bezerk AGAIN and recording some intergalactic levels.
This is despite investing in some fancy conductive gel to enhance the sensitivity of my electrodes! Ooooh Matron!! Phnar Phnar.


Another purchase is a thing called a SPIBelt. I wonder how many other people have suffered from annoyance at running bum bags. I never seem to get one that is totally comfortable and it always seems to bounce around a lot.
I noticed on the DC Rainmaker website that he uses one of these SPIBelt. Now, if he uses it, it must be good. So I ordered one.
The result – it is very good. The amount of expansion in what seems like an unfeasibly small package is remarkable. (Here we are again with the Phnar Phnar innuendo again.)
It didn’t bounce around when running and looks like it will be great when loaded up with Gels and stuff for long runs.

So, at least I am back running again and the plan for the week ahead is to do a short session, a 40 minute comfortable run and then at the weekend do a slow 10 mile run around Castlewellan. The same as I did this time last year on the road to Ironman.

I will give some thought to a round up blog about 2012. It has been one hell of a year and I would like to capture my thoughts on it for posterity.

Happy Christmas to everyone who bothers to read.