Odd Thomas Odd Blog

Training for the Great North Run has been completely pants for the past couple of months. If its not working late, then its doing favours for people, updating the salsa website or, best of all, socialising, getting in the way of dragging my sweaty trainers out of the airing cupboard. In all fairness though, much of this is avoidance tactics - I've never really been one for expending large amounts of energy unecessarily! However, if anything can give a person focus and motivation, it's the realisation that people believe in you and expect you to achieve something. In my case, this came in the form of a £20 donation from one of the girls I used to work with. This is the biggest donation yet and something that I am more than grateful for, considering how tight money can be for students. The donation site now shows £55 in donations and £10 in pledges ... just £435 short of my target!!! According to the registration form I signed, I must raise a minimum of £350 but, like the...

Training seems to be going ok so far. The now regular swimming on Wednesday followed by a flatulence-driven jog home, salsa class on Thursday with a very quiet club - so quiet that Stanners showed the few of us left how to dance Bachata, which came in handy for First Friday the following night! Then Saturday a non-stop 4 mile run that took 38 minutes...and with very little wind! Back to work today and it was very quiet. The customer's new boys were both out so there was just two of us in the office; still ended up working nearly 10 hours though. Running and swimming again tonight but it was quite hard this time and I have figured out that it is the swimming that is building the wind up inside me, so running home tonight was painful. For some reason, I couldn't release any wind this time and by the time I got to the Dome roundabout I was the human equivalent of the Puffer Fish...I think that's as much imagery as you need for tonight!

In my push to train for the Great North Run - and my compulsiveness for sticking to a routine - I included a swim as part of my training last night. Only 1500m, so shorter than normal, but the running more than made up for it. 15 minutes to run to the pool, 45 minutes swimming and 35 minutes running home again. The slightly longer time can be put down to taking a longer route than last week so that I could get above the 4 mile mark, though I will need to check it in the car... Running to the pool made swimming very tough at first, as I found it very difficult to breathe when I started swimming. It wasn't until about the 30th length that my breathing improved, though my stroke was still crap! Similarly, running from the pool was hard at first as a different set of muscles had to get used to being used, but once they realised they didn't have a choice, I was soon jogging along quite happily. I think I am going to have to change my diet though. Soon after I started the retur...

Well, swimming is out as the pool is closed due to unforeseen circumstances so I took the opportunity to drive the route I ran yesterday. According to the odometer, it was only 3.8 miles so, for argument's sake, I think I'll round it down to 3.75 miles - better to round down than up! So, based on the above being achieved in 45 minutes it seems that I am running at an average speed of, funny enough, 5 miles and hour! At this rate, I should be able to complete the GNR in roughly 2 hours 37 minutes...not good enough! Somehow, I need to get better than 6.5 miles per hour if I am to complete the course in 2 hours...faster than that if I take into account the time it gets to actually reach the start line after the run has started. Hopefully, I should be able to get to this point by the end of May...

As much as I love the internet for making life easier, I have also learned to hate it for the same reason! It has become so much easier to tie yourself into things; just fill a form online and voilá, you've tied yourself into a three year finance deal or committed yourself to something that you wouldn't normally do, you just like the idea of. For me, this is the Great North Run . Okay, I've run it once before, and every year since then it has been a case of "I'll do it next year. Oh, did I miss the ballot?! Never mind!". Not this time, though! A month ago, I picked a charity and requested a place. A week later and I have a welcome pack in my panic-stricken mitts wondering how on earth I am going to raise my target amount of £500 ! Three weeks later and I finally convince myself that I should start training in April so that I have six months to get into shape...last night was my first run. Surprisingly, for someone who hasn't run for a few years, an...