Cable or boat...

Ran the Reading 1/2 marathon the other weekend. Thick with snow on the way down the A34 and then upon arrival in Reading it was wet, windy and flipping cold. Lisa was brave enough to stand in the elements and wait for me (she should have been running but wasn't well) and I crossed the finish-line after 1hr 49mins. Not the fastest of times but a pretty decent one.

Last weekend I headed to WMSki for the first time. The last couple of summers I have been wakeboarding at Hardwick Park behind a boat but that lake doesn't open up for another month and closes quite early in tee year, so I thought I'd give cable a go. Hey, it was quite a bit of fun. Bloody cold, again with snow coming down as I drove there but I quite enjoyed it. Didn't hit any of the obstacles but played around for an hour or so. Eventually I had to give up as my grip and fore-arms eventually gave-up.

The problem now is, do I return to Hardwick later in April or buy and pass and go completely cable this year? A cable pass would allow me to get wet as often as I could get to the park (18+ miles away from work and 35+ miles away from home), while Hardwick would at most be a once per week 15min session (15+ miles away from work and 10+miles from home).....what to do?

Boat or cable, I'd love to be even remotely close to this level.

Feeling crappy...

All sorts of bugs flying about at work (some of them very unpleasant and involve the sufferer being unable to leave the smallest room in the house) but so far I seem to have avoided all of them. Still, I can't help but feel that something is lurking in the background.

The sun came out in the week and so I dashed home from work to go for a run. A nice 6-miler but I am very aware that it's only 1/10th of the distance I'll be running in a couple of months. Still, the Reading 1/2 is next weekend and that should be a decent old run.

The run next weekend and then I'm back at the wakeboarding.....Yay. I'm hoping the weather will have improved as we have more snow on the way this weekend and I don't want to be hitting the lake with -2'C temperatures.

The summer holiday to Scotland is starting to look brilliant. OK, we aren't going to get the sunshine and temperatures that I love but there's a wakepark close to where we're staying and the mountainbiking looks brilliant. By the sounds of things, it is sounding as though I might not survive the 2-weeks north of the wall.

I think in prep, I need to hit Afan a few times...

2 weeks...

Only a couple of weeks to go until its the Reading 1/2 Marathon. Shouldn't be a problem, so long as I have shaken off the last of this man-cold that I've been suffering from. Popped out for a little 6-mile run earlier and it was like running with cotton-wool in my lungs.

Got to get my arse in gear and book a session at the cable-park. Milton-Keynes is open most weekends now (once the ice has either been cleared or melted) and WMSki opens either this weekend or next. Fingers crossed that the sun actually starts to come out and defrosts the water.

My ankle is feeling a lot better (which is why I decided to go for a run) and I have a hotel booked at the Brighton end for my London to Brighton challenge ( www.justgiving.com/nicksrunning100km ). The manager has upgraded us to a family room as it has a bath and HE has decided that I will need a soak when I arrive in Brighton ---- what a really cool guy (www.avalonbrighton.co.uk).