Snow? In Devon?

Well it's been 2 weeks since I posted and to be honest there's not a lot going on unless you consider all the crap at home that's trying to take me to financial ruin :-(

The week after the Braunton 10 (x2) was pathetic really with just 2 runs and a swim to mark the beginning of the month with. With so much time on my hands due to the lack of training it was hear my financial head went out of the window and Februarys wages got spent before they hit the bank.

First up is the garden, or at least part of it. The grassy sections don't drain well because it's all clay underneath, so after 2 years of Rosie the pup putting muddy footprints over everything as soon as it rains I had 4 tonnes of gravel lifted over the fence to cover it all up with. Now I just need to find the time (and the weather) to get the job done.

Next up was my exploding of the vacuum cleaner, some supposed dog hair special which never did get Rosie's hair up like it was supposed to. This led to the purchase of a f###ing expensive Dyson in a moment of madness. For a house the size of ours, especially one with no carpets I'm sure it's complete overkill but based on the current 3 vacuums every 2 years at least the 5yr warranty should mean it earns it's money (I hope).

Then to top everything off the PC blew a gasket. Stupid me had let the security run out and it picked up what (after plenty of Googling) appeared to be the virus from hell with no real cure other than backing everything up externally and running the start up disc again, presuming of course that the virus wasn't in something I backed up.

After weeks of head scratching I decided that it wouldn't cost much more to simply buy a new base unit than it would to buy external drives and probably get things checked out proffesionally to be on the safe side. So now I'm sitting typing this while going through the tedious process of uploading all my music onto iTunes again while discovering that somewhere along the way I've lost most of my favourite CD's.

Money gone and (supposedly down to a economic 4 day week) I've got a bit more training in this last week.

I didn't start the month well as I spent Sunday on garden (gravel) duties and Monday was a bit of a late one at work. Tuesday was close to being a disaster as a couple of inches of snow fell and the UK ground to a halt. Tuesday is my new (supposed) day off so I'd booking Shell's car into the garage in the afternoon and a doctors appointment in the morning. The plan with the Doctors is that they test me for 'Exercise Induced Asthma' in a bid to cure the annoying constant cough I've had for 10years or more. Unfortunatly this got scrapped when I arrived and the nurse didn't think it was safe for me to go and run for an hour like a lunatic in a bit to wreck my lungs. Re-booked 'yet again' for 2 weeks time. The garage trip was also called off because it's up in the sticks where they'd had a foot or more of snow and I'd little chance of making the 30mile drive in Shell's little car without getting stuck in a drift somewhere. I managed a little jog down the Tarka Trail in the afternoon with Rosie so that I could take some pretty pics of the snow as it's a very rare sight down in Devon.

For the rest of the week training got a bit better. On Wednesday, with all the snow gone, I managed to sneak away from work early enough for an 8mile run with the pup. On Thursday I headed out towards London where many areas were still suffering from a snow slowdown. I managed to lose enough time on my day to justify spending the night in Marlow which meant I could pop out to see my old pals at Marlow Striders and join them for a run. I cracked out 5miles before reaching the club and then joined one of the lads for another 10 before catching up with the recent goings on over a few pints.

On Friday the mad weather returned. When I woke up everywhere was snow free, but an hour later I was driving in a white out. Seeing all the cars abandoned and/or losing it was quite funny as I seemed to have no trouble in my 'slightly' bigger vehicle. It's just a case of keeping it smooth and steady, yet some people seem to think that a heavy right foot will fix everything. They'll get there eventually.

Strangly, after hearing on the radio all day about how Devon and Cornwall had suffered the worst of the weather and how people were trapped in their cars over night I got home on Friday afternoon to find out we'd had nothing at all and it was a beautiful sunny day.
I was later home than normal on Friday so Rosie had to go without her run and I just managed my Squad swim session, but I took her out for 4miles on Saturday morning before setting off on a 33mile wind, rain and hail plagued bike ride and an afternoon spent dossing infront of the TV and computer. The week was finished with a beasty little run session at the track with the Tri Club. 20x400m was the bulk of it, but the run home plus warming up took the whole lot to 7.5miles.

Maybe, just maybe I've turned the training corner and I can start getting my head around it again. Maybe, just maybe we can have a month where nothing else blows up and I can save the credit card getting too much of a bashing. Who knows, but until next time.................................