I Used to Enjoy Reading Julie Welch

If you asked me a couple of days ago to name my favourite running books 'Long distance information' by Julie Welch would have been on the list. It starts with her, at the age of 48, discovering she is capable of completing a long distance cycle ride, without much preparation. After that adventure she embraces the idea of a physical challenge and takes up running culminating with a long distance run in France, retracing memories from her childhood. It is mostly a memoir, both amusing and touching, but framed by the run. As such it successfully illustrates the way that running by a mixture of rhythm and steady exertion can liberate the mind and help us see things more clearly and it speaks to me of things I value in running.

But my good will to the author is now shattered and I am totally baffled that someone who wrote so convincingly about the way running could transform the life of a middle aged woman could write so spitefully about middle aged men who jog. Admittedly it is part of the press campaign to ridicule Gordon Brown in every way possible(and she does spend an awful lot of words mocking the way he looks when out for a run) but the conclusion is that middle aged men should not run. They should stick to the traditional, more dignified pursuits of bridge, gardening or a bit of bowls and she describes jogging as a modern plague brought to us by the Americans before delivering this dire health warning.

But Gordon Brown is in his late 50s - not an age to hurl yourself into a fitness regime from scratch.

It isn't good for the ageing knees, it will inflame sciatica and it risks bringing forward the date of a hip replacement.

Most worryingly, the sudden strain on ancient heart valves can occasionally be fatal.

The implication is that after you have reached a certain age you should fade away to gentle irrelevance and not strain yourself too much because it might be dangerous. I can almost feel the metaphorical pat on the head and the "there, there dear. Now you mustn't overtax yourself" (plus of course concern that you wrap up warmly and wear a vest).

This is so wrong.

Every time I see someone out on the road, man or woman, young or old, struggling with their run but still trying, I want to offer support. Every time someone manages to break a personal barrier and for example manages to run for fifteen minutes without walking, they are right to be proud. Every time anybody makes the effort I think their achievement should be appreciated.

The most important thing is to continue to try. It doesn't matter what at, it just matters that you continue to strive. Running is good, people should be supported and Julie Welch in this one mean spirited article has undone much of the good of her other writings.

It is such a shame.

Sports News is Always About Football

I was going to start this post with: "I am in despair" before I realised I was 'in despair' only two posts ago. Damn, I really am turning into a grumpy old man. I must either try to control this and make a deliberate effort to see the sunny side or take my miserablist self outside for a walk and tell him he will only be allowed back if he is clear eyed and sharp, not at all if he is merely gloomy. As one of my core beliefs is that running lifts the spirits and helps you connect with the world in a more positive way, I cannot constantly be holding my head in my hands.

Anyway back to today's peeve and just like two posts ago it is not about running, or my own experiences; it is to do with the way sport and exercise is talked or written about. In this case the way football dominates the airways and sucks the oxygen away from other, more interesting, topics.

This morning the sports bulletin in the Today programme carried a piece about the UK Sport’s World Class Performance Conference, which brings together top coaches from all disciplines so they can exchange knowledge. Fair play to Today for picking up on this item but the interview with the representative was lamentable. He was allowed to state the purpose of the meeting but after that he was only asked about Rafa Benetiz and how it might help him with his bad string of results or what it would say about his decision to field a weakened team in one competition. It was very, very strange, as if the only purpose of the item was to make back-handed, and unrelated, digs at the Liverpool manager

All the time it was frustrating because I really wanted to hear what they would be talking about, what would be the focus of the presentations, and who would be talking. (It is now even more frustrating because the UK Sport website only provides the marketing blurb and no programme).

I am sure I am not unusual in being a back-pack runner who is interested in how the elite reach their high standards and the latest developments in coaching and sports science. There must be many of us who participate in all types of sport, who know how difficult they are to master and are in awe of the top performers. We are curious about how they became so good and want to know both about their methods and the capabilities of the human body. It is a far more fascinating subject than the endless speculation on the current status of a various football manager.

Official Advice on Exercise Pt 2

Official advice on the amount of exercise needed is quite simple:

■ Children and young people should achieve a total of at least 60 minutes of at least moderate intensity physical activity each day. At least twice a week this should include activities to improve bone health (activities that produce high physical stresses on the bones), muscle strength and flexibility.
■ For general health benefit, adults should achieve a total of at least 30 minutes a day of at least moderate intensity physical activity on 5 or more days of the week.
■ The recommended levels of activity can be achieved either by doing all the daily activity in one session, or through several shorter bouts of activity of 10 minutes or more. The activity can be lifestyle activity or structured exercise or sport, or a combination of these.
■ It is likely that for many people, 45-60 minutes of moderate intensity physical activity a day is necessary to prevent obesity. For bone health, activities that produce high physical stresses on the bones are necessary.
■ The recommendations for adults are also appropriate for older adults. Older people should take particular care to keep moving and retain their mobility through daily activity. Additionally, specific activities that promote improved strength, co-ordination and balance are particularly beneficial for older people.

That’s all there is.

When I first read them I thought they were very soft. There is no mention of vigorous, nothing about raising the pulse rate or breathing heavily and nothing about being able to gradually do more with practice. As for breaking it up into 10 minutes units I thought it was the slippery slope to counting any slight movement as exercise.

But I was probably being a bit snooty because I run and know the feeling of wellbeing that sweeps through you after a good session. I therefore know in my bones that exercise is good for you. So my viewpoint is distorted especially as I have little understanding of the general level of inactivity in the population as a whole or how hard it is to start from a low base.

Reading the 2004 report by the Chief Medical Officer changed my mind (it can be downloaded here) as it shows the evidence base for the recommendations, which can be summarised by this quote:

The World Health Organization has reported that physical inactivity is one of the 10 leading causes of death in developed countries, producing 1.9 million deaths worldwide per year.21 It estimates that physical inactivity is responsible for the following proportions of ‘disability-adjusted life years’ in developed countries:

■ 23% of cardiovascular disease for men and 22% for women
■ 16% of colon cancer for men and 17% for women
■ 15% of type 2 diabetes
■ 12% of stroke for men and 13% for women
■ 11% of breast cancer. Becoming more active can bring substantial benefit.

There is a clear dose-response relationship between physical activity and all-cause mortality, and between physical activity and diseases such as coronary heart disease and type 2 diabetes: greater benefits occur with greater activity participation (see Figure 1). From a public health perspective, helping people to move from an inactive level to low to moderately active levels will produce the greatest reduction in risk. A physical activity energy expenditure of 500-1,000kcals per week (about 6-12 miles of walking for an average-weight individual, compatible with the current physical activity recommendations for adults) reduces the risk of premature death by 20-30%. These considerable health benefits hold for both women and men and are evident even up to the age of 80 years.

This is clear. If more people adopted this regime of moderate exercise there would be dramatic change. However in the back of my mind is the quote from Jerry Morris saying that vigorous activity was necessary and his survey of civil servant showed gardening was not enough. I presume later surveys have different results but is vigorous exercise really unnecessary?

It seems that there is might be some debate. In 2007 the American Heart Association modified its advice by incorporating vigorous exercise and resistance training. The base recommendation was still 30 minutes of moderate activity 5 times a week, but 3 sessions of vigorous exercise could be substituted, if preferred, or moderate and vigorous sessions could be mixed. The Guardian report of this change was exaggerated and had the headline “The era of gentle exercise is over: it’s official you’ve got to work up a sweat”, which is a complete misrepresentation (the NHS Behind the Headlines response is here). Although the American report was merely an enhancement of the existing recommendations, it did acknowledge that there were still some people who believed that only vigorous exercise had a health effect and that recent evidence gives some indication that vigorous exercise is more beneficial for cardiac disease.

However in terms of a public health message the last thing you want is debate. It is important to stand firm with advice and only change it when counter evidence is very clear. Any sign of confusion is an excuse for people to do nothing. You need only look at diet, where there is a perception of scientists always changing their minds (even if this is not the case) to see how that works.

Additionally getting people to move from nothing to something is very difficult and you do not want to make the task seem daunting. (Again diet is the example ‘5 a day’ for fruit and vegetables was chosen as a target that would not be too off-putting; it is not necessarily the optimum).

So I can now see why the current advice is good. It has a the maximum chance of making an impact but it needs to seep into the general consciousness in the same way as '5 a day'. If we walk on average only half a mile a day and 38% of adults have less than 30 minutes of moderate activity a week. There is a long, long way to go.

Official Advice on Exercise Pt 1

The example of exercise advice given from the health perspective was randomly chosen: I searched Google, found the recommendations from an NHS website and the job was done. It was the only article I read and as it lived up (or down) to my expectation by advocating a gentle approach that almost suggests you can exercise without any great effort, I looked no further. But this is not good enough because: 1) it goes against the principle of always trying to disprove your own assumptions; 2) it is only fair to look further.

So here is a record of my search for official advice on exercise to see whether it is clearly presented and easy to find. I will do this in two posts. The first will look at the sources of information on the Web; the second will look at the content of the advice and its consistency.

Sources of Information

1) Directgov is designed to be the citizens portal for government information and advice and is the obvious place to start. The front page has a link to a index page on 'health and wellbeing', where there is a section for 'healthy living' but this doesn't have exercise as a subheading so the only option is a click to another index page: 'more about healthy living'. Here again there is nothing about exercise I can go to 'Change4life' but there is also a heading 'sports facilities and events', which seems at first to be unlikely. Strangely it is what is needed as it contains links to:
keeping fit (young peoples section);
staying physically active (pensions and retirement planning section);
fitness advice on NHS Choices.
At last some information!

There was of course no need to go through the linky links, there is a search box. The search term 'exercise' threw up the 'sports facilities and events' page as the first hit but I ignored it because, at the time, I thought the strap line 'Find a local gym or sports facility and look up local and national sporting events' made it seem irrelevant. However I did strike gold because the next hit was a newslink to the 2004 report by the Chief Medical Officer's on exercise, which I was able to download from the DoH site.

(Totally by the way their search engine is a bit weird. The results for 'exercise recommendations' or 'exercise guidelines' offered 'NHS to offer acupuncture for back pain' as the first result)

2) Change4life. Apparently the Government is spending £75m on this campaign to encourage us to eat more healthily and exercise more. So surely this must be the place for good advice. It is aimed at families so presumably it's written to advise parents on what's good for them and their kids, ie its supposed to be read by adults.

Oh the bright colours! Oh the perky language! It makes you feel like you are being talked at by the presenters of Playdays. Here is the introduction to 'Why Change4Life?'

Well done! Visiting this site is your first step in making a Change4Life, and you're not alone. Lots of people like you are already enjoying making a Change4Life! The way we live nowadays means a lot of us, especially our kids, have fallen into unhelpful habits. This means all of us need to make small changes to eat well, move more, and live longer.

There is so much I could say about this but I will restrict myself to one small question. Why 'unhelpful' when the obvious word is unhealthy? Sometimes a single word can show a rottenness of thought behind the writing. Here is how they explain why we should encourage our kids to be more active:

Activity raises kids’ heartbeats and helps pump blood around their bodies. It’s like a mini workout for their lungs and muscles! It also decreases their chances of getting life-threatening diseases.

I am comatose with despair!

3) NHS Choices LiveWell. This fitness section is a proper grown-up site and actually quite good. The information on the why and how of exercise is clearly laid out and there is a good range of side links to supporting information (eg a link to Sustrans to help people get cycling and a video wall of tips from Olympic athletes). This is the place to find the Government's advice but this is not the end of the story because there are always other places to look.

4) More from NHS Choices. Entering the term 'exercise' in the search box brings up many more pages of advice that are not linked-to from the fitness site. A lot of them are plain pages of text and are thus probably excluded for looking a bit dull but they contain good, solid information. This on what type of exercise? is a good example. ( on a side note this page is not only dated it shows when it will next be reviewed. I wish this practice was more common)

5) Department of Health. This has more background information to support the exercise campaigns. From here you can Chief Medical Officers report as well as the NICE guidelines for health professionals on increasing physical activity. There is also the action plan published february this year, which brings together both the advice and plans to increase activity. This has to be done because the shocking statistics found in these documents show that:

Around 65% of men and 76% of women are not physically active enough to meet national guidelines (to be at least moderately active for at least 30 minutes on 5 or more days a week). 30% of boys and 39% of girls aged 2–15 years do not achieve the recommended physical activity levels for their age (at least 60 minutes of at least moderate- intensity physical activity each day).

Between 1995–97 and 2005, the average distance walked had dropped from 200 to 197 miles per person, per year. The average distance cycled fell from 43 to 36 miles per person per year.

6) Behind the Headlines This is a brilliant NHS site that looks at the actual research findings behind health stories in the news and puts them into context and assess how significant they might be. Although this is not the place for the official government advice it is worth checking So far they have analysed 243 stories related to lifestyle and exercise. If searching for articles about exercise it is important to remember that the search engine covers the whole of the NHS Choices site and so the phrase 'behind the headlines' should be included in the search.

7) NICE. As well as the guidelines for health professionals I mentioned earlier, NICE have produced a report on creating physical environments that support increased levels of physical activity. It can be downloaded from this page, where you can also have access to their background information. This is one of the fundamental issues and shows how any attempt to change peoples pattern of behaviour has far reaching ramification that reach into many other areas of government.

8) NHS Evidence In my rather sad way I got quite excited when I found this search portal for health information that covers published, research, grey literature, guidelines and reports. The results page gives the option of refining by type of publication.

9) Other Bodies. There are all sorts of other bodies that have some sort of stake in physical activity from the well known such as Sports England or slightly more esoteric like the Outdoor Health Forum but I feel that I am wandering away from the core subject of official advice into a thicket of bureaucratic bodies and background information and I know that madness lies there. However I must pass-on my favourite line from the website of the Physical Activity Alliance "Currently, the Alliance has no formal status; there is no legal entity; there are no staff, no premises, no agreed strategy or delivery plan/programme."  Brilliant!

More Jerry Morris

I have been thinking more about the article about Jerry Morris I linked-to recently and realise that the shrift I gave it was too short. I need to explain more fully why I found it both interesting and uplifting.

The main reason is a straightforward admiration for anybody who has spent his life trying to make things better for others. Such people, who try to solve problems practically, based on knowledge and understanding, are the backbone of the country (compared to most of the people in the media who seem to float on clouds of opinion). Jerry Morris seems to be a high level example. Just from the evidence of the article, it looks as if he led a virtuous life.

Times Past

Another reason is probably nostalgia. When I read it I could almost imagine a black and white film of the forties with the central character calmly displaying determination in the face of adversity, moral strength, and practical intelligence (he would probably have to be played by John Laurie because I think it was the law at the time that all Scotsmen had to be played by John Laurie). But deeper that my internal cinema is the attraction of looking at a bygone age and being able to see what has changed and what is the same. He worked at a time when we were changing from a physically demanding existence to the more domesticated, sedentary world we now inhabit. To be able to compare bus drivers to bus conductors was a wonderful opportunity because class, background, lifestyle, diet would all be very similar and it is therefore possible to isolate the difference of exercise. Now there are very few conductors. The confounding factors have increased and things are not so clear-cut.

His regret at the passing of the can-do attitude of the 40s is also poignant. It is not that people are any less practical or enterprising now but rather we have lost faith in the idea that national plans and initiatives can make things better. Our default position is cynicism and it is a shame it is so. The post war period, up until the mid 70s, was probably the high point of optimistic thinking, ie a belief that life could be made better, planning could improve the lot of everybody and the application of science would be wholly beneficial. It is not easy to recapture that mood but I still think there is a lot to recommend in the idea of rounding-up all the experts on a subject, sending them away to the Hebrides and not letting them back until they come up with a workable plan.

Applying the Lessons

Although he made is discovery a lifetime ago, there is now a general understanding of the importance of exercise, I am not sure the full message has been accepted. He is very clear that there needs to be vigorous exercise (gardening by itself is not enough) but a lot of the health advice offered today tones that down. We pussyfoot.
I looked at the exercise recommendations on the NHS Choices. Although it contains some sensible advice, nowhere does it mention the need to raise the pulse rate. Vigorous? The word is shunned as we cannot make even the tiniest suggestion of effort in case we scare people off. I understand the motive, and we certainly don’t want to make things seem overly forbidding, but our bodies were evolved for exercise; there is pleasure in breathing heavily. More to the point vigorous exercise is necessary and we are diluting what we know to be true in an effort to make it more palatable. That does nobody any good.

“Exercise normalises the working of the body”. I like that quote. I think it should be at the head of all the health advice.

The Necessity of Exercise

This quote says it all:

“For the first time in history,” says Morris, “the mass of the population has deliberately got to take exercise. It’s a new phenomenon, which is not appreciated.” For decades he has tried to persuade governments to make exercise easier. He was involved in the pioneering English National Fitness Survey of 1990, which found that half of women aged 55 to 64 could not comfortably walk a mile. These people were in effect disabled. The government ignored the report. Since then, British exercise levels haven’t changed much. His voice becomes high-pitched with outrage: “Just imagine, what historians in the future are going to say about the way we’ve allowed this epidemic of childhood obesity. ‘Disgrace’ is a sort of mild word.”

Embodied

Reading an opinion piece about dictionaries in CIF I found this paragraph:

There's more. We humans are embodied creatures. As philosophers put it, we are extended in space and time. That's no humdrum observation. Our intelligence depends upon it, for we feel our way through the world. Moreover, the same embodiment is intimately linked to our capacity for imagination which, in turn, has much to do with the growth of knowledge. The material world we inhabit nurtures our ability to think, as some of the synonyms used for intelligence themselves suggest: we say, "she's bright", "he's sharp", "they're quick" – metaphors all derived from the physical world.

I need add no more. It is the reason I run.

A Sedentary Life

It was a tiny moment. In some ways like glimpsing a passing reflection of yourself, in a shop window, and seeing yourself as if you were a stranger and realising you look slightly different than your normal self image.

I decided to clear my desk. Not a momentous event, just something that has to be done periodically when my effective working area becomes too reduced by piles of stuff I accumulate. Then everything has to be swept away as I have an overwhelming desire for open space. Yesterday, after I had finished, I looked with satisfaction at a worktop with only a computer screen, keyboard, mouse, notebook and pen. I sat down and felt happy. It was then that the tiny moment of insight and realised how much of my time is spent sitting down. Damn I thought, there is no way round it, I lead a sedentary life.

My self image is of being quite active, someone who enjoys a certain amount of physical challenge and the satisfaction that comes from justified tiredness. In short: someone who runs. But in terms of time this is small beer - most of the time I sit.

I don't know what to do with this insight. I don't know whether I ought to spend more time on easy runs, cycle rides or just being outdoors or whether I ought to be more generally active. At the very least I ought to be aware of my posture, because what you do for most of the day is bound to have a great impact on you body form. I will have to look afresh at the physical component of my whole day, rather than focusing on the bits I enter into my running diary. In other words think about health in general.


Postscript

Whilst I was sitting around thinking these things I came across this article on Jerry Morris. It is based on an interview given a shortly before his death and is quite inspiring. He is an obviously great figure (though perhaps little known outside his speciality) who is important to all of us mid-pack runners and general exercisers because he was the first person to show the link between vigorous exercise and a reduction of heart disease. The piece is titled 'The man who invented exercise' and so we obviously owe him debt.

An Unexpected Reminder

Last Sunday was really dark. As everything was falling away I wondered why I spent so much time not only running but thinking about running. It was all a waste as I was achieving nothing. How could I say it was good when there was only struggle?

These thoughts were worst around half way, when it would have been easy to abandon as the course is a squashed figure of eight, and the end seemed a long way away. But as one foot followed another the distance gradually reduced and I knew I could finish and by doing so find some consolation: prove to myself that I could at least carry-on. Important because I have always believed that all the benefits of running flow from the simple act of keeping going. Consistency is everything.

So I finished and rested and as the feeling of physical weakness receded my spirits started to lift. On Saturday I read this poem in the Guardian and for some strange reason they lifted even more. I know that the metaphor of the marathon is one of the most common in the language (and applied to almost everything) but as I read it here it became inverted: I was the marathon man and the metaphor was the ageing poet. When I thought of 'the first flower in the world' or the 'original bird' I thought not of verse but of the excitement of those early days of running when everything seemed fresh and clear.

My continuing project is to try to maintain that sense of clarity. And this poem brought me back to my purpose. It also reminded me that the only way to see the flower and hear the bird is to be outside, with your senses opened up.

Oh and I also like the idea of being a rowdy at deaths door for whom the last moment is not too late

Some Older American Poets
Borders Bookstore, White Plains, NY


Tired of the accomplished young men
and the accomplished young women,
their neat cerebral arcs and sphinctral circles,
their impeccable chic, their sudden precocious surge,
their claims to be named front-runner,
I have turned to the ageing poets – the marathon men,
the marathon women – the ones who breasted the tape
and simply ran on, establishing their own distance.
Home after another funeral they walk by the pond
with a sense of trees thinning and cold in the air,
yet thrill to the dog's passionate slapstick,
his candid arse-up in the debris of last year's storms.
You sprightly mortals, you rowdies at death's door,
for whom the last moment is not too late to begin!
I can't get enough of you, bright-eyed and poetry mad
in the fields next to the cemetery, where you drop to your knees
before the first flower in the world, where you lift your heads
to that bare cry among brambles, the original bird.

Frank Ormsby from Fireflies.
Published in the Guardian 17th October

Henley Half

Enough time has passed since Sunday's race to allow me to develop a certain amount of detachment and not dissolve into a puddle of damp-eyed self-pity.

It was bad and most of the time I was my mind was completely filled with thoughts like: 'I am not enjoying this.' 'This is not fun.' 'What am I doing?' 'When will this be over?' For me the race was about survival and not quitting; rescuing a certain amount of self respect through stubbornness. It shouldn't have been that way but sometimes things conspire and all you can do is just get through.

The background is very simple. I made a late decision to run the race and although I had not trained specifically for it I was in fairly good shape and was confident I could give it a good crack. I completely ignored being surrounded by sickness and people coughing and spluttering: why should I catch anything?. On Friday I was not at all worried; in fact I so relaxed I wanted to find a butcher's dog just to compare fitness levels. However by Saturday the outlook changed as I started coughing.

I had a decision to make. Things were not too bad, I wasn't dying and I do so few races I didn't want to abandon. Once signed-up that's it. On the other hand what is the point if you are unwell? It does no good and nobody is let-down if you don't turn-up. What is more the time, if you do run, is meaningless. Common sense says no, stupidity says yes. So I, of course, went with stupidity.

Once that was decided everything else then fell into place by going wrong. All the little things multiplied until nothing was right. It started with being a little late leaving and getting stuck in the frozen traffic of Henley. Nothing was moving and it was getting nearer and nearer start time and all the time I was getting anxious so that my judgement was completely clouded as I rushed to the start to collect my number and so left the safety pins in the car and had to go back. The toilets, of course had huge queues and I was desperate for a pee but there was a hedge, so that was OK. (One of the interesting differences between races in England and Canada is that in Canada peeing outside is seen as anti-social, but they provide a lot of portable toilets. In England there is always a line of men peeing I a hedge). Anyway I managed to get to the start but found I had left my heart rate strap at home - not an essential but I like to use it in the first 20 minutes to make sure I start at an easy pace. Just another indication that it was not going to be my day.

The race started and immediately I knew it would be difficult. Although I could keep my legs going, they had no strength. Right from the beginning I started to wonder whether I could finish. In one ear was the siren voice telling me to give up and in the other was the voice of duty telling me to resist temptation and not give in. My only tactic was to keep a rhythm but not push anything: circle the legs and just keep moving forward. This worked for the first half but at 8 miles there is a hill that goes on and on and on. It is tough and I could not run it at all. I knew it was beyond me and so I had to trudge slowly to the top. After that the downhill was fun and the run to the end flat but all my energy reserves were completely spent.

It was a slow time, slower than the halfway point in any marathon I have run but at least I finished. In terms of my self esteem that was ridiculously important. I had to prove to myself that I could finish what I had started. I took consolation from the fact that I did.

Since then I have been ill, coughing continually, throat torn and sore, head achy and dull, with time passing in a muzzy haze (which is the main reason I haven't written this report sooner). I think it will be a couple of weeks before I attempt any type of exercise. I will ease back with some slow easy runs to remind myself that running can be enjoyable and life enhancing. Then I will take myself to one side to tell myself that just because I run it does not mean I have to be stupid as well. After which the experience of Sunday will then have been assimilated and I will move on.

I might even do the race again next year because, paradoxically I would recommend the Henley Half. It might not be a course for a PB, because of the hill, but the scenery is pretty, the course interesting, I love the river and the challenge of the hill is character building.

Waiting for the Weekend

At the moment I am busy doing almost nothing, or to put it another way: I am in the middle of a half-arsed taper. Yes I have a race coming up, with little or no sensible planning and certainly no schedule to bring me to a peak of physical perfection, I can at least I can do the right thing and take it easy in the last week.

It was ever thus with my races: either a total lack of planning or schedules falling apart due to injury or illness! Sensible people plan their racing calendar, know well ahead where they are going to be so that they can train properly and perform at their best. Others are less disciplined and wake up one morning knowing that if they don't do something quickly the year will disappear without a single medal or memento. Dear reader that disorganised person is me.

Last week I decided it would be a nice idea to try a race on the same day as my sister, the 11th, when she is once again running the Victoria Half Marathon (my account of running that marathon last year are ,here, here, and here). The Henley half marathon had places available and so with a click of a button I was in, on a whim. Apparently it is mainly flat but with a hill at mile eight. Hmm that will be interesting. I have not been doing much hill training: another example of being slightly under prepared.

My sister and brother-in-law, on the other hand, are both very methodical in their training, know what they are doing and encourage each other to keep on track. They will run well and I am sure they will feature well in their age categories. Alongside them I feel rather haphazard but not at all downhearted. I run fairly consistently so should not be in too bad a shape (even if not in tip top form I should be able to get round OK) and there is something about doing things on the spur of the moment that I like.

So bring on Sunday and good luck to anybody else doing a race that day (especially the Royal Parks half).