Miles in Madrid by Hola

Not me and not Bruce Springsteen. It's the title of a book I'm reading at the moment by Christopher McDougall and I really recommend it to runners and non-runners - in fact, anyone who thinks that the human race ought to be a whole lot more active than they are. My brother in law gave it to my husband for Christmas and now I'm reading it. It's basically saying that we are all really 'born to run' but have forgotten how. The author sets out to discover the secrets of the Tarahumara Indian tribe in Mexico and how they can run for hundreds of miles with only leather sandals for footwear, enjoying every mile along the way and, crucially, not getting injured. It's an inspirational book and makes you think about the true joy and liberation of running. Muffs - you especially would love it as it really focuses on ultra-running. 

OK, so I have may actually have been doing more reading about running than actually running at the moment but I've been better this week.. I haven't updated my blog for a while because I didn't think that I had much to blog about. I've been lurking about Realbuzz but not actually posting. 

I've entered a race. Hurrah! I'm going to run a half marathon in a town called Collado Villalba on the 21st March. It's just about at the foot of the Guadarrama mountain range here but the profile of the race is described as 'moderate' so I'm hoping it stays down there at the foot of the mountains and doesn't venture any higher.

I've been out for three runs this week. 6km on Monday, 7.5km yesterday and another 6km today. The race is only 9 weeks away so I need to develop my own cunning plan.

Spurred into action by Matt, I've also taken on the press-up challenge (again, again) and I've added the sit-ups and squats challenge too. Web link here - www.hundredpushups.com. Yesterday I did the initial tests (too embarrassed to post my results here) and today I did W1D1. 

Non-running wise, I've passed the English teaching onto someone else. (Ok, in my son's words - 'You quit Mum') Yes. I decided that life was too short, especially my remaining time in Madrid, to be working 30 hours for huge stress and around 100 euros a week!  So, I have found a Spanish student who has speaks very good English to do the job instead. Huge relief for me and my family I think. I'm still giving one-to-one teaching to adults and that's great but I have decided that my experience with primary kids is over. 

We have a few other ongoing sagas involving down-pipe leaks, cars, tax and letting agents but they aren't interesting enough to warrant a blog entry. 

Best wishes.