The Way of the World - Wishbone Ash

With Earthquakes, Impending Nuclear Meltdown and unrest in Libya making our headlines we continue our daily lives in our own micro-worlds.

How these world events affect us personally, well only the people who are there will ever know. The last week must have been and must still be a living nightmare for all those concerned.

What are we doing here in the UK, well we are arresting children for picking Daffodils and offering first-aid courses to gang members that have been stabbed by other gang members...

What is going on in this world of ours? It feels very fragile right now...

What a difference a day makes - Dinah Washington

Sometimes there is no accounting for what makes a good or bad day in exercise it seems...

Yesterday - Awful...

Today - Just B R I L L I A N T!

What one does have to do is to try and work out what the difference was between the days and then move on in the right direction. I think the main difference is diet and the lack of bread today... I always feel sluggish after a good old loaf of white sliced and I must admit to a Burgerking with The Puppy on Saturday...

Other than that, I did go back on ARK 1 supplement following yesterdays run and a protein shake to boot.

Perhaps it's because we have been working on The JOGLE Ultra today and maybe I am just inspired... who knows but it felt great...

More tomorrow...

You get what you give - New Radicals

What a hard old run that was today... legs were made of pure Plumbum. Unusual really as I have been running pretty well for me all week and not a good sign for the Celtic Plate 50km in two weeks. However, I did manage to get out in the bright spring sunshine of a March day in Breaston and that's better than nothing.

My philosophy is that you only get back what you put in and that is my thinking about today's run.

Hopefully it will feel easier tomorrow...We'll see eh?

Move any Mountain - The Shamen

I  took my daughter, Pearl (6) to one of my most favourite places in the world... Malvern. There is something just magical about this range of hills on the Worcestershire and Herefordshire border - There always has been for me, well ever since 1969 as I remember.

My family outings went there when I was the same age as Pearl funnily enough. Forty years on and I often go back to the 1395ft (425m) high hills that are 680 million years old! It always makes you feel good when you are there... Maybe it's the igneous rock? or it's all that fresh air.

Anyway, I took Pearl to climb a mountain and she loved it... I hope she loves it as much as I do when she's my age...

It's kind special... What's your special place?

More tomorrow...

Ouch - N-Dubz

Jen...

After my blog-holiday I'm back! Today has been a pain-filled day - Paul White inflicted SOOOO much pain today I felt it needed to be blogged about, and then I had my hair pulled about by a hairdressers for 2 hours which hurt like hell - OUCH!

On the plus side, thanks to Paul's expertise I now feel like I am floating on air rather than walking (thanks Paul we love you really), and I don't need to wash my hair for a month so it's not all bad.

On a more somber note, my heart goes out to those who have connections with the earthquake/tsunami in Japan - the images are unbelievable.

I can see clearly now - Jimmy Cliff

Funny eh? What I thought was my old back giving me a load of grief last May following the Marathon des Sables was in fact my ITB (the dreaded Iliotibial band syndrome)... and bugger me did it hurt and it had started to again!

But it's gone as my good friend Paul White, aka The Magician of Loughborough' sorted it out earlier today. BIG OUCH!!!

If the Hot Fuzz swearbox had been in the room, I would clocked the £2 fine a hundred times, it's pure torture... and F@CK is just not harsh enough to describe the pain... although the moment the treatment stops...the sensation is mildly orgasmic.

Just pure ecstasy... aren't bodies wierd?

So, to keep me going in the desert there's going to be a quick crash course for Jan Slater and hopefully Morocco won't be an issue... famous last words!

Anyway we'll see what they are like tomorrow...

Big Country - Big Country

I just started converting our '9bar JOGLE Ultra' maps from Tracklogs to Google Maps to get the full climb and descent for the whole route. After plotting the first two, I am already getting a clear picture of the challenge that the runners are going to be undertaking next month. The first 63.8 miles with 1309 metres up and 1296 metres down will sort the men from the boys, perhaps?

It's a real challenge just plotting the route but as I go down the country, the place names are all familiar and I think back to last year's triumphant trio (Neil Bryant, David Miles and Mark Cockbain) and can't believe that it's nearly twelve months since we were on the road.

The blog is already updated for this year's race to unfold on and we are ready to roll on the UK's Ultimate ULTRA marathon... are you?

More tomorrow... I'm off to Scotland in a moment...literally!