Author: Buck

Somehow or other I got caught up in motorbikes again. I wasn’t getting much work due to the strikes and I wanted to be prepared to travel to a new job. Or at least that’s how I rationalised it. Possibly (probably) it was just my obsessing and blatant bike desire.

I had resisted and turned my nose up at some really great VFR750s recently. I kept telling myself I didn’t need a bike, and if I got one it would be a modern one with fuel injection to combat the problems of the new ethanol additive fuel (rotting seals in carbs, gumming up carb jets, rusting tank if unused). I regret not getting some of them quite a bit, in retrospect.

I saw one at the bottom end of London (of course. No bike is ever local. It’s the law). It was at the lower end of the price bracket for a VFR, it’s only done 30,000 miles, supposedly full service history (faked, I think, the first few have been loosely stamped then smeared to illegibility) with a near perfect MOT history. The thing is I’m not fond of the colour. A sort of purpley blue with gold wheel rims. I decided I wasn’t going to be the guy who turned down a brilliant condition, low mileage, example for something as petty as the colour.

We went to Spain for a week and that was nice. While we there all sorts of shenanigans broke out in the UK. The last time we went over we left the UK all was normal, we came back a week later and the supermarkets were empty, the streets were desolate and it looked like a post apocalyptic film set. This time we left the UK goose-stepping into totalitarian fascism with no hope of ever escaping the Tory/nazi deathgrip on democracy.

By the time we were flying back we were expecting to be greeted by banners saying “Welcome to the Glorious Worker’s Republic of Corbynistan, comrades!”

While we were over there mother text me to tell me Lisa’s car was dangerously unfit for purpose. The steering is all over the place. We’d told Lisa that we’d get her a new car when she needed one, but she hadn’t told us. When I said about her steering she said “It’s alright. I just don’t go on fast roads.” Incredible. I know she was just trying not to spend our money, which is thoughtful, but dumb. So dumb. She could have gotten herself killed.

Wendy had to start taking some of her holidays so we both booked a week off work. Wendy promptly came down with covid. So that’s lovely. Obviously I followed suit.

She came over all ill on Tuesday, I had to get a test kit, but she tested positive as soon as it arrived on Friday, I tested positive the day after.

It’s dragging it’s feet. It’s Monday and I tested positive again today. Wendy’s barking a lot and has had painful ears and throat, and feels grotty. It’s making her low. I’ve only got a light dose. I feel a bit weak and tired and I’ve got a persistent tickle. The worst thing for me is trying to sleep. I’m having to prop myself upright because when I lie down I’m constantly swallowing and coughing. My funky new watch monitors everything I do, I’m not sure how accurate it is about monitoring sleep, but it said I had 21 minutes deep sleep last night, 5 hours 22 light sleep. I don’t know the ins and outs, but I am knackered for sure.

I’ve been looking at several race predictors and the science is that you lose 8% off your time when you double the distance. So I absolutely have to be 1.25 for a half to stand a chance. That’s 6.30 pace for the distance.

Right. I’m through with waiting for improvement. This week my plan is

I’m resting today. I’ll do the easy trots tomorrow. The 5x 1200m I’ll do as an 11 mile run with a flat out 5K race. I’ll do slow runs (8m/m) for the next two. I might skip the recovery run. Then I’m going to do a test half. I’m going to go out at 6.30 and just try and hold. It’s 15 seconds per mile more than I have done previously. If I’m rested, absolutely determined, and prepared to accept the pain, I might be able to do it.

It’s all getting very real now. I’ve got just under 7 weeks until my race. I did a quick blog last week moaning that I didn’t think I could do it. As I was writing it, the solution occurred to me: up the pace. It sounds obvious, but I was doing Camille’s plan after Garmin fooled me into thinking I was a lot faster than I actually am. That left me behind on my training. Then I panicked and went back to Advanced Marathoning plan but that says “do the long runs at marathon pace +10- 20%”. Which works, but I’ve no longer got the time to gradually build up my fitness. I remembered, as I was doing the blog, that when I started the plan it was after 2 months of no running. All the different run times (medium, fast, easy) were all the same to me because that was all I had. I set aspirational times and worked towards them, even though it nearly killed me. Within 8 weeks I had set an new half marathon PB. So what I’ve done is bump up all my run times. My long, fast run used to be 7.30 – 8.12, it’s now 6.50 – 7.15.

my new watch finally arrived. I was waiting and going insane, checking my email and the order status several times a day. They said I had to wait 3 -5 weeks for stock to come in. After 4 weeks I noticed they had a chat button on the site so I asked how long for my order. Apparently, even though I’d rung them to change my card details 3 weeks before, and rang back the next day to confirm it, they hadn’t updated my card and hadn’t told me. They told me to ring again. While I was on hold I checked the website, watches in stock, so I put the ‘phone down, cancelled my order and ordered it again with my new card. It arrived 2 days later.

In with calm. Deep breaths.