Good Day.

I’ve been suffering a bit with plague weakness-like feelings. Insatiable hunger, a craving for fats and sugar, weakness, with added chesty and sore throat for good measure. Yesterday was grim. I took a lateral flow test in the afternoon to rule out the actual plague, I felt so battered by it. I’d got to the stage where I’d resigned myself to it being post viral fatigue, which would be triggered by every hard run. I was still going to try to carry on with the plan and just endure the weakness, and ignore the hunger. I was entertaining doubts that my body would work. I can endure a lot, but if my legs won’t run when I’m weak, then it’s over. Abandon my sub 3, and possibly all exercise. I was gutted. I had my tea and some aspirin to try to take the edge off, then it just ebbed away. I went from worrying it was over to … nothing. I was just normal. A bit hungry because I am on a diet, but it was normal hunger. I really don’t understand.

Last week I’d got down to 10st 10¼lbs on my diet. Due to the gnawing hunger of the condition (and/or my innate gluttony) I’d gone back up to 10.12 during the week. I got a grip and tried to endure the hunger.

This morning (my official weigh day) I was amazed to have actually dropped a pound overall for the week! 10st 9¼lbs! Brilliant. Single figures left to lose.

I was feeling a little off colour when I got up, but that is possibly me finding something because I was looking so hard. It was raining, blowing a gale, and freezing, but the weather forecast said it was like that all day so I just cracked on with my 12 mile run.

Last week I failed to take 10 seconds per mile off my long/ fast run. I wanted 7.40 m/m but had to settle for 7.54. This week I wanted to take another 10 seconds off, so 7.30. I did it! Even in to the teeth of the wind I held the pace.

This is doubly brilliant for me as yesterday I thought I was going to have to quit. I’m well happy with that. And I’m still feeling normal.

On the 30th of January I booked us a little flat in Newport for 3 days in October so I could do my marathon, then we could have a few days ambling around. Possibly with Wendy pushing me in a bathchair.

I went online and booked it through a booking site. The landlord wanted the money up front. Not a problem, I paid the £232.50 and thought no more of it.

Then I got an email off the site saying the flat was now going to be closed for renovation or something. OK. Cancel my booking, book another place. Where’s my refund? I looked on the site, it said payment/ refund is between you and the landlord. Here’s the landlord’s email. Fair enough. I emailed the landlord twice, a week apart, no reply. The other contact is a mobile ‘phone. Oh-o. Not even a landline. No physical address to which you can direct your complaints. Wendy rang it today (I don’t like talking on the ‘phone) and it went straight to a dodgy voicemail saying “contact us by email”, with no facility to even leave a message. Wendy went into CAB mode and looked it up. Because I paid by a debit card (not a credit card) the card wasn’t liable for a refund. I sent another email, but if they are going to ignore them there is no next step.

I went on to the booking site to let them know the place was a scam. I was hoping to save other people from being ripped off at least. The site bounced me about a bit until I ended up calling customer services. They tried ringing the landlord while they put me on hold, failing that they escalated my problem and within the space of one ‘phone call have agreed to pay me the money. How good is that? They state they are just advertising for the landlord and the money stuff is a deal between us, then they’re going to pay it to save me being ripped off on their site.

Fantastic.

It’s Booking.com by the way. They deserve to be namechecked for that kind of service.

So, brilliant day.

Work have been ruining this slack period for me.

I’ve had two weeks with only two shifts planned, last week and this. Obviously 2 shifts a week doesn’t cut the mustard when it comes to paying bills, but I had this last year and it only lasted a few weeks then I was getting battered with shifts again. Work are ruining it for by ringing up the night before and offering me a shift. I ended up with 4 shifts last week. Meh. Ah well, we always need money.

Talking of, I was looking at trainers. I really wanted a fast pair to give myself the best shot at a good time. They have super hi-tech ones now that everyone is wearing to smash all the old world records. Apparently they have a stiff plate in the bottom of the shoe and springy stuff over it, so you get the maximum return bounce with every stride. The guy who broke the 2 hour barrier for a marathon was wearing some of them.

The problem (apart from them being about £300!) is that I only have size 6½ feet and need a wide fit or my bones crush and rub together. All the fancy running shoes are standard fit. While I was googling “fast trainers for a marathon”, I came across a really good tip. Buy two pairs of the exact same trainer. That way you can break one pair in by doing 50 miles in them, do the rest of your training in the other pair, then swap back to the perfect condition, broke in pair, (that you are perfectly adapted to running in) for the actual race. Even if it only means I’m more comfortable, not any faster, it’s still a good idea. They say you are supposed to buy new trainers every 500 – 600 miles, as the cushioning breaks down and you don’t get the support so you are more liable to injury. For some reason I thought the pair I was training in were new when I returned to running in December. I looked up the sales receipt, I got them in June ’20! I’ve put 960 miles on them. Oops. At least I don’t feel extravagant for buying new ones now.

Some Twitter and I’m done.

There’s cook who’s life’s mission is to stop the poor from starving to death. She’s always doing things like “how to cook a family meal for £2.50” or whatever. A few weeks ago the government were saying the cost of living had gone up by 5% or some such rubbish. She went into some supermarkets and looked at the “value” brand stuff that the very poorest would have to buy and they’d all gone up by 45% -350%. The rant went viral. Then there was this. It’s a bit long but I make no apologies.

It doesn’t affect me, but I can’t tell you how happy that makes me. Brilliant campaigning from Ms Monroe and a fantastic response from Asda.

Someone else facing the “5%” cost of living rise.

£6,519.03 a year!

But of course, Tory Keir has ruled out public ownership.

Another fun topic this week was Kirstie Allsop saying that the reason the younger generation can’t get on the housing ladder is because they waste all their money on expensive coffee, netflix, and such.