Year End

Like a lot of my running friends I've been ill for a wee while. I caught the flu on Sunday 22nd November and haven't been right since. I poured myself on to a plane and headed to Egypt where I could lie around by the pool or beach and soak in the vitamin D and serotonin. I had a couple of Thai massages when I was there which made me feel like a bit of dough being kneaded but they did help improve my flexibility and help my yoga and ofcourse I tried some of the local customs.



I did the Glasgow parkrun on my return on Saturday 5th December and all things considered I was happy with my time of 22:10. However I missed out on the post race chat and bacon rolls, deciding to get home for a hot shower and back to bed instead. I’m afraid that was a bit of a false dawn as I’ve been struggling since and whilst the fever may help keep the pounds off, wakening up to soaking sheets and pillows every morning is not good. I’ve been on antibiotics, thanks to fellow Ayrshire man Alexander Fleming, but I’m not sure if they have worked. I did wake up in a dry bed this morning though so I tried a wee 20 minute run on the treadmill 2.53 miles and felt ok. Hopefully I’ll get back into running regularly again soon.



In 2009 I managed to run in 62 races and achieved new PBs in the 5k, 5mile, 5.5mile, 10k, 10,000m, 7.5mile and 12.5k distances. No exceptional results but my WAVA is now consistently above 70%, with my highest being 73.78% achieved at the inaugural Edinburgh parkrun. On a down note although I followed Hal Higdon’s 18 week marathon training programme in the end the monkey on my back from collapsing at the Edinburgh Marathon last year with chronic fatigue was just too heavy for me to carry.

In 2010, if I can, I would like to loose that monkey and clock a useful marathon PB. I would also love to get a sub 40min 10k and a sub 20min 5k. Well it’s a target anyway. It would also be good to finish at least one race as first in my category but there are so many good runners out there. I hope to improve my swimming enough to try a triathlon and it would be good to do at least one overseas race.