Day 26 – Dot Dot Dash Dash Dot Dot

Total Distance – 157km

I have limped, figuratively and literally up to 157km. Over the space of 5 days I’ve managed 2 very painful shortish runs and one bafflingly pain free longer one. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to when my knee flares up – though I think it’s closely related to whether I tackle hills or not. With 5 days to go I’d like to sneak close to a respectable 200km for the month, but it’s a lottery each day as to whether I can limp 40ft or breeze along for 10kkm. We shall see….

 

Day 19 and 20

• Total Distance – 137km

Well, I ran both days. Odd distances I can’t quite remember (almost 7km and almost 8km I think). I forgot to blog yesterday because I got attacked and rendered unconscious by some very strong cider.

The leg was sore both days (and is bloody agony at the moment), so clearly I haven’t shrugged off whatever the injury is. The pain only seems to kick in past about the 4km mark, so I might just have to accept a few more days of rather crap distances.

As I was rather disenchanted by everything and had nothing in the fridge for tea I went to get a kebab. I was proud to see that my local kebab shop has reached the final round of the national kebab championships (Outside London category) and had a congratulatory letter from the local MP on the wall. There is a strange mixture of pride and self-revulsion when your local kebab shop is in the running to be the best in the UK. I feel conflicted emotions.

I also feel sick after the kebab, and like every time I eat one swear I’ll never eat one again. This time I really mean it.

Day 17 and 18

• Distance – 0km and 7km
• Total Distance – 122km

Well Day 17 was a write off. My knee was a mess. It was sore even walking on it. After an internal debate I decided to take the super-wuss option of a second day off in Janathon. Unprecedented. Amazing scenes. Etc. Expecting the knee to still be terrible today it was something of a surprise that the Day 18 run was not only easy, but transformatively faster than anything I’ve run so far this month. This was partially due to a combination of nice weather and the feeling of joy when a body part is overperforming, but also because I was tormenting runners on the prom by chasing them down and running past them at high speed. Some would call this competitive spirit, others might call it “being an arsehole” – either way it is one of life’s simple pleasures to power past someone half your age wearing very expensive running equipment while trying very, very hard to appear nonchalant while doing so.

Unfortunately all this nonchalant fast-running meant I ran out of puff early and had to stop at 7km. These trials and tribulations have set me adrift of the top 10. I need that nee to hold things together next week. Both our respective dignities are at stake.

Day 16 – Kneeckered

• Distance – 7.5km
• Total Distance – 115km

Well, I think that’s the knee properly knackered now. Stupidly decided to run up and down some steep hills – and it agonisingly gave out a crazy distance from home. What followed was a limping, painful drag back to the flat. We’ll see what tomorrow brings, but this might be 1 or 2 days out. Sadface.gif.

Day 15 – Get to da choppa

• Distance – 7.5km
• Total Distance – 7.5km

Just a quick update as I have to rush.

Epic run today – through gale force winds, hail and sleet. Made all the more epic by watching the Coastguard at work, either trying to rescue someone or just practising their mad skills in their big yellow helicopter. With the weather how it was it made it all the more impressive as they hovered just above the sea and played chicken with cliffs….

Day 14 – “I get knocked down, but I get up again”

• Distance – 7km
• Total Distance – 100km

Whatever happened to Chumbawamba? Surely Burnley’s biggest export behind Sir Ian McKellan and Sean Dyche’s ridiculous voice. I would google them but…. I can’t arsed.

Anyhoo – That’s the 100 for the month up (about 63 miles). Not as impressive as years gone by, but I’m just clinging on to 8th place on the leaderboard.

Auswomble is a freak of nature – nobody runs as far as him. But I’d be right up there in and around second if I was properly fighting fit/motivated – a little depressing. I think I’ll try to overtake Trevstarr though – if only because I disapprove of the use of two r’s in quick succession in a name. Even if it is his actual second name, there is still no excuse. When I was at school I used to know a boy called Mike Starr and he always had a better computer than me, so I’m dealing with a lot of repressed emotions here, clearly.

More positively – I went for a lovely run today with an old friend, and it was a fairly gentle 7km without any pain. Lovely to see him – we haven’t met in person for years and years – and especially nice to meet while we trotted around Aberystwyth. The weather was lovely too. Even an afternoon and evening wrestling with the Biostatistics Beast couldn’t dispel the general air of a good day….

Day 13 – Knee No

• Distance – 0km (though I did go for an hour long walk)
• Total distance – no change

It’s been an agonising decision (in more ways than one) but I’m taking an official Janathon day off to let the knee recover. It was very twingy on the walk to and from uni and still feels odd now. I’m going for a run first thing tomorrow, so rather than stress the cheeky joint I’ll give it time to chill out and get its shit together.

Most of the day was spent wrestling with statistics once again. My brain is starting to feel like the rest of my body – broken, aching and exhausted.

Day 12 – Knee Naw Knee Naw

• Distance – 11km
• Total Distance – 93km

Running often hurts. It’s a normal thing to have to run when a bit of you is aching, or bleeding or falling off. But I’ve managed to hurt my knee and it has the ominous feeling of an injury that won’t be OK in the morning. Sadface. I’m not entirely sure how it happened, but it was fairly twingy throughout the run and later in the afternoon during a walk up to university it pretty much gave up altogether. Double sadface. Still, there’s always hope a good hard sleeping will sort it out. Or Deep Heat. The actual run was very pleasant though – even if it absolutely chucked it down.

I ended up at Aberystwyth’s out-of-town industrial estate which was full of absolutely fascinating shops that I never knew existed. We have a Screwfix! I never knew we had a Screwfix. I have no particular reason to go in a Screwfix, but I’m happy it’s there. The rest of the day was a mix of wildly exciting (new fibre broadband!) and wildly annoying (the impenetrability of Biostatistics!). The new Internet is quite fast, but not ostentatiously so and the statistics are just bloody rubbish. 4 hours today learning about ANOVA, which sounds like a female Slovakian tennis player but is a way of doing…. things… with groups of…. other things…. to find out a thingy number. I really don’t know. More of that tomorrow though, so I’m hoping the knee sorts itself out or it’s going to be a well depressing 48 hours….

Day 10 (and 11)

(whisper) Don’t tell Jen. Two days in one blog post….

• Distance – 7.5km and 6km
• Total Distance – 82km 

According to Runningfree I’m up to 82km, which seems about right (I did a few x.xkm runs which have added up). One of the runs this weekend (the first one) was down a very steep hill and then up it again. I’ve never been a big fan of hills and this did nothing to change my mind. Thankfully my poor short-suffering girlfriend has solved my bleedy-foot issue by removing the Wolverine claws from my feet.

The run tonight was in fairly horrendous conditions and I lost heart at about 6km and decided to come home and hide in the shower. Surprising amount of drunk people around for a Sunday – the run was more like a slalom course than usual.

I would write more but I’ve got a really important essay to get in tomorrow and I’m stuck on a tricky sentence where I use the phrase “magic unicorn” without context or explanation. Which I’m also going to do here.

Day 9 – Rain, Rain, Rain, Run, Rain

• Distance – 8km
• Total Distance – 68km

Another cheeky 8km in the pouring rain, toes a-bleeding, feet a-hurting. Pace is starting to pick up though, which is encouraging….