Hello Traction My Old Friend

I could never live in the Arctic, or Lapland, or anywhere else as snowy and bleak like that.
Not only would I get very bored very quickly with having to cut a circle out of the house and dangle my fishing rod in the icy brine below every time I wanted my dinner (although it might be good for the diet), it would drive me mad slipping and sliding all over the place, like a new born calf skidding across the farmyard.
I have been out running three or four times since the Siberian blast turned this place into a picture postcard from Snowsville, (although Canadian friends are pi55ing themselves laughing at our supreme inability to cope with what they would regard as little more than a shower), and I have to say it has been getting rather tedious having to watch every step of the way in case I suddenly broke into a Rudolph Nureyev move and split myself akimbo on the on the Clifton Downs.
So tonight I had one of the best runs for ages. Thankfully the snow and ice melted quicker than Heidi Fleiss sat next to a three-bar fire today and when I went out for my scheduled 50 minute run, I felt like I'd pulled myself out of an Austin Allegro and got behind the wheel of an Aston Martin and so sped off up the road suitably.
I'm glad I got those few little runs under my belt during the snow, but they were such hard work because of all the sliding around and worrying about doing myself an injury. But tonight it was like a scene from a film as I strode magnificently through the streets of Bristol, each step gripping the pavement beneath my feet and propelling me forward.
I was so pleased with how I was going, and the fact that I only had to wear shorts, t-shirt and thin yellow jacket as the temperature was postively balmy, that I decided to extend my run and ended up doing 1hr 15mins. Just because I was having so much fun! Jeeesus, it has come to this. My idea of fun on a Friday night is adding 25 mins to my training run in the cold and dark. It's a long way from 'drink til you puke' sessions down the Punchbowl after work, ending up in some cheap nasty club, still wearing my cheap nasty suit, just because the bar is open and the idea of caring about anything had long since given up and gone home.
I do feel better for it these days, but just sometimes, like when I was watching Gavin and Stacey the other night and Smithy was getting hammered in a bar, I think about the old days and miss them a little bit. Well a lot. But every morning I'm reminded how precious life is as I look at the eight inch scar that runs down the middle of my chest and without saying a word tells me that I need to be a good boy.
It also reminds me that I need to raise £3,000 pretty sharpish for the British Heart Foundation: www.justgiving.com/simonpeevers