That was the week that was...

In writing a diary/blog I could, in classic Bridget Jones stylee, write my weight & consumption of cigarettes/alcohol. That'd be easy - Cigarettes: None since December 2009; Alcohol: I've now run out of both red wine & all the bottles I've won at the Bridge Inn 5K series; Weight: Nowhere near race weight, but then again I'm not surprised as a) I'm not in 'training mode' at the moment & b) I'm still sampling the delights of food that I can't/won't eat when in 'training mode'. Although, saying that, two vegetable pizzas & a load of garlic bread in one sitting was just being greedy...

This past week I have been still exercising (well, it is an 'addiction') but the emphasis has been on enjoying myself & having fun... Strength/endurance came from slotting some runs in during my lunchbreaks, such is the beauty of flexi-time, a 10miler on Wednesday & a 7.75miler on Friday, both of which took in the sights, delights, and hills of the Compton Dando area (including the infamous Peppershells Lane). I also included a run in the dark on Tuesday. Wearing a headtorch, hi-viz & off-road running shoes I ran from Netham Lock to the Lock & Weir. In the dark. Along a wet, muddy, slippery, footpath. Next to a river. In the dark. I must need my bloody head read... (I'll probably do it again this week).
I've also managed to fit in a few swimming sessions, either at lunchtimes if I'm not running, or after work. From being a virtual non-swimmer a few months ago, I am now strong enough to swim about 30 lengths of front crawl. 32 lengths is roughly half a mile so I am rather chuffed with what I've managed to achieve in such a short space of time... On Tuesday I managed to get my 16 length PB down to 10:32, then followed this up with a 10:18 on Sunday. Why 16 lengths? Because that's the number required in a sprint-triathlon...

Saturday saw me enjoying a leisurely cycle out to Bath, along the Bristol-Bath Railway Path, with my better half, and enjoying a coffee and a CHICKPEA & potato pasty in Baths Abbey Courtyard. I write chickpea in capital letters as when I put that on FaceBook the predictive text informed the world that I had betrayed my vegetarianism and was eating a chicken pasty...!! After a salivating visit to Total Fitness we cycled home along the hillier road that leads through Kelston village - just so I could 'dance' on the pedals on the uphill sections & power through the downhills. Well, who isn't a big kid at heart?

Sunday saw a return to the mud, this time, alongside clubmate MG, to the beautiful Wiltshire village of standing stones fame, Avebury, a a race that has long been on my 'to do' list - the Avebury 8. Luckily for us runners, the course took us away from the village, the tourists and the hippies trying to connect with the cosmos through the power of the stones, and out into some lovely countryside on what turned out, after a cold, frosty start, to be a wonderfully sunny morning. Lots of mud was to be found, along with plenty of puddles of freezing cold water, in a race that fulfilled all my expectations. I would thoroughly recommend it to anyone. For once my asthma didn't rear its ugly head & I surprised myself by finishing in 7th place with a time of 53:43.

All this on a 'quiet, non-training week'. Next week? Probably more of the above...