In search of consistency

The most important ingredient in successful training is consistency. You gain far more from training if you are slow and steady and don't get injured etc. Last year my training for the Helsinki marathon was very poor - good one week but injured the next.....no wonder Helsinki almost killed me!! Anyway the last few weeks haven't been great since I missed a few runs due to my ankle injury, then Jo got a cold and missed a couple of runs and then during the last week I got a cold.

Getting a cold during last week was a complete surprise to me....the training hasn't been too stressful and we've been eating quite well. All of a sudden I came down with a cold on Tuesday evening...but managed to do the Wednesday morning run, which seemed to help (hence I went to work) but by the end of Wednesday I had lost the battle so was unable to do Thursday's run :(

Was pleased to recover by the weekend as we went up Manchester way to spend the weekend with my old university friends Amrik and Negin (and their three lovely kids, Yasmin, Kamran and the little monkey Kyan). The weekend was great, the kids kept us entertained, Negin kept us fed (and healthy) and Amrik ensured we went out for our Sunday run by going along with us on his bike.

The drive back home wore me out a bit and I had a bit of a relapse on the cold (probably didn't help that Jo insisted on having the car window open...grrrr) hence wasn't up to running on Monday (will do it on Tuesday instead). Guess it wasn't helped by the sweets we ate in the car and the big Domino's pizza we had when we got home (the fridge was empty and the shops were closed!!!). But what is done is done....next time we go away for the weekend we'll make sure the fridge is full of healthy stuff for our return ;)

So looking forward we're declaring war on illness - we're going to eat even better and even though it's my birthday week I wont be going mad on the booze (but ask me again after Friday!).