Now for the hard work

Pic caption: Asics Gel Nimbus. They should just call them Asics Carling.


I've just come down from the ceiling after a week of being over-excited about getting a place in the London Marathon, and it's not unlike waking up on New Year's Day and wondering where a part of your life went, apart from down the toilet.
The marathon hangover is kicking in. The inescapable reality of the situation has arrived, and he doesn't appear to be carrying a party-pack of beers.
Jubilant euphoria was much more fun, he had a whole keg of happiness and no dull friends like eight months of training, running in the rain, pain and general struggle.
So I started my regime with a week of resting up, no point rushing into these things, there is after all, eight whole months. I'll bet the Kenyans don't even dust of their tracksuits until about a month before the race.
I have done a lot of walking this week though, around Clifton sniffing out leads like a proper newshound to find content for Clifton People. Maybe one day I will be good enough to get a job as a proper journalist on a real newspaper...
...anyway, Clifton is bigger than you think, on foot, so I reckon that's got to count for something.
Walking down Whiteladies Road I did think of going into the running shop Moti to look at buying some new running shoes, but I can't help feeling you probably need to run for your county at least before you can go in there.
I'm sure it's not that bad really and I expect they will be very lovely and helpful when I finally get enough money together to buy some new running shoes.
I may have to put off buying a house, a new car, or anything more than a loaf of bread for a while, but I know it will be worth getting a new pair of running shoes.
I've had the same pair of Asics Gel Nimbus trainers, which does sound a bit like a hair product, for the past few years. Admittedly a bit like me they haven't been in full time employment for that whole time, but they are a bit tired now, again, a bit like me perhaps.
They have been brilliant though, the best trainers I have ever had, and I have had a few different pairs down the years. Seriously, if anybody reading this works for Asics and can get me a discount I will gladly sell my soul to the company, they are so amazingly brilliant.
That's the thing about running shoes though, it's quite an individual thing, what works for some people doesn't work for others. One man's Asics may be another man's wooden clogs.
It is a bit expensive, I expect I'll have to shell out more than £100 on my new pair, but it's really worth it not only because of the obvious comfort and support, but the right running shoes will also go a long way to preventing injuries. Problems with knees, hips and all sorts of long term damage can be caused if you don't have the right running shoes.
It's common sense really, you wouldn't go hill walking in flip flops, for example, would you? Everybody in Clifton seems to wear flip flops, everywhere. There's a bit of a uniform for blokes, a polo shirt preferably with some kind of pattern on it, a pair of combat shorts, stupid hair and flip flops. I'm not saying I don't conform, obviously I do, but I'm scared to wear flip flops out the house, I think somebody will tread on my feet or the road in front of me may suddenly turn into hot coals and I'll perish in the furnace. But mainly I don't wear them because on the whole it's just not suitable footwear for outdoors is it? By the way I am 34 going on Victorian these days.
So the general plan is to do a long run this weekend, but not go mad because I do have the half marathon in about ten days, although there is no sign of a race pack as yet, does anybody have theirs?
Then I go on holiday, where the only running I intend to do is with my finger along the edge of a bottle opener.
All of which means I should be hitting the ground running into marathon training at some point towards the end of September, just as the temperature drops, the nights draw in and it rains even more.
I can't wait. I do mean that though, I really can't wait.

Pic caption: Roller blades, a completely pointless purchase.


A whole week of opportunity stretches ahead as I sip on my first coffee of the morning and contemplate my next move in the great chess game of life.
I have decided, against my better judgement, not to go to my Weight Watchers meeting. This is possibly one of the worst things you can do as a member, as that small step leads to the dark side and obese oblivion.
But I will only upset myself if I go. I would rather crack on with being good to myself this week as I've had a funny few days which have involved increased consumption of utter crap.
The life of a freelance hack in the middle of a deep recession isn't exactly as busy or productive as it could be, and I have found myself on occasion with more time on my hands than was good for me.
I also found myself battling some hunger demons and I am afraid to say I've given in to temptation more than once.
There is a weird twilight zone part of the day, about 3.30 to 5pm, when lunch is a distant memory and dinner is still some way off. Energy levels are running low so motivation to do any work is rock bottom, and I just cannot for the life of me see how to get through the next few hours to dinner.
I can't stop thinking about how hungry I am, and that if I only had a little snack to get me through to dinner I could probably do a lot more work as well.
When I have been good, I have at this point reached for the Special K or some other similar low fat cereal. But lately I've been reaching for the French loaf, packet of ham, cheese and bag of Kettle Chips to make a Homer Simpson-style snack, rather than a Weight Watchers inspired low cal morsel.
And then I would also be telling myself that a large portion of pasta for dinner is a good thing because I will be running it off the next day, so I need to draw on the energy.
Well, I did go running last week, but that was three miles round the Downs on Monday morning. Not sure I've burned off the energy consumed on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday just yet.
I think the problem is my attention span, I get bored of something so quickly. My life seems to be littered with the skeletons of half-baked ideas or projects that never really got off the ground.
I recently got rid of a load of stuff at a charity shop after moving, and I realised what a load of useless things I have been hoarding which were bought at the time with the utter conviction that I really needed them.
For example while on holiday four years ago in France I bought a pair of roller blades, thinking that they would be a great new way of keeping fit. I had probably read somewhere that it was a great alternative to running, building fitness and toning muscles without the impact on your knees that running gives you.
I thought that living near the Downs was perfect and I had visions of how I would glide along with the grace and elegance of Torvill and Dean, yes both of them, transforming the Downs in Bristol into a California street scene at sunset.
Anyway, the reality was that I strapped them to my feet not long after getting home, and ventured out into the streets.
I managed to get a decent head of speed going and memories of the roller disco I used to go to at the local leisure centre when I was about ten flooded back. I could really skate back then, about 20 years ago, surely I'd lost none of the old magic?
But after rolling down hill on the pavement, waving my arms around like a duck that's forgotten how to fly, I suddenly panicked as I approached a junction and how no idea how to get round the corner to stay on the pavement, and felt shooting across it without stopping may have been detrimental to any ideas I had of having a long and fulfilling life.
So I had to stop pretty quick and did something I really only thought happened in Benny Hill shows and I grabbed onto a lamppost before I shot past it. By this point some people had been observing my progress and I think having a bit of a chortle, so I gave them a right laugh when having grabbed the lamppost the tank-like momentum I had built up meant I actually swung around it a couple of times, just like in the cartoons, before finally coming to a standstill about six feet from the junction.
I'm sure I clocked a passing driver chuckling as he went past.
I decided I should probably practise somewhere less dangerous, took off the boots and tiptoed through the mean streets of Clifton in my shoeless feet back home.
The roller blades went into a corner from whence they never moved again, until their final journey to the charity shop a few weeks ago. Pointless.
The only other time I threatened to break the dust off of them was a couple of years ago while recuperating from my heart valve replacement operation.
This is an operation which involves sawing open the sternum and breaking a couple of ribs so that the unbelievably talented and very clever surgical team can get at the old ticker.
The resulting injuries to your chest and ribs are pretty much the same as if you were in a car crash. A few weeks into my recovery I thought it would be a good idea to slip on the old roller blades and head up to the Downs, not really considering the consequences of falling over and how it might shatter my already frail chest and rib cage.
Thankfully by this point I had met Amy, who suggested it would probably not be the best idea I'd ever had, and gave me a couple extra pain killers just to make sure I didn't have any more daft ideas.
Similar items have included an Irish boron drum, which I needed to start my travelling troubadour career, a couple of cake and muffin tins for my flirtation with home baking (too much time at home), a yoga mat, two pairs of light dumbbell weights, a gym ball and a boxing ball on a sprung pole, which I got rid of once, then bought again, and both times failed to break into the blubber weight boxing scene. There was also a knackered old record player that I had to buy as I was going to restore it to its former glory, but of course never did and just threw it out.
One of the greatest unfulfilled ideas I ever had though was shortly after finishing university I found myself living back at home in Dorset, unable to find a job despite my hard-earned third class degree in ancient Greek and classical studies (weird that), so I decided to draw on years of experience in treading the boards and start my own youth theatre company. I felt that what the disaffected youth of North Dorset really craved was the chance to meet up in a drafty church hall in the middle of nowhere and be taught the finer points of Stanislavski and Brechtian theatre style, while rehearsing for a radical interpretation of an obscure Christopher Marlowe play, which would be all of them to anybody who hasn't studied A Level English.
Fortunately it didn't even get that far as I thankfully managed to get a job before I could inflict my dire theories on any young innocents - and then promptly forgot any ideas of becoming the next Peter Hall.
But, I am determined that this weight loss and marathon running project does not go the way of the roller blades etc, and that I complete it. I just need to get my head back into it, which I will now it's Monday and I've got plenty to do to keep me busy and stop me thinking about food all the time. Such as finding a job!

Weight loss is the new religion

Pic caption: Waiting for a miracle in the Church Of Weight Loss.



I'm sure it has already been said, by many and more eminent people than me, but something I have felt over the past weeks and months is that my obsession with weight loss and dedication to dieting is easily comparable to following a religion.
For a start the meetings tend to be held in church rooms, (maybe because we're all hoping for a miracle every week) and there is an overarching organisation which runs the services, I mean meetings, according to their own particular doctrine.
Weight Watchers has its own ministers, or leaders as they like to call them, who are sent out to spread the word and convert people.
But of course there are other fat fighters clubs out there, and I wouldn't rule out the possibility of some kind of violence breaking out between Weight Watchers and Slimming World for example. It could be called the Doughnut Wars, or something similar. And there are those weird, break away extremists who practise a dangerous cult of eating nothing but soup and porridge for months on end.
Every week we walk into church, sorry, the meeting room, feeling a mixture of guilt and hope. You know you are going to have to pay for your sins and have been living in a kind of limbo for the past week, punishing yourself for each little transgression. Instead of using rosary beads to pray you scatter a load of dried lentils on the ground to kneel on seeking forgiveness through the pain.
When you get into the meeting you wait in line to walk up to the altar to take communion, or get weighed as they call it, hoping for the high priest to absolve us of our crimes against the God of weight loss. (who would be the patron saint of weight loss, Saint Katona? Saint Idris? - see last blog) But there is no escaping the Truth. God, or the scales as they call them, can see everything and his word is, the word.
Then we confess our sins to our leader, we hope for forgiveness after coming clean about that second helping of lasagne, or the possessed way we attacked the barbecue at the weekend and partook of the devil's brew, or home made cider.
After the rapture of the scales we vow to lead a better life for the next week, and get given the latest scripture (or information leaflet they call it) from on high about how to be a better person.
Then follows the communal gathering to hear the sermon for that day; how to get a bikini body for the summer, or how to drop a dress size, or how to eat healthy food without dying of boredom at the dinner table.
Then we all go home and try to be good for the rest of the day before going back to normal the next day and pigging out in front of Eastenders making a silent promise to yourself to try harder next week, but you know you're going to hell in the end.
And of course you have to pay for it in cash as well as emotional suffering.

How to lose 11 stone in six months - don't eat

Pic caption: Idris Lewis in his special trousers which come complete with a wife.

This week the Bristol Evening Post ran the almost unbelievable story about a man who lost 11 stone in six months, read it here.

The secret of his success? He stopped eating.

Well, that is definitely one way to approach it. The starvation diet, as practised by prisoners of war, concentration camp victims and the two thirds of the world that lives on a dollar a day.

Idris Lewis, aged 69, of Nailsea in North Somerset managed in six months to do something people like me have been struggling with for about six years, although even I would stop short of 11 stone.

But he had good reason for his extreme approach. The doctor told him he needed to lose the weight before he could have an operation on his heart valve, which he needed to save his life.

I can relate entirely to that of course having had a heart valve replacement operation almost two years ago. That news was enough to make me stop smoking right there and then, so I can see how he got the motivation to live on nothing but mineral water mixed with a protein supplement.

According to the report he was over 26 stone at his heaviest before he started the weight loss, and he is pictured in the now-oversized trousers he used to wear.

Of course there is part of me that is very jealous of his success, but is it really a success or simply a desperate measure to ensure he has the life-saving operation he needs. It can't possibly be seen as a way of life, and definitely not a balanced diet.

As soon as he starts eating anything again he is surely going to put some weight back on. Hopefully not as much as he had done before, especially if he has had a new heart valve fitted, but going from eating nothing, to eating something, even one of those Weight Watchers chocolate biscuit things, has to mean weight gain.

If nothing else it does show that it is possible to lose weight quickly, if you really want to. Whether it's healthy or not is another issue, but if I ever get tired of munching on veg and fish and trying to run for miles and miles, I can always head down the doctor and get him to suggest a course of liquid laxatives. Perhaps.

Essentially I can't make up my mind whether to worship him as a patron saint of people trying to lose weight, or an example of the dangers of extreme dieting. It would be good to see a follow-up a year from now in the Evening Post to see how he is doing and whether the weight loss has been sustainable.

What the hell, pass me the Slim Fast.

Now I remember what belts are for

Pic caption: Arse posed by model.

I may be about 15 years too old, and I don't wear fancy pants, but it seems I have joined the ranks of the brain dead who walk around with their trousers falling down around their arses.

For the past couple off weeks the jeans I have been wearing have been getting a lot looser and now slip down past the old glutinous maximus when I walk.

I have stopped wearing them in public without a belt for fear of committing some kind of public indecency offence.

But, it's great news of course because it means I can see how much weight I've lost now by how baggy my jeans are. There are also a number of shirts that have gone from extremely tight fit to baggy as well, which is really pleasing.

Let's not get carried away though, the jeans are a 38" waist, so not as if they weren't massive to begin with.

But I'm thinking that perhaps I could walk down Gloucester Road with my M&S pants hanging out the back of my jeans, bowling along with my hoodie up looking all menacing and that, innit.

Here comes a GETTING OLD ALERT but, I've never been able to understand that whole thing about having your jeans around your knees.

I can see that David Beckham looks cool in his Gucci pants with his £1000 jeans slung low round his backside, but some scrotey kid with dirty boxers and cheapo jeans from Asda walking around Broadmead just looks an idiot.

But the whole mechanics of it defies gravity surely. How can they walk without tripping up, and how do the jeans stay at half mast, are they secretly pinned into their pants so they don't fall all the way down.

It's probably not worth that much attention. I guess they don't look any more ridiculous than I did at 14 walking round in jeans with rips all over them, Grolsch beer bottle tops in my trainers' laces, my dad's waistcoat and quite possibly some kind of head gear, a trilby of all things. No wonder my parents were worried.

on becoming a grumpy old man

Pic caption: A vision of the not too distant future.

The novelty of working in the 'virtual office' is clearly wearing thin as I am becoming more and more annoyed at the fools I have to suffer around me.

And the fact I have to keep buying lunch and coffees at various venues in order to justify sitting in there and using their wi-fi is making this all quite expensive. Perhaps I should send my bills to Orange and get them to reimburse me for every day that some nerk has failed to flick a switch and give me my broadband back.

I made the mistake of ordering an orange juice and lemonade yesterday and for the first time in my life retorted 'how much?!', when the child behind the bar informed me it was £3.10. Then, just like my dad would say, I mumbled 'could've had a pint of lager for that' as if making the point would result in the barman realising how overpriced a simple soft beverage is these days and charge me less. He just looked at me and said: "Yes, you could've".

I think it says more about the number of times I've ever ordered orange juice in a bar than the pricing structure at the particular establishment.

I think I am bit more reactionary these days. I was sat at the junction at the top of Blackboy Hill last night, on my way to meet Marc for a run, when the passenger in a 4x4 going past me started waving frantically. My immediate reaction was to scowl angrily and gesture dramatically that I had done nothing wrong, what the hell was her problem? I then realised it was a friend of mine and she was merely waving to say hello and all she got in return was a load of silent verbal from me. Perhaps I shouldn't always assume the worst.

Today I discovered one of the most annoying things about having to work in public places is the amount of silly young ladies, and boys, almost always students, who are engaged in the most inane and fatuous conversations, punctuated with shrill giggling and noisy exclamations. Whatever happened to furious political debates or plotting the downfall of the capitalist regime over a few pints of very worth lager. Jeremy Kyle and the best websites to nick essays from seem to be the topics these days. How dare they sit there having a good time, being young and beautiful and disturbing my peace by laughing so much? Don't they know the world is is full of pain and misery and people who don't pay you for work you did weeks ago!

Of course I'm just jealous and bitter about not being 20 and taught any more.

Apologies to any students who may read this, no real offence meant, I was almost certainly as much, if not more of a tw&t when I was a student. I just choose to conveniently forget that as I start my descent into early middle age.

Of course my girlfriend likes to remind that far from beginning my slide towards becoming a grumpy old man, I propelled myself headlong and arrived at Grumpsville some time ago.

But what the hell does this have to do with running?

Well, I weighed myself unofficially this morning and appear to be slipping under the 17st mark now and was 16st 12lbs. I'm pleased with that.

This followed a two mile run around Clifton Downs last night with Marc and Sarah, a friend who is only an honorary member of the Fat Bastards' Running Club, on account of not being fat, or quite obviously a bloke, or indeed a bastard.

It was still pretty hot but we managed a lap of the Downs, about 35 mins, and only a couple of stops on the way.

I'm still not feeling totally sorted after the move, the flat is still chaos, although less so, and somehow it affects my mental state as well.

Which is why I rewarded myself with a plate of seafood pasta, with half fat creme fraiche and chopped chives. Which is fine but it was followed by a couple of double chocolate cookies, I couldn't resist.

This morning I had a banana, and two more cookies for breakfast, but have been quite good for lunch with a hot chorizo and new potato salad on a bed of rocket and red onion, at the Prom.

Very nice, if a little heavy on the balsamic vinegar.

Tonight could be tricky though. Think we may be headed towards a take out from Rocco's, the Italian restaurant which does take away, which is just perfect. The excuse it that we still have lots of sorting to do in the flat, so can't really get to the cooker.

But I am planning a five mile run tomorrow, so really I need those pasta carbs.

Slightly ranty food and exercise diary, Tuesday, May 26.

Today I had the most supremely egotistical idea I've had since I was in the fifth year at school and thought a ten minute drum solo in the middle of the school concert would be a good way to display my talents.

While I was out running on Tuesday (one hour ten mins, over the bridge and back, about four miles), I thought about the whole MPs expenses scandal thing and how politicians have finally sunk further than the the depths inhabited by journalists in the publics' eyes - and I say that as a journalist myself, albeit between scoops.

I was thinking that one of the solutions to the problem would be to do away with party politics completely and have an assembly of independently elected men and women to represent areas of the country.

And then I thought, why not stand for election myself? It would be the ultimate exercise in attention seeking and my slogan could well be 'please vote for me and show me how much you love me'. The rejection factor is of course massive but imagine that feeling of euphoria when the returning officer calls out the result in a drafty leisure centre at 4am and confirms that several thousand people liked me enough to vote for me.

No wonder politicians rarely want to give up their seat and the chance of feeling at the centre of the universe once every four or five years.

Politics is often described as showbiz for ugly people, which is spot on, 'cos none of the blokes are going to give Brad Pitt any worries about losing his World's Most Fanciable Male title, and I think Ms Jolie is probably safe too.

And the recent exposure of their snouts so deep in the trough confirms that they obviously feel untouchable and above the dull restrictions that the rest of us normal people have to live by, such as having to pay our bills without help from the taxpayer.

As somebody who was made redundant a couple of months ago and not knowing where my next duck island is coming from, it makes my blood boil (and for the first time I really understand why people say that) to think how they are all claiming thousands each year for stuff the rest of us have to find the money to pay for, like living! And don't forget they all get paid upwards of £60K as a basic minimum salary, which is more than double the average wage in this country.

Even the meekest Lib Dem or most earnest Labour MP are still claiming for things like mortgage interest, council tax food and furnishings at least. Frankly it makes the most spongiest of spongers living all their lives on benefits and raking it in for all their ten kids and fictional relatives, look as if they're not really trying.

Who knew that Tory MPs, who once ran entire election campaigns basically demonising 'single mothers', blaming them for all the ills of society and draining the public purse, when they were actually the ones screwing us for every penny.

The other thing about being an independent MP is that you could actually do what the people who elected you want you to do.

There must have been loads of Labour MPs who wanted to vote against some of the more unpopular ideas this government has had, tuition fees, war in Iraq (if they'd been given the chance), but felt compelled by the party line.

Why not do what your electors want, hold an online poll on your official blog every week, and stay in touch with public opinion.

Essentially most people want a job, decent public services and a low rate of tax, which is a difficult circle to square of course, so whoever gets the balance right is likely to stay in power. But why should this be a party political thing?

Give the people what they want I say, Joanna Lumley and Esther Rantzen will be running the place soon anyway.

Oh, and on Tuesday I ate the following:

Breakfast: A banana.

Lunch: Two pittas with chicken and salad, touch of mayo.

Dinner: Seafood with pasta, mixed with half fat creme fraiche and some chopped chives. Had a bit of chocolate after, not doing well cutting it out of my diet.

I'm The Invisible Man

Pic caption: Me in lovely Bath.





AFTER weeks of threatening to do it I finally went into the shed, clambered over the rusting barbecue, odd wellies and growbags to hoyk out my bike.
I love my bike, at least I did a few years ago when it was new and lovely and worked like a dream and more importantly I could get the best out of it.
Things, I discovered, are a bit different now. After brushing off the odd bit of mould and pumping up the tyres, I decided to ignore the fact that half the bike was covered in rust and climbed on to the razor-like saddle.
My bike is a Schwinn, what you used to call a racer, and due to my short legs it's quite a small one. I'm not entirely convinced that it's not actually a child's bike.
But because it's quite small, and very lightweight and has very thin tyres, I felt a bit like a cartoon circus elephant wobbling into the ring on a trike.
Once I recovered my balance and remembered how the gears worked, I headed through the city.
Now, I've never been particularly passionate one way or the other on the cycling issue. I find that when I'm driving that some cyclists seem to take stupid risks by coming up the inside and cutting across me.
When I'm cycling I feel motorists don't take into account the needs of cyclists. And when I'm on foot I think motorists and cyclists are all out to get me as I try to cross a busy road in rush hour. Ultimately the most informed opinion I have is that if everybody who cycled in Bristol used a car to get where they were going, the traffic nightmare we live in would be so much worse.
But I had also forgotten just how invisible you become on a bike. It's no wonder so many cyclists wear that awful fluorescent lycra.
To be fair motorists weren't too bad, but I had to go down Whiteladies Road, Park Street and Broadmead/Cabot Circus to get the start of the Bristol to Bath cycle path.
And I couldn't believe how many times I had to swerve to get out of the way of people who just stepped into the road without bothering to look.
So busy were they talking inane rubbish on their phones, or stuffing their faces with chips, that their brains had obviously slowed down so much that they couldn't grasp the concept that I may do them some damage if I ploughed into them.
They would be the first to shout about irresponsible cyclists if I had hit them. I couldn't believe that even when I caught the eye of one particularly slow moving woman going through Broadmead, (I was on the road, not going through the middle of it) she still kept walking into the road, as if I would just bounce off her if I hit her, which may have been possible.
Clearly nothing was going to get in between her and the cookie shop she was heading for. It was quite a revelation.
I did stop at all the red lights too. But probably more because I needed to catch my breath.
So thank God for the Bristol to Bath cycle path. How wonderful to have 14 miles of tarmac undisturbed by buses cars or anything else motorised, apart from the scrotes who occasionally tear up it on their mini motos.
As I say it was a slog of a trip, I was really in no shape to take it on, but I thought I'd give it a go anyway.
I chugged along quite happily, and quite slowly, listening to a mix of block rocking beats from my iPod.
I managed to get to Bath in one piece, unlike my bike which had suffered a snapped spoke in the front wheel, you know, one of those rusty ones I wasn't worried about at the start.
I was quite knackered but exhilarated to get that far. I did contemplate finding the train station and taking the easy way home, but my ridiculous macho pride stepped in and suggested I might want to torture myself for another 14 miles or so.
A few miles into the ride back to Bristol and I was really starting to feel the pain. A second spoke snapped in my front wheel and as I stood there in the middle of absolutely nowhere, trying to untangle the metal from the forks, I wondered if I stabbed myself with it whether I could call an air ambulance to come and get me.
I thought better of wasting such precious resources and continued on to Bitton. Around Bitton there has been a weird spate of protest graffiti from a group of people who I can only assume are ultra hardline eco-warriors.
There are slogans sprayed onto the road saying things like 'Say No To Bitton Station Expansion' 'Railways Cause Global Warming', and most hilariously somebody had clambered onto an old piece of rail stock and sprayed 'Thomas Causes Climate Change'.
For those who don't know the cycle path it runs alongside the Avon Valley Railway. This is a heritage railway run mostly if not all by volunteers, where every other weekend or so in the summer steam engines chuff up and down a three mile stretch of line.
It's hardly the Trans-Siberian Railway, carrying a million tonnes of nuclear waste through paradise every day.
It's a day out for a few families and harmless train spotters whose idea of fun is listening to the sound of a steam engine whistling through the countryside.
Not exactly sitting in the South Pole stoking the fires of hell and releasing clouds of greenhouse gasses into the air.
In any case I thought more travel by railway was the green way forward, and I hope the paint they used to daub their revolutionary slogans was lead free.
Thank God for Bitton station I say as I was at the edge of sanity by the time I got there, close to hallucination and entirely spent of energy.
I headed for the cafe and bought the best Mars bar and bottle of Powerade I'd ever tasted.
I could feel my body refreshing instantly, like in a computer game when you find a medi-pack and the little bar in the top left of the screen powers up to max.
So thanks to the sugar and glucose injection I was able to get on my way and finally made it home.
The ride took three and a half hours in total, covering 34 miles. When I was at my peak of fitness some years ago I could do Bristol to Bath and back in just over two hours.
But I wasn't carrying the equivalent of a small to medium sized child on my back. That would have been weird.
Everybody was passing me, even a bloke with a trailer on his bike carrying a couple of his kids.
I don't care though, I did it and I know next time it will be better - providing my bike doesn't completely fall apart as I'm riding it.

Resisting the urges

Had a great run tonight, in the rain, very heroic.

Tonight was absolute testament to having somebody to train with. Had I not been meeting Marc down at the harbourside tonight there is no way I would have gone out to run.

I am definitely a fair weather jogger, cyclist or anything else like that.

If it's a beautiful summers evening and you can see the rolling green hills of North Somerset in the distance at a sedate trot, I'm totally in my element.

If like tonight you have to battle through slate gray rain and conditions that don't put the industrial relic of the harbourside in the best light, it is much harder work.

Having said all that, it was only a bit of rain, so I should really stop being a wimp. It's not like I've got to run over a minefield with a 50lb pack on my back and dodge bullets as I go.

Anyway, rain aside, it was a really good run, for me. We did about 25 minutes, and I walked the mile there and back to meet up, so I'm feeling doubly good.

I've also decided (at Marc's suggestion) to work in an extra element to the diary and as well as talk about the stuff I did eat, I am going to mention the stuff I managed to resist, to prove how saintly I am being.

For example today I resisted getting out of bed when the alarm tazared my brain, I resisted getting dressed for most of the day and come to think of it I was very strong at one point in resisting the shower.

But as I had to have lunch on the run today I was especially good in resisting scotch eggs, pork pies, crisps or any of that other wonderfully bad garage food.

I think the SS Bad Habits tanker is slowly starting to turn around.

Food and exercise diary, Tuesday, May 12.

Breakfast: Good start, corn flakes and a banana.
Lunch: One round of chicken and salad sandwich, on BROWN BREAD! Is it actually any better? Had to finish off the tube of Pringles in the cupboard, but no more.
Snack: Some kind of yoghurt biscuit bar which claims on the packet to be about 70 calories per slice, but then they give you two slices in a packet, so you have to eat both of them.
Snack 2: Half a cheese sandwich and a banana after lots of exercise.
Dinner: Chili con carne, home made to my dad's recipe, bloody lovely. Too bloody lovely, went back for more, and a bit more after.
No dessert though.

Exercise: Mowed the lawn, which takes more effort than you might think as we have an ancient push along thing, which is so old that the fact it has no motor and is wireless would probably make it an expensively retro piece of kit.
Went for a 20 minute run around the harbourside, but walked down there to meet Marc, who is helping me train, and that is easily a mile. And walked back as well, slowly up Park Street, another mile to my journey.
Was quite scared and confused while walking past Borders on the Triangle when what seemed like hundreds of women started running at me.
I couldn't believe I had reached the heights of megastardom so soon, it must have been the post-race picture I posted on this blog.
In fact, of course, it was a women's running club, possibly students, they all seemed to be wearing the same vest. I was quite knackered by the time I got home, but feeling good at the same time.