THE GOOD BUCK

I was talking to a noob runner years ago and I had to explain that she shouldn’t be worried about the miles I was doing, “After a while it’s just another mile. But starting out, and getting faster, is always hard as nails.”

Last year, when I was training 5 and 6 days a week for 10 months, I managed to get quick enough to do a 5K (3.1 miles) in under 20 minutes. It’s a bit of a benchmark. Not for the young and fast people, but for old duffers like me, running 3.1 miles at 6.27 m/m is pretty damn tough. Then I blew my target fast marathon and my training went out of the window.

I’ve been back to fairly regular (about 50 miles a week) training for the last few months, but going fast is still the hard bit. I’ve not actually completed a 5K in ages. I’ve started a bunch of them, but on some of them my Garmin was totally inaccurate so I quit, others I’ve gone fast enough in the first mile but then dropped off the pace so much in the second mile that I was on for a lousy time so I quit.

After blogging the other day about how my bike just wasn’t doing it for me, I got into a situation. I was going to town, to get some new veggie meat substitute when some cars got behind me at the lights. They were being bolshy and trying to race each other. One of them beeped their horn. As soon as the lights changed I set off in earnest. I had the front end trying to come up as I shot off. I take back all I said. That bike is a hoot if you throw the throttle open. I think the problem is I’m only doing a few miles each way to work. By the time I’ve got the tyres warmed up enough to start throwing it around, I’m parking up. If I ever want to go for a blast or need to commute, my little Honda is more than enough.

The meat substitute I just mentioned is called Fable. It’s a mushroom based product. Someone on twitter recommended it. We are seeing a lot more “not for sale in EU” on the supermarket meats now, so god knows what crap they are flogging off. Another Brexit benefit, food not fit for human consumption in the EU. The point being, I’m looking to reduce/ stop my meat intake. I know it’s what I should do for the planet, the animals, and such, but meat is such an easy food source. Anywho, I thought I’d give it a go. The Fable website has recipes so I tried their spaghetti bolognese. I can’t say definitively, because of my fickle taste buds, but on this occasion it was the best spag bol I’ve ever tasted. I think it was mainly due to the homemade sauce. That took 2 hours to make. Wendy, who has fully functioning taste buds, thought the sauce was delicious but the ‘meat’ had a bit of a tang to it.

I will be working through their online recipes. Definitely the way to go for me. It’s £4.59 for a 250g box, but the spag bol could easily do 4 meals.

I’ve not been blogging for ages. 8 months without a real blog. I think because I lost my running focus. I tried so hard last year to get sub 3, then failed dismally. After that I was just doing runs when I felt like it. I’ve turned it around over the last two months and got back into regular training.

I bought a super duper new Garmin running watch earlier in the year. A brand new model that was at the cheaper end of ‘bloody ridiculous’, but has the latest, top of the range spec GPS. I paid an extra £50 to get the version with music capability on the watch (so you can listen to your music via bluetooth on your headphones, you don’t have to take your ‘phone out with you). It was great. For 2 months. Then the GPS was everywhere. I mean seriously everywhere. It lost nearly 5 miles on an 18 mile run! I tried everything I could think of, then I contacted Garmin support, but it was useless.

I asked around and somehow found out about the new Coros Pace 3 watch. “Cheap” (it’s a relative term, the top of the range Garmin ones are over a grand!) at £219, got the same top tier GPS system, and comes with music capability as standard. All the reviews said it was a great watch if you don’t want all the bells and whistles (that I never use).

Same shit, different day.

The slogan had been on the ‘fridge so long that John opened the door without consciously registering it. Had he been asked about it he would probably say it was true; get breakfast, go to work, come home, have a pizza and a beer, watch some TV, play some games, go to bed, and repeat. That was just the routine of existence, common to most. He’d originally put the magnet on a different ‘fridge when he was fresh out the army. He’d been young, disillusioned and as cheaply cynical as the statement. But that was 12 years ago. John poured milk onto his muesli and shut the ‘fridge door.

He made a fresh coffee and took a moment to look out of the window at his garden. This was the best time of the year for it. Spring was really getting into gear and the garden was bursting with potential. Vibrant greens and freshly minted leaves were bringing hope and life back after the frigid void of winter. He took a sip of too hot coffee and just enjoyed the moment. Perhaps if he’d have been asked about the sticker he would just be a little embarrassed by its trite nihilism and dismissed it as an old memento.

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.