Marathon - The Story so Far

My regular reader(s) will know that upon viewing 'Run for Glory' on the BBC earlier this year I was inspired to run the London Marathon, loose a load of weight and get super-fit in the process.

However by May I had managed to get a stress fracture on the outside of my left baby toe. I'm not sure if this was due to playing cricket in shoes that were too small or walking to work (4 miles up and down hills) a few times.

In the time I was 'rested up' I wallowed in my own self pity and not only put on more weight but started smoking as well.

By the time the toe had healed I was probably the heaviest I've ever been. I say probably as I couldn't even bring myself to check on the scales.

Anyway after a series of unfortunate events over the summer (Like being unable to fit into the seat of an adult sized go-kart at a stag weekend) I managed to motivate myself to re-join the gym and start a diet.

I've put the full marathon bid off for a year as the stress fracture meant I couldn't get ready for a 'warm-up' event in time.

The diet is going extremely well, I've lost roughly two stone (I say roughly as I didn't weigh myself in the beginning so I've taken a guess) in just over six weeks and I've entered to run the Plymouth half marathon in May 2007.

The plan is to get in at least one more half marathon between then and the London marathon itself in spring 2008 - fingers crossed I will make it through the sift.

I went on the treadmill for the first time in years last Wednesday (I'd stopped because I could feel it wobbling due to my weight). I ran a mile in just over 9 minutes and felt suitably knackered. It was quite daunting when I realised I had to do 13.1 times the distance!

Yesterday I dropped the pace a bit to focus more on endurance. I did 20 minutes and covered 1.8 miles (2.90 km to be precise, the bloody things are all metric!). On my next trip (hopefully tomorrow) I plan to do 30 minutes at a similar pace (5mph/8kph).

Because my diet has been going so well, I treated myself to a brand new iPod shuffle last week, which made the running even easier. If anyone reading this is struggling to motivate themselves then trust me; a featherlight mp3 player filled with tubthumping rock tracks gives you that extra lift that you need.

If I achieve 30 minutes on the treadmill then I'm going to start running outside on Plymouth's hilly terrain. Preferably away from the roads as I think running next to a bunch of filthy exhausts is somewhat counter productive.

All is going well, I'm setting myself little targets and meeting them. Only one thing stands between me and physical perfection ... Christmas.

If only I was a celebrity, I'd have a fitness DVD out by Christmas 2008.

Hats off!

I spend quite a lot of time online reading the posts from PC Bloggs. Mainly as she posts so bloody often.

One of the impressions I get is that the although many of the rank and file officers know what makes for good policing, they don't get to do it. This is usually a result of interfering jobsworths further up the tree who are completely out of touch of what's going on... As a civil servant myself, I sympathize.

However I was quite shocked today to hear a senior police officer saying something very brave that actually made a lot of sense. (Rather than pointing out the glaringly obvious about paedophiles just to get in the papers)

I've always believed in the complete legalisation of drugs and a workie chum of mine (who knows who he is if he's reading this) shares Howard Roberts' view that it would be even more effective to give the smackheads the drugs for free.

This is probably better than legalising as you aren't actively encouraging people to do it in the first place but those with an addiction get it for free rather than committing crime to fund their habit. Plus they can get clean needles instead of running the risk of contracting HIV and pure drugs rather than ones laced with 'bad shit'.

Instead of pissing off the poppy farmers in Afghanistan by burning down their crops, we can buy them off them and win a few 'hearts and minds' in the process.

The only people I don't see it benefiting are drug dealers and other organised criminals as they will loose their market share.

The costs are quoted at £12000 a year but if you can get it illegally for less than £4 a hit then you'd get 8 hits a day for that money. Surely by producing it on mass it would be under £1 a dose?
I don't know what the hit rate is for the average junkie but even assuming they did want 8 hits a day that would cost less than £3000 a year at that kind of price.

Obviously that excludes admin costs but they can't be £9000 per smack head surely?

Anyway regardless of the numbers it makes sense to bring it in. If any junkies accidentally take too much then it saves the law abiding majority even more money.

Perhaps whilst they're at it they could bring brothels above board and under some kind of licensing control? Not the 'zones of tollerance' bullshit that I keep hearing as all that will do is run down particular areas and piss off the people living in or around them.

On the down side, all this would destroy the Amsterdam tourist market.