It’s only as I sat down to start this that I realised I’ve not done a blog for 3 months.
I’d just done the Chester marathon, set a new PB, but failed at my target. And it was hilly, which I didn’t remember from last time and for which I hadn’t trained.
Turns out missing my target was the least of my worries. Trying to slog up the hills then sprint down the other side to make up time absolutely battered my knees and gave me Iliotibial Band Syndrome (IBTS –now I’m wondering where the T comes from-), which is a tendon (T?) that runs down the leg past the knee. It gets inflamed by “too much, too soon”, or unaccustomed hills etc. I thought I’d shrug it off, but it laid me up for best part of 3 months. I kept going back to it, doing a run or two, then it would flare up again.
As of the first of January, my new year’s resolutions, I’ve been on a run streak (run every day) and 2 sets of exercises specifically designed to strengthen the weak muscles that cause the knee into excessive lateral motion. They are horrible. I’ve avoided strength training these last 9 years because it’s awful and tedious. Needs must.
I’ve even had to be sensible about the running. I usually return to running with a 10 mile run. I tried a few 5s, before breaking again, in the 3 months I was out of the game. This time I started with a 3.3 mile circuit, covering my watch so I wasn’t going for a time, and just plodded it out.
Then I slowly built it up. Like some kind of sane person. After a fortnight, with my ‘long’ run at 6 miles, I cracked and did a 10 mile run. My knee didn’t break so I thought I was alright. Then I started to let it slip. They say hard run one day, easy the next, never back to back. I did the 10 mile (long, by current standards) then a hill run, then another fast one. And my knee flared up. Panic! Back to 2 miles easy, 5 miles easy, 5 miles easy. My knee forgave me, so today I did a test run of a half marathon (13.1 miles). And it held! YAY!
As I was going ‘long’ I didn’t batter the pace or put hills in to it, but as a steady run, it showed my knee will work. So now it’s back to easy day tomorrow, maybe a hill day, easy day, fast day, easy, etc, and keep up with the IBTS exercises. Fingers crossed I am back in the game. Realistically my sub 3 hour marathon isn’t happening for at least the first half of this year. *sigh*
The other reason I’ve been absent was the politics thing. I put all my time into flagging up St Jezza and the Glorious Socialist Worker’s Utopia on the thrice damned Facebook, and then I was too devastated to think straight for a while. Luckily, just after the rigged election, Wendy was kind enough to share her norovirus (winter vomiting bug) with me, which focused my mind on more immediate matters and got me through the 7 stages of grief.
I was desperately looking for foreign driving jobs for a while, to try to escape the Reich, but I’m at exactly the wrong age. 55 is the cut-off, I’m 53, by the time I’d got my feet under the table to apply for citizenship I’d be too old. Now I’m settled into waiting out. The only thing that might change is if Scotland look like getting a second independence referendum, I’ll relocate to our Livingstone branch.
For now the only thing is to stay and fight for the continuation of the socialist dream in Labour. And watch as the Brexit turkeys get their Christmas.
Poole, Dorset. 19,000 Tory majority, 72% Leave, have just had the towns only A&E closed.
Grimsby, similar, now begging for a Brexit exemption.
The same week as the election the Tories sold the first NHS hospital to the yanks. And our Defence company. Today the fourth biggest US bank has issued a loan to a UK social housing group. As soon as they miss a payment, there goes the social housing stock.
In the Financial Times today, a top business geezer was saying that Brexit will mean UK workers rights can now be scrapped. There was something a few days ago, holiday pay, fixed hours contracts, sick pay, etc, may soon be a memory.
There is only so many times you can say “We told you so” before it loses all meaning. But that’s not going to stop me.
I’m not down about it anymore. It is what it is. Try and stay left in Labour, wait for the unmitigated disaster that is Brexit, make damn sure the Tories own it, then try again.
For me, for now, I’m happy with today. I’ve run a half marathon, sorted my sticking front brake on my motorbike, and changed my ‘phone and broadband contracts for better (and cheaper) ones. And believe me, that was quite an achievement. The company’s website was working perfectly until I hit “want to leave”, then, by some crazy coincidence, it all went horribly wrong. Took me forever. But I won. Ha!
I’ve asked work to go back on to a full time contract at work. It’s not the 4 on/ 4 off I thought I was getting. I wanted to work 6 (4 plus 2 overtime) one week, one day off, then 4, with 4 days off. I can’t do it on this shift pattern and I’m having to book extra days in work anyway, so I might as well get my shifts back.
So, I’m doing what little I can on the big stage and working on my stuff on the small stage. And now I’m back to running I’m feeling better about life in general anyway.
More boring run stuff will doubtless be forthcoming. Sorry.
Later,
Buck.