SOCK TIP OF THE DAY

Two pairs of Nike Elite (c’est moi!) Dri-Fit Running Socks arrived yesterday and were tested in a forensic way by my personal team of sock experts* this afternoon.

These socks are fabulous. The Dri-Fit fabric is very efficient and the socks came out as pristinely white (and orange and grey) as they went in. But more importantly, the footstrike cushioning (patent pending) works really well. Comfort all the way. Well done, Nike.

* The opinions expressed by my sock team are entirely their own based on independent empirical evidence and they are in no way in the employ of Nike or any other corporate entity. The socks were bought by ShunningRunning’s own Procurement Department.

ANATOMY OF A RUN

Apart from garrotting the Trainer Fairy, this week I bought new running pants (tracksters?) in some hi-tech sweat-evaporating material and some yo-hot blister plasters. Gawd – the funky paraphernalia involved in putting one foot in front of the other. I was going to provide the inside track of a run in the life of a walk/run charader, but I have a work crisis and must get on.

Back in my good ol’ trusted Mikuno trainers with blistered feet swathed in bandages to dispatch Week 10. Three weeks to go!

Stats (I feel I am slowly earning the right to use this word…)

Week 10 of 13. 22 minutes run. 1 minute walk. 22 minutes run. 45 minutes. Session 3 of 3. Walk pace: 4.5 km/h. Run pace: 6.8 km/h.

MILESTONE

OK, so mine’s a pink milestone covered in sissy flowers and has a sort of toy look to it, but I am now running as much as I am walking – segments of 2.5 minutes one and 2.5 minutes the other. This is Week 5 of the 13-week programme which I only started to take vaguely seriously after Christmas. Yesterday I again did the well-stomped route down the Old Kent Road, past the heady landmarks of Toys-R-Us, the self storage empire, PC World, B&Q, the fire station and ASDA with Bermondsey Tesco as the bright light on the horizon for the padded socks plod. I looked up the approximate kilometre distance of my route which was depressing. BOSTON TWENTY-OH-NINE is written on a banner on Mars which I am observing through my pathetic little telescope.

I have discovered one advantage of Ghanian evangelists – you always look slim and svelte among them. I have also discovered that there are very few tracks that are good to run to. The fact that they are good to dance to does not mean they are good to run to. Smooth Criminal is, rather embarrassingly, really good for the running charade. Annie are you ok are you ok annie annie are you ok are you ok annie works. Tragic.

Alcohol-free Day 17 minus 1

Had two glasses of Cava on Thursday, but I have decided that this is not enough to register on the lapsometer.

Running Progress

Week 5 of 13. 2.5 minutes walk. 2.5 minutes run. Session 1 of 3.

BIG FUN

Again stomping the nether regions of the Old Kent Road. I never hit a wall – I always seem to carry one with me for the first 20 minutes – but then broke free of it outside PC World and the sun came out and the mist lifted and…wow…will to live! Not a hint of heel trouble. Super-soft left and right-designated heel-and-toe-padded socks are definitely where it’s at. Today was almost as much fun as the kind of fun had 20 years ago involving much less padded socks and Russian officer cadets. Either running is a very exciting sport or I’m very old.

The jumping and bouncing to keep warm continues. Now most of the EU is hopping mad. Fitness is improving across the board. Ukraine reckons that the reason no gaz is coming out of their end of the pipe on the border to Western Europe is that the Russians were putting the gaz into the wrong pipe at their end – which of course sounds plausible.

Alcohol-free Day 14 minus 1

No further lapsed days. Research published (or appearing on the news) today suggests that consuming a lot of caffeine can give you visual disturbances – ocular snow, little yellow discs hopping about, blurriness, tunnel vision. Phew. I had the little yellow discs this week and thought…uh-oh…brain tumour. But then I thought that if I had a brain tumour, it would be unlikely that I’d have to do BOSTON TWENTY-OH-NINE – although BBB would probably still make me.

SOFTLY, SOFTLY

Another trip to bourgeois running heaven, although not quite as angelic as during the week – the run/walk seemed hard today. Maybe it was the crosswinds or weaving between the Greenwich Park Sunday crowds or not being able to open a certain gate and being given very funny looks. OK, OK, so I was not in smooth and seamless gate-opening mode today – but so what? I still managed another walk/run charade and, all being well, I will soon be running as much as I’m walking. What a sparkling triumph.

The heel problem almost solved by wearing my newly purchased super-soft left and right-designated heel-and-toe-padded socks. Next week: Extolling the virtues of incontinence pants no doubt.

Just discovered that little Dmitri Medvedev has his own video blog – although gaz is conspicuously absent from the presidential online effort. Blogging about gaz is obviously not very stweet.

Alcohol-free Day 11 minus 1

A calculation problem arises. I lapsed on Friday night with a bottle of wine – not in a roaring blow-out, but in a quiet whimper in front of the computer at the view from the foothills of an Andes-sized translation project that I have started to trudge up for a summit deadline next Monday – so I don’t know whether to reset the alcohol-free counter or simply deduct the lapsed day…