May I introduce you to the newest members of our family. I am going to have to whisper; from the left you will see Tom, Dick and Harry. I am having to whisper just in case they hear. The damage that could be done to these poor females with decidedly unfeminine names could be unrepairable. I don’t think any of them have any experience of working as a head doctor. Tom is occupied by traffic patrols, Dick my tank floor maintenance and Harry is currently searching employment after relocation. Mind you I am not sure they are that weak at all really. There used to be a male but he had to leave as the others beat him up.

Apparently they are Siamese fighting fish. We have adopted them as one of Maria’s work colleagues is moving abroad at the end of the year and these little fishes would be homeless. In one of her less charitable moments she has tried seeing if they would die off, but to no avail. So we agreed to take them over (Cue for us to promptly accidentally kill the poor little things after a day or two). They now spend their time swimming around in the corner of our living room, watching tv and eating float-away meals. Not a bad life I would think.

Its less than two weeks to our wedding now. Dont tell Maria, but I have changed the venue ;)

My running just keeps on getting better and better. Its amazing what results a bit of confidence can bring. At the moment my longest runs are 10 miles and the pace is not suffering as the distances increase. As a small reward I recieve a little present from my mum. Pilots earn their stripes, runners earn their tights. I am used to running in baggy tracksuit bottoms not this body clingy stuff. Its enough to make anyone feel self conscious, my femine side has to ask, does my bum look big in this?

My training graph section has just been updated not that I am sure anyone looks at it anyway. The rest of my training sections should be updated by the end of the week. I have discovered the earth shattering fact that working, running, fundraising, weddings, thinking about college work, and the secret project which drives Karen mad doesnt actually leave you with much spare time. Ho hum.

I guess you can sell just about anything these days. I dont know if i should be relieved or worried that it will be "packed carefully in dry ice to prevent it from becoming limp" and as for clicking on the picture to enlarge....

Thanks to Ragamuffin at amerikanska for the link.

I really have trouble-understanding people some times. Is there anything going on in their heads other than pan piped lift music? To be fair to the Swedes most of them are really thoughtful when I am out running. Today was a case in point when a bus driver waited for me to actually reach the pedestrian crossing so I didn’t have to break my stride. Wonderful. However on the other side of the coin there is the smirking cat walker of last week and today a driver wanting directions. Maybe it’s just me; perhaps I do have unreasonable expectations. Could it be me that’s the thoughtless sod that’s the bane of society?

Maybe I should have been grateful to have the chance to give someone directions. After all I was the chosen one, could it be that I should feel a sense of pride of being oracle of knowledge? I mean he could have asked the elderly couple sitting waiting for a bus, or the chap those dog was seeing if he could make a lamp post grow any higher. Instead “elevator music man” picked the person turning a shade of red to purple, glancing every so often at his watch, and moving at what I thought was a reasonable pace.

Maybe “elevator music man” thought I looked like I needed a break. Maybe he was thinking of the loneliness of the long distance runner and thought I would like a little conversation, or maybe there really isn’t anything at all inside some peoples heads. And get this, he even had the cheek to get annoyed as he kept on having to move his car so he could continue to ask for his daft directions. Sometimes I just despair, I gave him his directions and he went happily on his way. I don’t think he will ask again though, when giving directions I seem to have a problem with my left and right….

So yesterday was the choosen day for the Mayday project. The idea was simple take a photo every hour for a day and put it online for everyone to see. So welcome to my yesterday...

Isnt this meant to be the weekend? rise and shine for the 6am stocktake

Come home 4 hours later and promtly fall asleep

Wake up annoyed with myself for wasting the day away and head out for a run

Seeing as I am in the neighbourhood, i head to the base of the ski jumps. Note the traffic lights on the side, are they expecting it to get busy? or sometime to start skiing up the jump?

Take it easy for a while and enjoy the view of the town

Thanks for the warning, i cant see it happening myself but i will be carefull all the same

Peeking in peoples back yards on an evening walk with Maria

Walking past the church whose new copper refuses to turn green

Why do some Swedes find it neccesary to walk their cats? Or purrhaps (sorry) more importantly, why do some Swedes find it amusing to let their cat wander over to the other side of the cycle path while they just stand still so the lead stretches right across the path. They may have smirked this time as I slammed on my brakes but i doubt they will next time when my brakes are not so good. So sorry Tiddies or whatever your silly cat name is, I have nothing against you, but your owner is a ........

Im still about, really I am. I would have liked to have posted more recently but Im afraid I have burnt myself out. Apart from working the morning shift which means getting up at 4.30 after a restless night waiting for the alarm clock to ring I have done something very stupid. It was on Monday and I can only say someone must have spiked my drink or something as I could not have been thinking straight. For some reason I thought that a 20km run would be "good fun". To confirm my insanity i decided not to run on a nice level tarmac route but one of the running tracks up in the hills.

Think cross country route from hell and then some more. The tracks started out lovely, good natural running but it was all a big trick. Slowly, not even so you would notice at first the footpaths became worse and worse. Until after about 10kms, the point at which the trail has tricked you into the middle of nowhere and turning back would take just as long as going onwards, you get a sinking feeling. Not just a psychological sinking feeling, an actual where has my foot gone sinking feeling. Some joker has routed this track into a bog. Not to worry who wants nice clean running shoes anyway. Boulders, Fallen trees, snow (will somebody please tell this stuff its May) and wind swept hills all conspired to remind me im an idiot.

I have also been busy working on another little project but I am going to have to keep that one secret for a little while longer. Hopefully I will be back all refreshed after the weekend and back posting on a more regular basis. But for the time being this is one worn out idiot signing out.

Today was one of those days. You know the kind you feel like you are running around in circles, not really knowing where you are going and then 3 quarters of an hour latter you find yourself back where you started. One of those days where it appears uphill struggles are everywhere you turn and if you are not careful something is just waiting to trip you up. All in all however I am pretty pleased with how todays race went. Full report to come later but if you are happy with the short version and dont want to hear about the porn star moaning man, 10km in 47minutes 28 seconds.



Mini movie 1
Mini movie 2