Odd Thomas Odd Blog

Three days to go before the run and yesterday I finally managed to book a hotel ... in Carlisle! There was hotel in Gateshead, Newcastle, the Bowes Incline Hotel, that was advertised at £80 per night on laterooms.com , but when they tried to book it for me, the hotel wouldn't accept the booking unless I paid an extra £25 per night! Thieving bastards! The girl at laterooms.com tried her best to negotiate for me, but the hotel wouldn't budge. They were apparently about to put the prices up because of the Great North Run ... blatant profiteering from a charity event. Its disgusting. As I needed a room, I asked about taking just one night. Nope, I had to book both nights, and as the girl at laterooms pointed out, the hotel has nothing in their details about minimum stay restrictions so they should not be doing that. Needless to say I sent the hotel a rather stroppy email - which I am sure will go straight into the trash - and ended up finding an available hotel in Carlisle. Now...

I am shattered. Totally and utterly shattered. The saying goes, "Women! You can't live with them and you can't live without them." I think this needs updating to reference work instead, cos I've managed perfectly fine without the former so far; though that could be down to not having the time to think, let alone think about someone else. For the past couple of months, I have been working on an asp.net application - after having 4 days 'training' - which was due to go live yesterday. For the past 4 to 5 weeks, I have been working 12 to 15 hours a day, and the last 4 weekends, in an effort to make up for my lack of asp.net and windows active directory knowledge and experience, in order to meet the deadline. I missed it. I didn't think I would as everything worked well on deployment to test, but deployment to production at the customer site was a totally different affair. Finally got it to work about 40 minutes ago - at least, I hope I got it to work...

On Friday nights, at 10pm, LBC 97.3 have an interesting show on called The Phsychic Show. Often, they seem to have visitors that come in to talk about something with a psychic link which really ends up being someone's spiritual interpretation of common sense. So it can be quite entertaining. However, last Friday, they had an interesting speaker talk about Cosmic Ordering. I've heard this phrase before and admittedly thought it was about the cosmic order of things. Turns out, its actually about placing orders with the universe, like you might with a mail order catalogue - sorry about the analogy, but its the best I can come up with! I have to confess that I started to get pulled in by it the more stories I heard. Basically, it goes on the premise that if you expect bad things, then bad things will happen, and if you expect good things, then good things will happen. So, if you ask the universe for something but don't expect to get it, then you won't because you don...

I think the 2 hour feeding rule before training is a myth! I ate last night about 6.45pm - just a salad with sour cream and chives from Sainsburys - and started running about 10pm (distracted watching a poignant episode of Spooks), but the whole time feeling like I had eaten less than an hour before, so once again, I was belching and farting my way round Watford! Still, I managed to knock a minute off last Thursday's time - not sure how though cos I hurt like hell by the time I had reached 4 miles.

The whole purpose of this blog is to keep you up-to-date with training for the Great North Run! Last night, I managed an 8.2 mile run in 1:22 - not particularly speedy, and it hurt by the end, but if I can keep this up for the next few weeks, then 13 miles should come easier ... I hope!

After looking at the definition for paranoia, maybe people are right...

I have come to the conclusion that I am cursed! My closest friends think that I am paranoid , until I reel off the list of things that go wrong - and its always on expensive items, stuff that's more than about £100. At the beginning of the year, there was the brand new washer dryer I bought, which didn't even make it through its first 'wash me before use' cycle before failing, which meant registering it and calling an engineer on the very first day of having it. Two engineers and two weeks later, things were finally fixed and I didn't have to use Mum's Laundry Service any more. Since then, I have been avoiding expensive stuff, until a few weeks ago when I bought a Panasonic EX75 DVD/HDD Recorder . I figured that, since it was Panasonic, then it should be okay buying it from ASDA . Wrong! The next day the EPG fell over (black screen with flashes of green and not responding to the remote) and I had to take it back. Got my money back rather than having to faff...

My first blog entry using my new SPV M3100! Okay, not directly online but that's more to do with Costa Coffee not having a wireless access point, as the phone itself is more than capable! I managed another run on Tuesday that took me on a slightly extended route to my normal one. Unfortunately, it worked out that it wasn't extended by very far at 5.85 miles! I've been meaning to run in the mornings before work, but late nights working, or unable to sleep because of storms, have meant that getting up at 5.30am is totally impossible ... for me, at least. So, the plan tonight is to work until 8, head home for 9, stretch while I watch Extras, and hopefully take the run up to 7 or 8 miles. My boss is concerned that I'm going to do myself an injury as I still have the pain at the top of my right leg, but I think that if I stretch properly - and make sure I massage my legs afterwards - then it shouldn't be an issue ... in theory! In the meantime, I need a brain trans...

Bad news with the training. A few weeks ago, I almost hit the nine mile mark, but seem to have damaged myself in the process, which means I haven't run since! I'm not sure exactly what I've done, but its a problem where the top of my thigh joins my hip, at the front. I'm guessing its a tendons/ligaments thing as I notice the pain mainly when I stand and straighten my right leg after being prone for a while. Once I get going, I'm fine, but for the first minute I tend to favour it. That said, I did manage a run on Saturday night, and again this morning (something of a miracle in itself considering it takes 4 alarms to make me stir, let alone wake up!), but both were very hard to do. With all the late nights and weekends I have been spending at work the past few weeks, often past midnight, I haven't been able to do any training anyway, regardless of the injury. Which could explain why the last two runs were so hard - I'm totally knackered!! Eight weeks ago...