Malcolm's running diary by malcolms

Two weeks since my last post and not much running to report but lots of other things.

For the fifth year in a row our lives have centred round a Thursday in August. Parents amongst you will recognise this as results day. This year it was son’s AS results and his A2 for maths. With that out of the way we headed off on hols on the Friday. Arizona. It was hot, no, make that HOT. Second thoughts HOT.  Not sure that the temperature dropped below 90 all the time we were there.

Won’t bore you with the holiday details, but must mention, broken tooth, nose bleeds &  concussion – and that was just me!

Made one interesting discovery. In the UK when you go swimming, you take off all the clothes you legally can, jump into some very cold water and move your arms and legs very fast to keep warm. They call that swimming. There is no need to do that in Arizona, you just strip off to your trunks, jump in and just stay there. No need to swim. In fact no need to move, just float!

I did manage two runs while I was there, 4 & 6 miles done at 6 in the morning when it was in the 90s. What with that and being strict about my diet – previous trips to the States have seen me come back much heavier, I actually came back slightly lighter. (Weight not tan!!) We went to one restaurant that had a separate menu for items under 500 cals!!

Since coming back on Wednesday (we were there 10 days) I did a 6.5 miler yesterday and have a long run planned for tomorrow.

In my absence however my allotment has soaked up some of the rain that has been here, and I spent a very productive evening amongst the weeds this evening. Harvesting spuds, beans, sweetcorn, carrots and beetroot. Including one beetroot that weighed in at 5lbs.

As usual, with school holidays in August, there is not now much time to regain some stamina before the GNR in two weeks.  Got my number from Brendan and I’m at the back as usual. As my number is in the 40,000 bracket I have an excellent chance of coming higher than my race number. Still, I have high hopes that a good run tomorrow morning will set the trend for the next six weeks when I do the GNR, week off, then Basingstoke Half, Salisbury Half, two weeks off then the GSR.

At least I should be fit by the end of October.

By some miracle still ahead on the 1000 miles for the year.