It’s been a while. My marathon training for Cape Town next month has had three what I could call interruptions.
Firstly my Old Goat had his hip broken by a bull. He was rude to said bull who did warn him but nonetheless he ended up having the hip replaced and rendering himself useless for snake-killing on trails. He can still open a bottle of wine though and change a tyre so I’ll keep him around.
What with driving up and down to Hilton while he was there and having to do everything at home, my program was somewhat patchy. I tried, I really did, but have you ever tried to explain to two dogs that morning exercise will not constitute sniffing around at a leisurely pace but will be replaced by speed intervals or hill repeats? We did compromise but maybe not at the level Coach Mo would have recommended.
Next up was my Yookay International Training Camp held in Worksop, Nottinghamshire - took a long time to work out what shire I was in! This camp took an unusual approach to marathon training. There was lots of running but short distances only. Hydration and refuelling was accomplished by a pint and a pie at the pub, or wine if the run was an evening one. Interesting - funnily enough I do my best running over there. I would like to relocate but don’t want to alarm my daughter and son-in-law.
After that it was one week to catch up a bit of work followed by a 73 km Camino in Hermanus - an amazing experience and one I will repeat as often as I can - but needless to say no running was done.
So now I have 6 weeks of hard work to up my performance from crippled tortoise to ordinary tortoise - no mean feat. We will see what happens.