So it turns out that 12 hour days in work are not conducive to having any time left to run, but that's OK today as following my first track session for ages yesterday, and being still technically in recovery from the marathon on Sunday, I think another notional rest day is probably pretty wise. I did still manage my usual cycle commute though and got back (just) in time to squeeze in a relaxing 25 minute swim this evening before getting home for dinner. I'll be quite honest though, it was the post swim jacuzzi and steam room that really chilled me out!

It did also occur to me that while yes, it was a 12 hour day, because I was busy, it went pretty quickly and that on Sunday, I will be attempting to run for 12 hours (Well. Run/walk... stay on my feet at least!) at TrailBlaster12. "Time is an illusion. Lunchtime, doubly so" according to Douglas Adams. We will have to see. It's certainly relative. Energy equals mass times the speed of light, squared, right? I think in my case it might equal flapjacks times the speed of mouse cubed. Which reminds me. I'd better go and buy some oats tomorrow and get this nutrition plan under way..!

Following a good day of rest yesterday (cycle commute not withstanding), I took myself for an experimental 5k this morning as a sort of recovery, sort of 'how will this feel?' test. I felt slow, obviously my pace has been a bit unnatural of late due to training for pacing duties and though I wasn't trying to stick to that any longer, I certainly wasn't speedy. Also, my old mate the ITB niggle was waving from the sidelines and I didn't fancy any more enthusiastic contributions from that side of things!

I'm not too sure of how advisable it is to do a speed interval session 48 hours after a marathon and I'm not quite convinced it's the sort of tapering one should be doing 5 days out of a 12 hour ultra either but heck, I enjoyed it and I don't feel I pushed myself beyond sense. As long as I take the remainder of the week fairly easy, I reckon it'll all be A-OK!

You wouldn't eat a load of nutritious dinner whilst sitting on the toilet because you expected it to drop straight through you while you magically absorbed all the vitamins and minerals, would you? No, you'd give your stomach some time to actually digest the food before reaching for the Andrex. Thus it is also for physical activity. Sure, you can kid yourself you're a Duracell bunny, and yes, variously, we can keep going for a surprisingly long time before things start to break, but just as a bike needs some maintenance, so do our bodies and if you ignore that, the rust will creep and things will break. Eventually. There may be a long slow, gradual deterioration of performance first of course, but then there will be a breaking point and an injury. If you're reading this and going 'yeah, yeah, whatever, where are my trainers?' like I would have done this time last year then congratulations on not having broken. Yet. Now go and put your feet up. Your next run will be better for it.

When the whole blogging thing took off, more years ago than I care to recall, it was a good while before I became tempted into doing so myself, mostly because I didn't believe for a second that the minutiae of my life was in anyway interesting enough to record, let alone publicise.

"Hey guys! I ate a sandwich." woo hoo.
"I drank beer and I saw a band, I'm so cray-zee!" Yep.
"Wow everyone, I'm the next Tracey Emin because I drew A PICTURE!" Yeaaaah. Right.
"LOOK AT ME! I feel really proud of this minor achievement, please shower me digitally and from afar with a disproportionate amount of praise and encouragement in order to justify my existence!"

When I did finally capitulate and start recording events from my creative venturing (see Word of Mouse blog) in an attempt to promote my work, I tried to stay very clear of this and I have applied the same ethos to my running blog since starting it in order to participate in Juneathon last year. Of course, the dichotomy there is that Juneathon naturally lends itself to inane blogging. If I have to blog every day then there's bound to be a few where it's just a case of "I did do a run." Woop. Apologies then, if this seems dull or trite. But that's the nature of it and I do feel compelled to continue my participation as I think it's an initiative that deserves support. I try and save the less physically interesting days for pondering on wider related issues (can you guess today is one of those!) and so it was timely then that today Dr Dave Hindley mused on some similar quandaries in his own Juneathon blog, where he essentially questioned what it's all for. He mentions that The PhD Runner recently wondered if her own attempt had caused her to haemorrhage twitter followers. I might have wondered the same if I gave it any thought, though to be honest, I assumed that most of the time I am essentially babbling to myself in a large but busy room. A bit like being the person rocking in the corner at a cocktail party that everyone is politely ignoring. Given that Dave then very kindly mentions this blog as being one he actually reads, I guess I'd better not make that assumption any more and increase my efforts to generate something worth reading! Unfortunately today was, as mentioned, a less interesting one. But anyway, in the spirit of Juneathon... here's some exercise related things that happened:

06:30: Physio-prescribed stretches and foam rolling. Before breakfast. I am so virtuous.

08:00: Cycled to work. My colleague was supposed to be joining me but his chain snapped so he got the train. EXCUSES!

19:00: 30 minute cooling swim after over heating on probably the only day of Juneathon that can actually be called 'flaming'

20:00: Go home to receive weeks grocery delivery and try not to eat the whole lot at the door in front of the bemused driver.

And there ends Juneathon the 11th. Apologies for tenuous link to reused image by the way but I do like to include something visual on a blog post and that's probably more aesthetically pleasing than a photo of my swollen thigh. Especially as it turns out someone out there is actually reading! Hi Dave!

As far as Juneathon goes, I have kept up for the 10th of the month with my daily cycle commute and an evening swim, though there’s little more to say than that in terms of fairly unremarkable physical activity. There was another related event however, which has inspired yet another reflective ramble… You lucky folks!

I haven’t always been a runner. That’s not to say I haven’t been active. As a child and teenager, I enjoyed a variety of activities, team sports, swimming, buzzing off on my Muddy Fox, though I seemed to be especially good at gymnastics and got most excited about using the trampoline. That was until I developed juvenile rheumatoid arthritis and got plonked in a wheelchair for a bit but we won’t dwell on that, my point is that even when I was active as a youngster, I really didn’t enjoy athletics. Walking, yes, running no .In my 20’s I got into ‘fitness running’ to try and stay healthy but I couldn’t say I really enjoyed it. I certainly wasn’t a ‘gym bunny’ and the thought of being sweaty in public frankly terrified me, I’d always be picking the quietest possible routes for short ‘secret’ runs,  In the summer of 2012, I took advantage of a free swim offer that the leisure club at a local hotel, The Midland in Manchester, was participating in. Initially, when I filled in my registration form I put a firm tick in the ‘not interested in membership’ box, but as I relaxed in the spa pool and looked forward to using the sauna, I began to weigh up the cost of membership with the amount I was spending on using public swimming baths. I realised that it would cost me about 40p per month more to become a member but that I would have access to far more facilities and the support of staff to help with a fitness programme. I signed up to a trial membership and didn’t look back.

When I joined fully, Kieran, one of the fantastic staff members, worked closely with me to assess my fitness and suggest how to achieve my personal health goals. After a few months he suggested I think about participating in the 2013 Bupa Great Run Manchester Run. When I started my membership, I found it a challenge to run on the treadmill for 10 minutes at 6 mph. Through slow, steady improvement and the encouragement of the support network of staff and friends I made in other members at the Midland gym, I was eventually able to happily run for 60 minutes at 8 mph. I initially expected to do my first 10 km race in around 47 minutes as I knew I was a bit slower outside but I would have been happy with sub 50. On the day, I managed to complete in 45.31 which I was absolutely delighted by! Somewhere along the course on that sunny May morning, there must have been a Running Bug as I got well and truly bitten, as you can probably tell.