Thursday 29 April 2010

Whatever happened to all the heroes?

After a Saturday night of Falstaffian debauchery (or a glass of wine and an industrial-sized portion of spag. bol.) Team Overall were set for a 13.1 mile perambulation of the Warwickshire countryside at the Shakespeare Half Marathon.

Our plan was simple; we'd set off hard and see how far we got before it turned ugly.

It wasn't so bad for the first few miles; 'Argrrrrrrrgh!'ing at the crowd, startling other runners who had their names on their backs, enjoying the sunshine; it was our sunshine, our only sunshine.

Then at eight miles it turned ugly. Uglier than Betty. Uglier than Kid Joe. Whatever happened to Mr Hamster? He got a side stitch that made his ears burn.

Mr ATOM was faring little better, having lingered too long at the junction of Postviral and Undertraining...

We considered a pause to watch our Rome burn...

...but you can blag a half marathon, so we did, jogging in in 1:53:shrapnel. Not as we like it, but all's well that ends well.

Before Stonehenge there was Woodhenge and Strawhenge. 200 miles in this day and age? I don't even know where I live now...

The other A-H

Except that since the race...

Friday 16 April 2010

You are the king of the divan...

I've got a new lease of life! I'm going out and running cross-country, just me and my breathing and my heartbeat (Top tip: keep these with you at all times)...I feel like a runner again. The sun is shining, the birds are twittering (even without opposable thumbs) and all is right with the world.

Of course, due to the cosmic seesaw effect, or good karma bad karma or a Hawkingesque distortion of the space-time continuum, when I am up it seems Mr A is down. He's post-viral and laid up as effectively as Heathrow Airport. Ca plane pour moi? Non, c'est grounded. I am on top of the world, looking down on creation and the only explanation I can find is...that Dave is poorly. Is this to do with the fact that Kaprun, Austria is an anagram of "a kraut spa ruin"? En quatre couleurs? I think we should be told...

You can't claim us, we live here!

The Other Atomic Hamster

Monday 12 April 2010

I was only, 19 days from the last post....

Thanks to TOAH for a most excellent account of the 48 miles training weekend. Had a great time; lovely scenery, comfortable running pace, and 2 days of loo inspection. What more could one ask for? Well, maybe a colostomy bag. I really enjoyed the weekend, it was reassuring to know the body could cope with back to back long runs, and, with no fatigue in the legs, I was keen to run again on Monday but logic dictated rest, so I did. (Rest that is, not run.)

And then it was off to Austria for a long weekend. The town of Kaprun was our holiday destination, nestled in the shadow of the Kitzsteinhorn glazier, a popular ski-ing location. The plan was to try out some ski-ing, since neither Dis or I had ever skied before and with any time remaining do some walking and running in the countryside. Skied Friday, handed kit back Saturday, ran and walked for the next 3 days.

And so back to blighty for a well deserved rest over Easter and time to get ill! Spent the last week recovering; so now it's just an annoying cough and plenty of FLM to get rid of. Training has been a bit limited it has to be said; but I like to consider the positives and class the past 8 days as 'rest'; I like rest, almost as much as I like training. It's the most underrated aspect of training but ultimately the most important. I'd recommend it to everyone, but in particular to the other 249 teams in this year's Transalpine Run.... if you could put 7 days rest per week in your training schedule it'll really help me and TOAH during race week :)

All being well, the training will start in earnest again tomorrow, tomorrow, I'll be training tomorrow, it's always a day away.....

In other news, which I should really have included in the paragraph about ski-ing, I tried out my new second-hand cheating sticks during a 3 hr walk in the Austrian Alps, and I'm happy to report that they worked. So they will probably get the nod for the forthcoming Transalpine run, which starts in 144 days time.

Right, so that's the blog mojo returned..... just waiting for the training green light..... I want to RUN........ aaarrrgh!

Cat rang bell, I ate food

Atomic Hamster