“Who Loves You, And Who Do You Love?!”

The famous words of Killian from The Running Man. That was as clever a title as I could come up with at this time in the morning, because last night you see, I was the running man! Ok, I was a running man. I took to the gym as intended with my running mates in an attempt to step up my training for the run in October. I’m not the greatest runner in the world but I’ve slowly been getting better, and last night I was determined to push myself a bit harder.

I had no specific goal when I pushed ‘Quick Start’ on the treadmill, but the last time I ran on one I remember feeling really bad after only a mile or so, and having done more than that on the road since I was determined to do better. I won’t give you a blow-by-blow account of every last step, but in order to track my own progress I can record that I completed 3.5 miles in 37 minutes, which includes a 2 minute fast walk to get my legs moving and a minute walking at about 2 miles to take a drink. I’m quite pleased with it, it puts me on course for around a 2h 30m half marathon, which isn’t great, but I’m sure as it ramps up over the next few weeks I can take the pace up and go longer. I think the plan is to go for around 2h 15 on the day, but I think I’ll just be pleased to survive it at the moment.

Tonight I’m back in the dojang again (although my legs really wish I wasn’t!). The last time I trained was on my birthday, and it’s traditional in our club to get a birthday punishment to remind you how old you are. We ended the class with a few rounds of sparring and then got told to form a circle around the floor. I was called into the middle and everyone was given the command to bow. It suddenly dawned on me that this was going to be my punishment…. I had to fight the eight others training that night in continuous style, and seemingly everyone wanted a little contact too! I ended up absolutely gasping, my headguard half-way round my head and pouring with sweat, but it was worth it for my card from the guys.

Straight after training tonight I’m heading to Plymouth for a much needed night out! It’s my friend’s girlfriend’s birthday so a few of us are headed up for a bit of an outing to a rock/metal night up there. I used to go there every other week in my younger days (I can say things like that now ;)) and I went back a few months ago, unsure what to expect and not knowing how much it had changed. I was so glad that it was almost exactly the same as ever! So I shall be throwing myself around the dance floor like some kind of bearded Dervish into the small hours of Saturday morning before a day of utter relaxation with any luck. After this last week my plan is for a lie-in, shopping for some meat, then spending the afternoon and evening in the garden with a lazy barbecue and couple of nice drinks – maybe the little bottle of bubbly I was given for my birthday. I’ll definitely be cracking the BBQ cookbook out and getting creative again. Sunday is going to be an utter sweat session, a two hour seminar in the afternoon followed by normal training and then sparring training. It’s really hot work in a 14oz dobok, but very rewarding.

Whatever you’re doing this weekend, I hope the forecast is as good as it is for here and you manage to get out and enjoy it.