This is why I run

When I mention to some people that I am in training to run the London Marathon 2012, they often ask, 'why the hell would you want to do that?'. On the face of it, it's a fair question as for somebody of my athletic ability running a full length marathon takes in excess of five hours on the day and about six to 12 months training. On top of working full time, trying to organise a wedding and thinking impossible dreams like buying a house.
But every now and then there are some big obvious reminders as to why I am looking to spend my winter evenings plodding round Bristol on the training treadmill towards April 2012 for my Olympic year marathon.
Anyway, we were just on a holiday and I had to take the chance to get a picture outside Rye's favourite teashop, see pic below:

I thought it might serve as a timely reminder of what being called Simon and eating all the pies really does to a man. Which is why since returning from our Kent sojourn I have been running three times, including a three miler yesterday and lost five pounds, a good couple of pies in my book.

So, I'm posting this picture today to serve as a reminder, if any is needed, as to exactly why I need to run, and, more importantly, stop eating pies. Nothing too deep or philosophical about it, no need to strive to find inner-peace, or to reach a point of zen tranquility to immerse myself in complete understanding of humanity, more like wanting to fit into a pair of jeans that I last wore in March 2010 which cost £40 and that's a lot of bloody money in this day and age to be stuffed at the back of a wardrobe devoid of any practical use. Come to think of it, an entire rack of shirts is hanging like a row of Lib Dem principles in my cupboard, utterly forgotten and unlikely to see the light of day for a while to come.
So instead of spending what hard-earned money I have left after the monthly outgoings on clothes that get a couple of days out before somehow shrinking beyond all wearability, I am, to paraphrase RUN DMC, going to take Take The Fat Back, mother lover. And that means running, lots, and for long distances. Or until I collapse.

London 2012, here I come

Came home to find the letter from British Heart Foundation I've been waiting for confirming my place in the London Marathon for next year. Amazing!

Now all I have to do is get marathon fit in eight months and three days. Easy!

Very excited and if I make it all the way to the finish line on April 22, I will be able to say that I took part in London 2012 and let people make up their own mind as to whether I was referring to the Olympics and wonder if that could possibly be true.

I did a run

And I sort of liked it.
My friend Marc has suggested we start running again, just once a week to get warmed up as he knows I want to get back in the right shape.
I tried to squeal out of our first outing this evening with a pile of work in front of me and the prospect of running in the rain looking less appealing. But he kicked my ass, in a texting kind of way, and I'm most glad he did as I felt much better for half an hour or so of flumping around the Downs. Flumping is the only word I think accurately describes the motion and style of movement adopted by the author.
It was only after I came away from the jogging experience that it dawned on me that there may have been some level of collusion with my betrothed in the sense that they both think I could do with getting out and stop moping around about how unfit I am and do something about it. I realise now they had ample opportunity to plot during a recent barbecue at our house where I spent most of the time eating and drinking myself into oblivion.
But as I say I'm glad they did as I rather appreciate the gesture and hope that it may spur me on to a healthier and less corpulent existence.
In other news, I'm still waiting to hear whether I have a place in the London Marathon for next year, and also hoping that will act as some kind of inspirational rocket up my ample backside if I do get one. Have decided that if I don't get a place for London that I'm going to try for Edinburgh in May. Need some kind of target to aim for so why not try for the highest peaks?

Fight the closure of baby heart units in Southern England

I'm going to go off half-cocked a little because I am not in possession of all the facts behind this seemingly insane idea to close down Southampton General Hospital's Baby Heart Unit.
See this link to Daily Echo story here for more.
As far as I am aware Southampton General is one of three baby heart units under review, one of the others is the Royal Brompton in London.
The official consultation period is underway and a decision is due at the end of the month and one of the units is going to close.
This is absolute madness in  my opinion. How can this government consider closing any baby heart unit, which save so many lives on a routine basis, in order to skim a little off the budget and make this bunch of asset strippers look like they're doing a good job with the economy.
A very long time ago in March 1975, I was born in the New Forest town of Lyndhurst, not very far from Southampton. Unluckily for me and family I was born with two small holes in my heart and an abnormal arotic valve, making life really quite difficult for me at the time.
Luckily for us the Southampton General Baby Heart unit was on our doorstep and thanks to the excellent work of that team of surgeons, doctors and nurses, I was operated on a year later and both holes were filled in, which is not too melodramatic to say gave me a lease of life I may not have been privileged enough to enjoy if the condition had gone undetected.
The valve was replaced, as planned, much later in 2007, by a team under the expert leadership of Marcus Haw, who is leading the campaign to keep the unit open.
I owe my life to that hospital, as well as a unfortunate lifetime allegiance to Southampton Football Club.
It makes no sense to me at all to close down any one of the units under review. If Southampton loses theirs parents will have to travel to London or even Bristol for treatment. As excellent as Bristol now is, it's not exactly down the road if you live in Southampton or further afield.
I don't understand why this proposal is even on the table and shows this government to be utterly out of touch with the reality of lives for many people in this country. What if a family with a sick child doesn't have a car, can't afford the travel, or the overnight accommodation that could be necessary. It already costs a fortune to park in a hospital, add to that a round trip of a couple of hundred miles in fuel alone and it becomes prohibitive.
It's simply all kinds of wrong and I hope there is enough pressure put on government to change this ludicrous and damaging kind of policy.

My vision for a fully-integrated, interactive soap opera

I have a dream, and it's a bit silly really, but why don't soap characters move around the soaps, it would be ace.
In real life people move around the country, indeed the world, so why not in the soaps?
Wouldn't it be great if Kevin Webster decided he'd had enough of life on the Street and headed down South for a new life and ended up working for Phil Mitchell in the Arches. Similarly, what if Alfie Moon turned up at the Rovers to get a couple of shifts while him and Kat looked for a house in Manchester, or nearby Cheshire like the rest of the BBC at the moment.
Even better if one of ridiculously good looking Aussies in Neighbours goes travelling in the UK on a gap year and ends up behind the bar in E20. Why aren't there any Aussies working in pubs in Eastenders by the way?
You could get people to vote on where characters go next, like John off of Corrie who's on the run with the baby, we could vote on whether he heads to Emerdale to work on a farm under another assumed name, or over to Chester to join the rest of misfits in Hollyoaks.
Maybe he could be found contemplating jumping off the Clifton Suspension Bridge on Casualty, then sent to see a specialist in Holby City.
This surely must be the way forward for entertainment in the 21st century. A bit like what Marx said about all businesses eventually becoming one big corporation under the capitalist model, all the soap operas of the world should merge into one big show, called The Story Of Life, or something similar...............
.................It's amazing the shite you think about while avoiding going out for a run.

The first run is the hardest

                                           Here we go again!Training starts in the kitchen.

It's been a year and ten days or so since I last posted on this blog, or thought in any serious way about running come to that. Which is why I find myself once again with aching limbs and a slight sense of hopelessness at the task ahead of me after trying to get back into training.

I have set myself the task of  walking, cycling and running my way back to fitness over the next 12 months, while at the same time trying to hit a new fundraising target of £3000 for the British Heart Foundation, to whom it would not be melodramatic of me to say that in part I owe my life, as well as the brilliant surgeons and medical staff in the NHS.

On June 12 I am taking on a ten mile leg of a 50 mile walk around Bristol with the business breakfast club I go to, as they have kindly adopted BHF as their official charity for the year.

During the August Bank Holiday I will be cycling the approximately 100 miles from Bristol to London for the Action Medical Research charity, and on September 11 I will be taking part in the Bristol Half Marathon, again for the BHF. I hope to follow all of this in Spring with a marathon, if I can get a place, in either London or Edinburgh. And who knows what along the way, perhaps a triathlon if I can improve my swimming beyond the sedate breast stroke I am barely capable of at the moment.

So I pulled on my Asics for the first time in anger for a while, and weirdly the thirty minute walk/slow jog I did today was probably harder than running the London Marathon a year ago, mainly because I’ve done next to no training since then and have managed to find the four stone I lost along the way on my last get fit mission.

But today was good because I was able to set my new goals and I didn’t hate the act of running as much as I thought I might. All positive stuff. Except the route I chose is not really much good as it takes me down a path along the roadside that I instantly nicknamed Dog Turd Alley, but could just as equally be know as Fag Butt Valley, Tin Can Cut Through or Fly Tipping Boulevard.

I have been motivated today more than before because I weighed in at 18 stone and a pound this morning, which is quite depressing and would explain why I can’t fit into any of my clothes these days, or walk up a street without stopping to catch breath.

So, been here and done it all before, and I know what I need to do, but it seems so much harder to do it again. Winning the Premiership is an amazing achievement in itself, but doing it again, time after time, that’s what makes real champions. Ask any Man Utd fan. Unfortunately I’m a Southampton fan.