I Was Careful What I wished For

Great picture of Nigel Armstrong on Manx Athletics. He really doesn't seem to understand that you're supposed to be out on your feet and wobbling all over the place after running a 2:53 Marathon but he looks so fresh, I'm sure he could have gone on to do the two laps as according to Murray's spoof.

After at least two years knocking on the door of a sub three hour Marathon, Mark Clague has well and truly burst through with his 2:53.

I am very honoured that Nigel has agreed to help me during the Parish Walk for the third year and that Mark is also chipping in to back me up this year.

Well done also to the exotically named, Max Bezance who was the fastest man with Manx connections and all the other runners who competed yesterday.

About 3 or four weeks before Christmas, I said to Irene, my wife that I could do with getting a cold as I hadn't had one for ages. Marital relations have never quite been the same since as she went into some length about what a stupid pessimistic doom monger I was to be so idiotic as to wish that upon myself.

Finally, five months late, the aforementioned cold has arrived. My head hurts, my throat is sore, my nostrils well and truly bunged up. My ever present groin strain has also developed into a full grown pull and my right foot has problems with the tendons.

So says she, 'Are you happy now you're ill?' I grunted fairly non-committedly but for fear of her thinking I'm even more barmy than she already does, I didn't reveal the true extent of my feelings.

I'm ecstatic! The timing could not be better! I have a full 13 days left to recover before my 50k walk and it would be extremely unusual for me to contract another disease before the Parish Walk. It also means that I'm unlikely to overtrain during this taper period, so if there was a time to pick up an injury, this is it (during the last month before the race, make sure you don't work too hard so that you feel fresh for the big day.)

So, for now it's back to moaning about how rotten I feel. Time to break out another lemsip and pretend to be really miserable.