"I'm on the pavement, thinkin' 'bout the government."

I accidentally found myself wandering around Waterstone’s the other day and then found I had accidentally bought this book. I don’t know why I thought I needed another running book. It’s not like you can’t find most of the same stuff for free on the internet. However, I did buy it, partly because I liked the look of the half-marathon training schedule in it, and it really is time for me to pick a schedule and stick to it rather than swithering all over the place as have been doing recently. Particularly as the last week has really not been a good running week. Following my abysmal performance at Balmoral on the 24th, and thanks to factors including daughterly illness and husbandly coming home late from work, I didn’t then run again until Friday 30th when I managed a miserly three miles on the treadmill. I then foolishly attempted a Sunday long run which, not surprisingly, didn’t go hugely well. So, this week is my new start, and I’m determined to follow it to the letter, starting with a 5 mile tempo run yesterday. Perhaps unsurprisingly given recent crapness, it felt tough (especially the gradual uphill on Auchinyell Road during mile 4), but ‘tis done, and I’m now looking forward to a 40 minute interval session on Thursday, if I can spare the time from obsessively following latest election news.

Speaking of which, I decided to ring the changes by listening to BBC comedy podcasts instead of music on my last couple of runs, which had the rather unfortunate side effect of making me giggle like a mad eejit as I was running along, which I’m sure would have caused passers by to look askance at me had there been any, but luckily there were hardly any, at least not during the particularly funny bits, although people driving past in cars may well have thought me a bit strange. Although that's hardly anything new.

The other thing I did this week was to drive the Stonehaven half marathon route, which was a sobering experience. Partly because I kept getting lost (hopefully that won’t happen on race day), but mainly because it really is quite hilly, and given how crap I was at tackling one solitary (if steep) hill at Balmoral, 13 undulating (if not quite so steep) miles is a bit alarming. The worst bits are in the first few miles, so hopefully if I haven’t actually died by half way I might have an outside chance of surviving the rest. The website also contains this somewhat alarming statement:

"There is a time limit of 2 hours and 45 minutes for completion of the race,
anyone not returned to the Finish area within this time will be picked up by the
sweep-up vehicle."

Worrying visions of self stumbling along desperately trying to keep one step ahead of road sweeper type vehicle intent on sweeping me up and throwing me in the back with all the other rubbish. Well, I have nine whole weeks to turn myself into a finely-tuned athlete, so I'm sure it will be no problem whatsoever.

Happy voting.