Hello sports fans and greetings from my world of diminishing pain. You’ll be thrilled to hear I am no longer dragging my right leg behind me like an oversized handbag. In fact I feel almost normal again and even thought briefly about when I might make a return to the running machine at the gym. But then I remembered I had forgotten to turn the heating off and the moment had gone.

However I will have to think about returning to some sort of training and fairly soon. The Edinburgh Marathon Relay is looming (5 weeks away) and I found out this week who my trusty teammates will be. Former Scotland international and British Lion Gregor Townsend is on the lead off leg, with Clyde Radio presenter Gina McKie on leg 2. DJ and presenter Heather Suttie is on the third part of this sporting extravaganza and yours truly will inherit the baton for leg 4 (the glory leg you will notice, through to the finish – but most importantly it’s the shortest leg…..I may be rubbish at running but I am no fool…..!) So yes there is still work to be done. But I think I will take a few more days off and return tentatively to the gym next week. Heaven forbid I should have a relapse……

But even though I am still feeling slightly sorry for myself, a couple of things have put it into perspective. First of all listening to Josh Lewsey on the radio yesterday. He is now halfway up Everest, readying himself for the assault on the north face of that great beast. I guess I hadn’t really considered the implications of going to the loo at minus 40, but the lovely Josh did flag up the degree of difficulty on that one. If I had ever had a lingering desire to climb the world’s most treacherous mountain (and I didn’t), it vanished right there……

And then there was that extraordinary debut goal from Danny Rose for Spurs against my beloved Arsenal last night. It was a truly amazing strike and something I daresay he will remember for the rest of his life. It got me thinking about memorable debuts and I recalled Jonathan Woodgate’s Real Madrid debut, where he scored a spectacular own goal before getting sent off. Somehow the mere memory of that cheered me up no end. Have a great weekend.