Jan... er... ok FEBathon

I sort of gave up on January. It started with the week of flu, the strep throat infection, and continued with the antibiotics. By mid-Jan I'd lost motivation and when I tried running it was pathetic and so far off the pace you'd think I was going backwards. So I decided that maybe February will be my comeback month - starting this week I would run at least 4 times a week, get back to regular yoga classes and work on my fitness for the Bristol 10k in May.
I happened to have a doctors appointment for an unrelated issue the other day and mentioned that I'd been struggling with my breathing, particularly in the evenings when I suddenly become short of breath for no apparent reason, and with regaining my fitness. I was dispatched with a prescription for a ventolin inhaler and another appointment to have a full lung function test. Tonight I went for a run, and as advised took my inhaler half an hour beforehand. I ended up doing 3 miles, a minute and a half quicker than my previous run, 2 minutes quicker than the one before that. So it seems that at least part of the problem is some underlying mild asthma, either that or the placebo effect is at work!
Intervals tomorrow...

A run! Finally!!

I have finally recovered from a week-long bout of flu (I have antibiotics and everything) enough to go for a run. I managed 3 miles, in a woefully slow 34 minutes (I am ashamed to type that but have to be honest with myself). If I can manage 3 miles every remaining day of January, that will still be a fairly respectable 60 miles, so I'm trying not to worry too much about my lack of fitness and hope it will return fairly quickly. It's humbling to have to start from scratch again after a good spell last year of doing consistent sub-hour 10k training runs twice a week. Onwards and upwards!

Aches and pains and sleepyness

After fitting in a very poor 3 miles yesterday, my aim was to repeat that this afternoon, along with furtling about preparing to go back to work tomorrow. I slept until 11.30 then did some yoga before a planned brunch with friends, however they overslept too so we didn't get round to organising anything until 2ish. At that point I decided I'd stay home, get some bits done and go for a run by tea time, but unfortunately I spent the rest of the afternoon asleep on the sofa and woke up with a sore throat and feeling rather weak and feeble. So I'm not sure whether I can manage a run today, and I'm rather concerned that if this develops into another cold or flu I won't be running much in the near future either. Dammit!!!

Janathon-ish

In true half-arsed style I am making a vague attempt to run, or at least exercise, every day in January. My running was going very well up to about November, when I fell ill and stayed that way for about a month. So now I am recovering my pathetic fitness levels back to being able to do a decent 10k time and 20 miles a week.
To this end I started the month in style yesterday with a 3.5-mile dog run. For new year's day I think that was quite reasonable, even though I ended up with mud caked all over my new Xmas boots. Sorry mum, I'm sure it will brush off...
Today, I will attempt a 3 mile run.

Neighbours...

Having been here for a good couple of weeks now, I've met one or two of the neighbours.
Two doors down, by bizarre serendipity, a very good friend of mine who used to live with me back in the day when I had a whole house of my own - she and her lady and another couple of girls moved in there not a fortnight before I moved in here. I'm very much looking forward to enjoying their balcony, which catches the very last of the sun in the evening and looks rather splendid.
There are at least two gentlemen living here who wear spangley golden epaulettes on their shirts - I imagine they are airline pilots, but there's every possibility that they're strippers, security guards, or cruise liner hosts. They seem cheerful enough, although perhaps not orange enough for the holiday entertainment industry.
Finally, I met my upstairs neighbours just the other day. A nice Spanish couple (lets call them Penelope and Antonio), about my age, we exchanged pleasantries and they brought me some mail which inexplicably had the wrong flat number on it. All seems good so far, but then this evening, in true carry-on style, I accidentally flashed Penelope after getting out of the shower. She happened to be looking straight into my bedroom window as I went to close the blinds, and got a full frontal view of my birthday suit.
I hope that's not getting off on the wrong foot.

It's the new style...

Having lived in a semi-rural market town for over a decade, I have decided to move to the big city in search of cultural nourishment, fun and frolics. This blog will be a record of the adventures, obstacles and interesting asides I discover here.