A little bit of inspiration

Following the cold, miserable weather that brought me to a halt through February and March, how nice April has been.

A complete absence of motivation in the form of planned races has kept the month sensible, re-building my mileage from near nothing to nearer 15 per week as the weeks have worn on. Last week saw a trip to Wales to thrash the mountainbike which saw a missed longer run but kept fun levels high and fitness possibly higher.

But yesterday saw a new form of motivation entirely. The marvelous girlfriend who is JogBlog wafted a book under my nose just as I was finishing the Telegraph Book Of Unpublished Letters but before I started the Telegraph Book of Obituaries (I love the absurd nature of a correspondent who takes the time to write something so abstruse just for the sake of personal entertainment but which is enjoyable to all, alongside an occasional write-up on a war veteran who undoubtedly carried out his service with unbelievable enthusiasm, often having been captured, escaped, been injured, recovered only to get captured again before settling down to a life as head gardener of a nursery. Or the simply unbelievable obit of the man who almost single-handedly perfected the lobotomy process, having been offered “troublesome children” by the aristocracy to quieten them down to avoid embarrassment at social functions for practice. I can read them forever, it seems). Not sure if I’d like it (but having trudged on through one “classic” title in the recent past, only to give up at page 273 having decided I’d given it enough chance to warm up by then if it was going to – if you haven’t read “On The Road” by Jack Kerouac, don’t. It’s impenetrable shit. And that’s coming from the author of this blog, so it must be really, really bad by my reckoning. There, that’s a review for you!), I gave it a go by skipping the introduction. After about two paragraphs I decided it was good. After the first chapter I was hooked. The style and passion in the writing and the content are superb – I can honestly say I love it. And it’s the direct reason for today’s run.

“Feet in the Clouds” by Richard Askwith. It’s an old book but has aged superbly. About fell running, basically, and while a certain paper once wrote (completely wrongly, I might add) about a fellow runner’s blog that it “Simply made you want to tie up a pair of laces and go running”, I’ll repeat the quote about the book with the assurance that it indeed does make you want to get up, get out and get amongst it. Tales of endurance, adversity, ridiculous accomplishments, camaraderie, mishap, recklessness…superb reading.

There are no fells near Ashford. The hills I run around between Hawkinge (aka the shittest place in the universe) and Folkestone are steep but short and will be thrashed off-road before long again. But are also 15 miles away. The Greensand Way is flat but at least off-road and goes past my front gate. I decided to run 7 miles today, slowly and off-road, in the style of an out and back. The decision was entirely attributable to the book. I even turned my ankle around the 2.5 mile mark in a track made rough by countless horseshoes. The discomfort was deemed mild in fell-runner’s law because there were no bones or claret visible so I continued to run away from home without breaking stride. It hurts a bit now, but not enough interfere with anything in life beyond being something to comment about.

I think I particularly love the attitude of the athletes to injury, following my ability to hurt myself in everything I do (incidentally, I didn’t even fall off the bike in Wales. Following my broken ribs last year I think I either took it a lot easier, practiced a bit more or had better luck. Superb fun). I now have confirmation that there are lots of others out there who will finish a race on broken limbs, who will run on through torn ligaments and who thrive on finding a way around injury. I think I have a new calling.

Until the novelty wears off, at least. And I hope it does wear off. Travelling to find fells to practice on and then race around might be beyond my wallet or diary. But until then I’ll carry on reading. And being inspired. And hopefully carry on enjoying my runs and staying fit through the year.

Fastest mile of the month was a 6.06. Fastest overall run the Maidstone parkrun at (what felt gentle, honest.) 6.45/mile average (well it’s a run, not a race apparently, I just loved the scenery what with it being along the banks of the river Medway and got a little carried away running and chatting to a couple of experienced parkrunners in their 50 and 100 run tops – before I knew it the run was over). Not going to break any records at that pace but it makes the 7 minute pace that much more enjoyable and the month average pace of 7.22 for all runs is equally encouraging. A few more miles alongside a few more longer runs and I might get race fit before Christmas.

Garmin almost made it! Janathone done. Yay!

I wasn’t sure how to end Janathon. Having done over 6 miles everyday through wind, rain, cold, relative warmth (I wore shorts and a short-sleeved top Thursday of the first week!), snow and just normal January weather, the day was average. Having done the majority of the runs on the hills around Paddlesworth a flat outing seemed a sad end. Having achieved my goals and having moved the goal posts twice (from 186 to 192 to 200 miles), upping my mileage to gain a leaderboard place seemed pointless.

So having had a bad day (read busy as hell without time to think of a run let alone doing one) I realised time had gone and the best I could do from work was a quick 1.6 mile out and back to improve the evening and leave a shorter run. So that’s how I started.

And nearly finished, to be fair. All my aches and pains felt horrible and such a short outing didn’t really give them a chance to warm up and dull down.

But once home I changed and got ready to go. Until I noticed my Garmin had died. I charged it last night so knew the battery was fine but I had a grey screen with very weak, faded numbers and no functions coming up. I popped the charger on and it showed 88% battery but changed the time to 10.58. Removing the charger it went blank, started up then froze into the grey screen again. Emergency measures called for Cathy’s Garmin to be borrowed. And it was.

A loop of Knight’s Park and Park Farm made for the shortest day of the month but enough to see me comfortably over 200 miles. Challenge over. The odd bit is the Garmin still playing up (I have no map data of the Hawkinge outing, just time and distance so something was wrong as I used it there - I know how long it was and have proof from the piss-taking from a groundworker about how slow can a mile be. I didn’t explain that I’d run one and a half. I’ll accept his ridicule in the hope he comes for a jog one day.) I’ve got the data off it (what was on there) and have done a soft reset which works for a minute, allowing all functions to be explored, but after 5 minutes or so it locks and touching the buttons makes it go grey and dull again. Think it’s time to send it back to Garmin for a check. Is this a first to exhaust a Garmin thrugh the month? Will an easy week rejuvenate it, I wonder, as I hope it will me?

So back to normality. It’ll be nice to just run again soon. I’m going to rest my damaged bits (currently standing at right heel, right foot bridge, left knee outer, left knee inner, left thigh, left little toe – I let the nail grow a bit too long) for a while before starting again. Not having a Garmin will be nice in a way, depending on how long it’ll take to sort. I’ve got some joint relief  product I’m going to test and review – hopefully the battered state of my body is an ideal battleground to see if anything can cure me! If it’s any good I’ll be out and about next week.

The house needs time as well as running and blogging, least of all to repair the damage from the tree. Work needs full focus. Mountainbiking needs more attention and practice ready for Wales in April. The garden will start growing in earnest and the greenhouse will need filling up. But I also need (yep, need. Not want. Need.) to produce a sub 18 minute 5k, a sub 40 minute 10k race time and be comfortable in myself by putting on some upper body weight.

I think I need a miracle.

But 200 miles in a month. I’d never have thought it. Thank you, fragile body. Back soon.

Ah, the 80′s. So yesterday. Janathon 29.

Today has been spent inside a cloud.

Hawkinge (AKA village of doom, shittest place on earth, most depressing place to work ever. A couple were meant to look at one of the houses on the estate on Saturday. Not knowing the area they arrived an hour before the viewing to look around. Half an hour before they cancelled. They didn’t like it up there. Sensible people. It really is shit. Imagine, if you’ve never been to Hawkinge, putting your head inside a particularly fragrant, surprisingly loose cow’s arse. During bowel evacuation time. with another cow stood on your foot. It’s that shit.) has seen nothing but drifting water all day. The kind that makes you soaking wet in 30 seconds without any raindrops actually falling. Except that for most of the day rain has fallen, too. The grey material (mist? Nope – visibility less than 1000yards. Fog? Nope – no advection or any other vection present. I was quite vexed though. Just simply moisture droplets in cloud form scudding past at eye level and below) is the most depressing stuff ever. At least it was warmer.

Except that wasn’t much of a bonus. 15 minutes before I set off for the run I knocked a scaffold board off the pile I was walking past. Having just passed it, the board fell straight down onto my left outer rear knee bit, the sticky out bone on top of the calf. It hurt a surprising amount so I headed back to the office and got changed. But didn’t know what top to wear. A long sleeved running top was right for the heat. But I knew I’d get cold once soaked (around 8 seconds in) So I opted to overheat but stay dry in my fleece running top. Along with a rapidly stiffening knee, it wasn’t to be a promising run.

And exectations were lived up to. Uninspired, tired, left knee hurting on the inside as well on the newly hit bit, right heel playing up, right foot bridge making me roll my foot oddly. I wish Janathon was over.

Except around 2 miles in when I realised I was past my target 186 miles for the month. All done. Target acquired and executed. Tick (in a Justin Lee-Collins style). But 6.2 miles to the next target (10k a day). So on I plodded. No air punch involved.

Once back I changed and again reached for the computer to play some odd music. Today was a mix of Buzzcocks which inspired (don’t ask how my brain works) Fergal Sharkey’s A Good Heart. My god. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the video before. I wasn’t going to watch it today (I intended writing the diary with musical accompaniment) but couldn’t take my eyes off it. Are any 80′s cliches (musical, style, fashion, hair) not complete? Even the nasty moustache is fully represented. Shocking.

Then I realised I was out of the 80′s in mileage, too. Just inside 190 miles I now need fewer than 5 per day to reach 200, a mere mile per day to exceed 10k per day. My knee has stiffened enormously since I’ve been home but surely I can get out for at least a mile tomorrow?

Hopefully there isn’t that much of a sting in Janathon’s tail, is there? Maybe – when I got home, the rain gauge in the back garden is registering a mere 1mm for the day. Just 15 miles (as the crow flies) from site. Did I mention Hawkinge is shit?

Ah, warmth! Janathon gets easier.

My  immediate thought as I awoke this morning was “Heating!”. Or, rather, the lack of it. 7am and the boiler wasn’t making every effort to bankrupt me. The only thing worse than my body liking cooler weather but not being able to tolerate the cold we’ve had lately is waking up and finding the house (old, solid walls, single glazing) has cooled to such an extent that the heating has come on at the low level I set the thermostat to each evening. It’s been happening a lot lately.

But not today. Which encouraged me to look out of the window and see all was wet. 4mm of rain overnight wet. That’s rain, not snow. And my tentative exploration of the outside world to wash the car (a pointless exercise in the greater scheme of things but salt corrosion on a new vehicle isn’t pretty) revealed it to be warm enough not to put on 35 extra layers.

Warm enough, even, to look forward to a run without a million layers, either.

And with a lifting of the gloom surrounding my inability to cope with another frozen week, so my thoughts turned to my jog. I fancied a change of shoes (I worked out my Mizuno Wave Inspire 7′s have done just shy of 500 miles so it’s time to break in a new pair, I feel) and have the New Balance 890V2′s I did the Great South Run in all ready to be ruined, so I put them on to see how they felt on my knackered appendages and, reliably enough, they felt great.

So I plodded off (last time I wore them the 10 miles flew by at below 7min/mile average – this was to be far slower!) with the aim to do a short 2 mile loop and see how I felt, there being lots of increased length runs straight off the back of it. But I felt ok as I got to the loop start so carried straight on, committing to 4.7 miles immediately (unless I needed to head straight back if something went wrong, of course). But at 2 miles I still felt good, so headed on to my favourite road – Gill Lane, my usual 6 mile loop.

The slope to the top was a delight, allowing me to rise onto my forefoot fully as I admired the blue sky and the sun, if only the wind would ease and let me warm up, I thought. And down the other side to 4 miles where I had my only twinge of the run – my right knee let me know it’s not happy as I sped up a little too much and opened my stride out.

So I eased off and plodded in to home, a 10k race distance once again executed.

Very happy. With only 5 runs left (or 5 days of running, at the very least!), light appears to be coming visible from the darkness of before.

Roll on Thursday.

Short and bitter. Can it get any colder? Janathon the cold.

If this year has done anything for my resolve, I hope it’s to make me determined not to sign up next year. At least not to running everyday. Maybe internal activities with the occasional venture outside if it’s suitably clement. The only problem is, that’s pretty much like the rest of my year.

I don’t think I can take much more coldness. Hopefully it’ll warm up tomorrow. I haven’t warmed up in the slightest all day. My site is in Hawkinge. 3 degrees colder than Folkestone below it, we still have 4 inches of snow covering everything while Folkestone (2 miles away) hasn’t a drop left. It didn’t warm above -2 degrees all day. Spending a day there is the most uninspired I’ve been in 25 years at work. I don’t think I’ll warm up all weekend, if I’m honest.

My runs today were horrible, unsatisfying affairs but at least I’ve maintained my 6 a day target. Legs are now throbbing, toes hurt with cold, two toenails have delaminated today (I guess in the cold) and I’ll see if they survive until things warm up along with my toes being bright crimson with broken capillaries. My foot still hurts but it’s again no worse. My heel is playing up worse again but I’ll try to sort that before bed. My knee seems to have eased right off. Or maybe it’s frozen.

Not a happy Janathoner but the last weekend of January last year was so much worse anything is an improvement.

Did someone say 6 days to go? Hoo fucking ray.

Seriously worried about even finishing Janathon 2013 now…

My after run music (I might even make it a routine to listen to a bit as I cool off if I continue to run late in the afternoon and have an empty site when I return) tonight was a quick bit of The Vapors followed by a singular Blondie, wrapped up by about half an hour of The Ramones. No sedation needed.

My before run day consisted of lots of doubt regarding my battered legs. My right heel/ankle is better. Not as swollen, not too tender, it only played up at all during the day when it got properly cold so worry there is reducing. Which is lucky because my left leg is all over the place. The left knee now has a consistent sharp, stabbing pain directly under the kneecap which makes stairs a trouble as well as occasionally causing a wince as I sit at the computer. The best part of the day for it was setting out the manholes this morning when I set up a drawing area and repeatedly rolled up a trouser and knelt in the snow while checking dimensions (the ones I calculated last night). It remained painful but was, worryingly, joined increasingly over the course of the day by a sharp pain in the left calf right at the top where it disappears into the soft bit behing the knee. Stretching, massage – neither of these has any effect.

Starting the run I doubted I’d get a mile. At half a mile I was happy I’d at least got in a Janathon run. The cold water running down the lane again caused calf discomfort and immediately soaked through my trainers but at least everything else felt warmer and less painful. Plodding on I tried a new route, enjoyed leaping around instead of simply running true as I dodged icy patches and slush puddles (as all lanes, my ones are massively potholed, cambered and in a disgraceful state) and amazed myself to see 1.5 miles on the Garmin before I’d had another chance to check how bad I felt.

And as usual once warmed, I felt better. So I carried on out to my usual turnaround point, did a far-away loop (to increase the mileage a bit), ran for home and then did a little loop again when I was right by the car so I could collapse and at least get home rapidly.

It wasn’t needed.

What has now gone wrong, though, is that my knee pain (front and rear) has been beaten into second place by serious hurt right across the top of my right foot. As though I’ve dropped something onto it. But because it’s just bones, there doesn’t seem anything I can do to relieve the pain. I’m trying a stretchy bandage which has provided immediate relief so hopefully it’ll be better come the morning.

Fingers crossed or I might not yet make last year’s total…nah, come off it, last year I totalled 156 miles. I’ve got 150 now. I’ll just get out each day no matter how rotten things turn and do it. 186 might be beyond me if things don’t improve, though. It feels at last (I have, after all, been expecting things to go wrong!) as though proper risk of injury is on the horizon and I simply don’t want to be limping around. As soon as the snow’s gone and Janathon is over, I’ve got mountainbiking to improve and windows to finish as well as speed to recover.

What will the morning bring? Fingers crossed it’s not more pain.

Extended hours – the joy of Janathon

The sneaky thing I’ve been able to achieve to accomplish most of this years Janathon running is the incorporation of them into my working day. All above board and legit, I’ve a few weekends worked which I can’t take off in lieu since I’ve also 9 days holiday to take before the end of February and also can’t be paid for because it’s not allowed. So I agreed with the director that I’d take them running.

The un-sneaky thing is that I can’t really do a days work with an hour lopped off the middle bit.

The advantage is that I can be loads more productive without disturbance and tonight, after 5 o’clock, I had the joy of extracting a million cross-referenced dimensions from 3 AutoCad drawings to set out 4 back gardens and 5 manholes first thing tomorrow morning.

The joy was that, with everyone gone home, I also had the pleasure of the internet to supply me with some (awful audio quality but beggars can’t be choosers, I’m told) music. Tonight that was a trip down memory lane and a little sample of the Clash followed by a teaser of the Sex Pistols washed down with some ancient Iron Maiden. A superb way to end the day. On the way home I surprised myself with how old I’ve become. Listening to the radio some particularly awful music came on. I switched channels. And again. Then realised I’ve only programmed four of my radio presets. I don’t enjoy enough stations to preset any more. Radio 2 is preset 2 but breakfast is too noisy and it’s only really Ken Bruce and Simon Mayo who interest me, so Radio Kent (preset 5) for a bit news and to annoy me in the morning before I start to get angry at their negative attitude (I know I’m Mr. negative but I like positivity in others; Steve Ladner is the exception but now he’s on in the afternoon I rarely get the pleasure) when I switch to Radio 4 (preset 6) where things normally now stay. But I get annoyed at the massive variation in loudness, as though the speaker is leaning repeatedly in and out from the microphone (they all seem to do it; John Humphrys is the worst despite being one of my favourites in the morning) and all I want to do is listen to what they have to say, not either deafen myself to enable listening to the quiet bits or keep turning the volume up and down, so my local back-up station is preset 4 and AHBS (Ashford Hospital Broadcasting Service Community Radio…a catchy name if ever there was one, eh?!). When these fail, it’s cd time.

It was the appalling tunes on the way home that made me realise I’ve two spare pre-sets and no intention of using them. I realised when I turned the radio off rather than putting on a cd that I’m old. The dawning was that,, despite the vehicle having mp3 compatibility and the ability to connect a phone wirelessly and all sorts, I’ve no desire for any of them. I have a vinyl, cd and tape collection that contains all the music I like. I don’t need any more. Much more depressing, I don’t want any more.

Unless something comes on the radio that I don’t know, I think I’ll be happily stuck in a musical vortex of ignorance for eternity. I used to wonder how it felt before recorded music was available to entertain, bring emotion, cause debate and bring wonder to the ears. I now think I’ve exhausted my desire to indulge the one thing that anyone before the last half century or so might have killed for.

None of this and less entered my mind as I ran. I left work after 4, arrived back shortly before 5 but was still in the daylight (snowy banks keeping it light more than the days being that long, I think). I got cold (bitter wind) and wet (running water down the main lanes, minor lanes ventured down but all full of slush/ice mix which soaked feet and legs with every pace) and tired because I was concentrating on staying upright and let the pace pick up inadvertantly. My legs are still ruined (if not worse) and took a mile to work again but it’s another run done. One closer to February. And rest.

Ahh, rest. Yes please.

Snow, Janathon and the wonders of trail shoes

Going to bed last night with the words “it’d better not be snowing in the morning” and getting up with the words “it’s snowing” lead to a combined chorus of protest at the weather between JogBlog and I. Hers because she likes to be warm. Mine because I like to be able to do things without a never ending struggle. Much as I accept that I’m on the planet to loathe my life and have to do everything properly (each and every sodding time I take a shortcut I get caught out. I only attempt one about every three years now just to keep my hand in but I might as well not bother. It’s partly why everything I do takes so long. Among other things I’ll be second guessing where I’m going to be caught out and receive a boot up the arse), sometimes it’d be nice if at least the planet wasn’t against me.

So I quickly decided that I’d sort out my money queries, drink coffee, swap JB’s travelling to school bike tyres for winter knobbles as opposed to the slicks normally on there, then go for my run early just in case things continued in a white direction.

And my choice of route was my favourite Gill Lane but as an out and back instead of the loop. Deciding on trail shoes I didn’t want the more main road with no snow cover, I was hoping for snow all the way.

And I got it. I plodded around the off-road path which is normally a mud bath through the winter but was properly frozen today which was a welcome break to the road that leads to interesting things. The road from there was ace. Not a patch of grit as yesterday but where it was clear then (apart from the icy patches I slipped around on), it must have frozen heavily overnight for this morning it was white. Car tracks had compressed most of it, leaving options for grippier fresh bits (about an inch thick on top of compressed base) or slippier driven-on portions.

In the Adidas Kanadia Trail 4′s I was wearing, to be honest, it didn’t matter a jot. They were an inspiration. Not a slip or slide, not a bit of movement in the shoe, not a hint of anything but satisfaction that I could run exactly as and where I wanted. It’s a funny feeling being on snow and ice but knowing you won’t fall over. They’re like my mountain walking boots only 50% grippier – simply incredible. And with the snow falling heavily but in small flakes, the depth wasn’t increasing enough to make my feet wet or cover the tracks I was making before my return journey, as I was soon to find out.

Literally re-tracing your own footsteps is intriguing. Odder still is that my strides were slightly longer on the return journey. Same pace but easier pacing. A lovely trick to try to remember when I’m tiring.

Getting home revealed that it was also the quickest run of Janathon for me. No intention to do so but I guess the shoes are more responsive than my usual trainers. I’ll not be chasing the pace tomorrow because my achilles on the right leg is tighter than a drum now but it’s nice to know the shoes aren’t slow when I return to proper trail running when things dry out a bit.

A small cycle after lunch eased aching muscles, tomorrow can’t come soon enough.

Except I’ll be at work.

Bah.

Icy underfoot – Janathon gets tough.

At one stage today, despite the overall quantity of white stuff having fallen over Ashford not yet covering the lawn to full grass-blade depth, I found myself running (almost) at 8.23 pace for a mile into a biting wind, uphill, on ice. I felt and probably looked as graceful as a pig on stilts. But, much like a porcine hero, I remained right-side up. One step forwards, several inches back, I think was the mantra.

On the run overall, that was my main bad decision. We haven’t had enough snow to warrant heading out in my trail shoes yet, least of all these gorgeous offerings from New Balance…

I’m presuming that we won’t be lucky enough to have that much, but I’m ready. I’m itching to get back on the trail routes – my old shoes have loads of life in them, perfect to use while I get used to these New Balance offerings which are the minimal range – there’s nothing to them, including cushioning! The box advises 10% of your normal distance to get used to them and work it up over time so I’ll be wearing them in cautiously, but around the house and a quick sprint up the garden and they feel good – I’m excited to give them a go. But not unless it’s either properly white on the roads and there’s something for them to bite into, or the fields thaw. Unforgiving is the brief at the moment, I think.

So my route today was fine around the main lanes. One of the larger routes (that’s a relative term, by the way. A few cars an hour rather than a few a day for my favourite roads) hadn’t been treated at all so was mainly well compacted snow and ice with no option but to stay on it or run in the ditch alongside; the rest were clear and wide enough to pass a car without hedge- dodging. The worst was my linking and favourite road on the route which was largely untracked by vehicles, so for me was fine in offering virgin snow up the middle to gain grip.

The other change today was wearing a new pair of tights and new long-sleeve top. Again, I’ve put my trust in New Balance – my three year old top of theirs is still my favourite; the new one feels just as good and performed superbly today. I’ve not had NB tights before and these feel good – a proper lace type draw-string and a flash of red for some style on my wafer thin legs lifts them visually; they seemed cool to start compared to my favourite Adidas offerings but immediately became forgotten for the rest of the run and were dry and warm once home. I declare them perfect.

So another Janathon run done. I’m worried one of the last runs will be lost due to the weather but have my first leg niggling-worry type thing developing so am not about to up mileage to potentially compensate – my right shin is getting quite sore on the inside bit that flared up after last Janathon. I’m managing it with hard massage, but it’s a worry. I don’t want to fuck up February and beyond any more than I want to miss my Janathon target.

Hmm, it might yet get tense and exciting as we come through the second to last week…

An odd day to have a foot in shit. Janathon day 17.

Life’s great, the way it offers surprises to alter a day. Waking up I wondered what sort of experiences I’d have. I’d rather not have found out one of them, at least.

This morning was unremarkable except for my fury at my labourer for sitting in a traffic jam for 2 hours, updating the entire site with what was occurring around him (nothing, mainly. He was sat on a road between several other idiots) until I found out and suggested he turned around and came to work a different way. Especially since we were paying for his fuel. And his truck. 20 minutes later he arrived. Prick.

Just before lunch I was hunting for drain fittings I was sure I’d ordered and, having just found them, caught a smell of drain. Not known for my sense of smell I looked down the manhole damaged by the roadworks gang 4 months ago (not worth repairing it yet) and saw it was blocked. Turning around I saw, along with the forklift driver, a veritable of sea of excrement. The next manhole in line had lifted it’s lid with hydraulic pressure and the shit was about 10 feet all around it. Getting the driver to obtain some drain rods while I opened the fence, I obtained a plank to make a way to the chamber to rod it (or at least see if the blockage was there and not off site). When he got back I approached the brickwork and didn’t think. Simply didn’t engage my brain that we’d left the backfilling of the manhole until after the last connection. Before I could stop myself I stepped from the plank onto not the brickwork structure for which I should have aimed but just before it. Into a knee deep cesspit of shit. Other peoples (the drain serves our site and the row of 14 houses alongside it) shit. Straight down my boot, filling it up. Just short of my coat; thankfully I kept my balance as I started laughing.

Finding the blockage was easy. Knowing my feet were surrounded by turds less so. A hasty retreat to wash myself was undertaken. Trousers changed for the pair I drive to work in. Boots thrown away (I’ll never wash them out well enough. Might as well not bother). Feet washed (before changing) in an outside tap. That was cold. Legs washed in the site sinks. Socks disposed of and swapped for my running socks – the first truly excellent thing Janathon has done for me! The worst bit was actually having to buy fuel on the way home. In my black trousers, black shoes and white socks. If there had been a nightclub around I’d have had 40 year-old stereotype written all over me. I wanted a sign to excuse my sartorial inelegance. I just had to put up with shame.

Once washed, though, my feet seemed to burn with heat. Nice, considering it was still freezing outside.

Once settled down and fed, it was time to go for a jog. And since the sun had reappeared, what better route than yesterday’s countryside and frozen lane run backwards. That’s as in the reverse route, not running backwards. Not even Janathon will make me do that.

I had a veritable spring in my step but the uphills really hurt my thighs. Definitely a sign of fatigue as the miles pile up. Still a bit better than yesterday though. Maybe swapping my fleece for a running top and hi-vis was a good bet; I was worried I’d still be out as it got dark as well as hoping the extra nylon layer might be about right for temperature maintenance. It didn’t get dark and all but my hands stayed warm. Nice.

No rain today. Nor snow. Fingers crossed things stay that way.