The battles we fight and the choices we make

I follow a lot of my friends' blogs and routes to success. We all fight our own battles. One of my friends, a high performing Ironman athlete from Ireland battled with injury. He did very well in the APAC championships this weekend. For sure I noticed he beat his swim times for as longs as I've been following him. He ran a 3:11 marathon. Which is fast by any account. So well done Martin.

My Scottish friend Derek is training for his 83k highlands events. Which I am sure he will finish as he's hard as nails. He's also a very sensible man who balances work, family and training. And sometimes it's not easy. But I like his blogs and they remind me of .... good things, I guess.

Of course I fight battles. Just not sure which one at the moment. I think today I had a battle. I went for a run, 7k and it took me about 48 minutes. I was fighting my positive split battle in Barcelona. And the battle of old shoes. Which was purely me. But without the battles, life wouldn't be so exciting.

Based on the above and everything else we make choices. Choices are good, as they are ours. It's a shame that people believe they are forced to make choices by others. I do not believe that, I believe we are all responsible for the choices we make. How do I determine what choice? The hardest choice is the best choice. It may not be easy, but in the long run it'll be the best choice.

Ok so much for the philosophical part of this blog. Today I was watching the Kingston Whole Foods Breakfast run. Amazing to see the different people, levels and personalities. But all love the fact to be cheered on. The fast ones who over take 8 mile runners while they are finishing 16 miles. They may not look like they do, but they do. The slow ones, who are nearly at the end, and the 16 mile runners who are over 90 minutes into 8 miles. I enjoyed cheering them on. When walking into town i saw 3:45 on the finish but it was still going, so somebody must have been out there. The last few weeks an article did the rounds on Facebook. It started of being not very nice to the person on the track but it ended with : You Fucking Rock. That's what I was thinking about all the age groups coming past me this morning.

What I would like to happen is that parents, teachers, officials make it easier to be active specially for kids. These days it's choked with Health & Safety rules. And this should start with parents, if they want their kids to be active, and not complain if something happens (not that anybody wants anything to happen) or worse go into legal battle, sports would be easier.

I've started swimming again, done 2200 meters this week in 2 sessions. A mix of breast stroke and front crawl. As I am trialling my shoulder. It's a fab pool in Zurich the City Hallenbad and it's 50 meters.
More swimming next week, trying to reduce the running and increase the gym and swim for a week.

Last but not least I would like to draw attention to http://juliabuckley.co.uk/fat-burn-revolution/
a book written by a friend on how to lose weight, tone up and feel great. It's available from stores and e-books. It's worth a buy and a read and a use.

So much for now. Legs need some rest. Chocolate, Coconut cake in the oven

The road to Transvulcania

Transvulcania is a sky running event ( http://www.skyrunning.com). It is held on the island of La Palma which is one of the Spanish Canary Islands. It's not easy to get there. My journey will be LHR-MAD-LPA-SPC. For normal people this is London Heathrow to Madrid onwards to Gran Canaria, where I will staying night (making the best of the Canaries) and then on to La Palma. Really, it's only a 4 hour flight in principle, if you would take a vacation flight. But it's an adventure by itself.

I'll be going with Wayde, Zoe, Rob and Simon. Wayde arranged a rented villa, at least I hope so as I've cancelled my hotel. However, I've got a car so can sleep in that if need be.

It is going to be one of the 3 major events I will be doing this year. But the other two, will stay under wraps until this one is done.

The road leads via the Hampton Court Half Marathon, which was about 1k short due to a mistake. But shit happens so we don't bother about that. It was a nice event basically on my doorstep. Might do it again next year, but I've got this rule about repeating events. But I've broken that rule before as rules are there to be broken as everybody knows.

The next event is 16 March the Barcelona Marathon. That will be fun, I hope. Flying out Friday, back Sunday. Training seems to be going well, but my pledge of average 7.5k per day running has not been met. It went well until I went to India and got ill the week after. But it's picking up and so far spring seems to be on its way. So I should catch up.

Looking forward to the Cape Verde trip in June. Back to Sal Rei doing some desert type running. Better prepared this time. Meaning, something but not sure.

So from now on I'm going to try to keep up the blog on a weekly basis and bore and irritate you with my nonsense.

One event to look out for is the Haastrecht (http://haastrechtloop.blogspot.co.uk) which I will do with Kim, my youngest daughter. Going for the full 10K monty.

O yeah, a post of mine wouldn't be mine without a rant. Could parents and adults on bikes please cycle on the road. Even if they are with their kids. It's just so much nicer for pedestrians if they don't use the pavement. And Yes I'm a cyclist and Yes I love cycling, and NO I don't cycle on the pavement.


That's it for now. Have fun and find a rule to break.