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 6 – Exploration

• Distance – 6km
• Total distance – 40km

Set off with the intention of running a decent distance, but ended up running about 3km in one direction (along the beach) then running 3km back in the other direction (quite close to the beach). Once I got back to the start I didn’t have the heart to do any more, so I sacked it in. My terrible distances have seen me cut hopelessly adrift from the Janathon top ten, languishing down in 13th place. But, I did find a nice new route which can be glued onto my existing one to make it a little longer.

The weather has been suspiciously good the past couple of days, I’m expecting an ice-storm tomorrow or meteor strike.

Day 1 – Welsh Feet…. Welsh Roads?

• Distance: 6km
• Total Distance: 6km

So, Day 1 of Janathon. Quite a lot has changed since the last one. I’m no longer in France, no longer with my original partner (and midway through a bitter split) and no longer capable of running 500km in a month. I now live in the sleepy seaside town of Aberystwyth in West Wales. Aberystwyth is famous for many things – its cliff railway, its camera obscura and (most importantly) the fact it has only a single escalator (which runs upwards). Aberystwyth is divided from civilization by a couple of A-roads that wind their way through mountain ranges so treacherous that even Hannibal would think twice about crossing with his elephants (I’m not talking about the A-Team’s Hannibal – as due to the complete lack of airports in the region it would be easy to get BA Barracus to visit without resorting to drugged milk). What am I doing in this remote corner of the world? Well, with a view to getting back on the job market I’m wrestling with a Master’s degree in Food and Water Security at the 116th best university in the UK. I am a Master of many things, but this is my opportunity to get a piece of paper that proves it. So far it’s going quite well, although generally speaking the summary of the degree appears to be the world is finished, there is no hope and we’re all going to die.

Still, chin up eh?

Running wise for the first 3 or 4 days I’m going to be plodding around France as I’m staying with a friend here at the moment. I started off today with a gentle lollop through the Sarthe countryside in sub-zero conditions. 6km in all, at an ambling pace, but I felt fine and it was nice to get out and about after months of stooging about writing essays or running on a treadmill. After last year’s incredible (worth pointing it out for the third time) distance I think I’ll be a little more reasonable this time out and just aim for a comfortable top 10 finish. I’d like to do a couple of half-marathons in the spring and summer so this is a good way of kicking off the training as well as reducing the additional runthomasrun that I’m building up around my waistline….

Good luck to all the other participants. Apart from Andrew Fletcher, my nemesis. I don’t think he’s doing it this year, but he will remain my nemesis until I select a new one.