Thank you all for your lovely comments and tweets after yesterday’s post. Today I revelled in the glorious knowledge that I didn’t have to run, until Ginge pointed out that I’d said on here that I was going to run and therefore I had to run. Arse.

The fishcakes were indeed lovely, it’s a dead easy recipe from The Food of Thailand, which is a brilliant book if you like Thai. We love Thai and Ginge is keen enough to faff about making pastes and spice blends, so this is one of our very well used cookery books (evidenced by the splashes and smears of ingredients on the more popular pages).

Fried fishcakes with green beans
450g firm white fish fillets
1tbsp red curry paste
1tbsp fish sauce
1 egg
50g green beans, finely sliced
5 kaffir lime leaves, finely shredded
Oil for deep(ish) frying

Skin and debone the fish, then roughly chop. In a food processor, mince the fish with the curry paste, fish sauce and egg until smooth. Mix with the beans and lime leaves. With wet hands, shape the fishcakes and then fry in a few centimetres of hot oil until golden.

The ones we made yesterday were done with about 300g of fish and about twice as much curry paste (we freeze batches in 2tbsp blobs). It’s not a precise science…

So that’s fishcakes. As for running, we had to nip into town so I asked Ginge to drop me off four miles from home and I braved the wind and outbreaks of rain to plod home from there. Whilst I hate the process of being chucked out at the side of the road, I love the way that every step that I take is a step towards home, especially as in this case there was a bubbly bath and some price reduced hot chicken waiting for me when I got in.

The official Travelling Hopefully Athon committee (Ginge and I) has convened (had a natter) and reached a conclusion. I am not hardcore.

I have had a nine day mini-runstreak, but I’ve spent the last few pondering whether I want to continue running every day and today I realised that the answer was no I don’t. My reasons are many. I don’t want to run every day only to hit that period of post-Athon relief and not run for ages. I’m horribly aware that everything is a little more achy and clunky than in previous years and I don’t want to get injured. I suspect that if I put some more effort into fewer runs then I will make better progress. Logistically I am struggling to run in the mornings so most of my running is done after work, by the time I have got home, wrangled the boy, got tea sorted with Ginge, been for a run and got back, it feels like the whole night has gone – this is rubbish. I am knackered and I know that this type of tired can be hideous for my general wellbeing and sanity. And have you seen the weather out there….?

Decision made and I felt that a weight had been lifted off my shoulders. We had a splendid afternoon, I treated myself to new books and we spent the afternoon/evening in the kitchen making Thai fishcakes, chicken satay and peanut sauce, and a pork curry that we ended up too full to eat after scarfing down the fishcakes and satay.

Exercise-wise, I am determined to do some yoga practice at home and have been doing a few haphazard postures most nights since the New Year. Tonight would barely count as proper practice (in front of the telly with the cricket on…) but I started in corpse pose and had a listen to my body. My body told me that I was holding a lot of tension and clunkiness in my shoulders so I did an assortment of stretches to get them less tense and clunky.

Thus, I am still on the Janathon wagon and am looking forward to a run tomorrow.

The Plan
Go to work. Take running kit. Take advantage of an hour time owing to finish after my last visit so I can run in daylight. Scoot down the motorway. Park up. Get changed in the car. Try not to get arrested for indecent exposure. Run on the canal. Take photos. Enjoy. Be home and Janathoned at a respectable time.

The Reality
Go to work. Take running kit. Spend all day driving round in the rain. Realise that it’s not actually become proper daylight all day. Take advantage of an hour time owing to finish after my last visit. Pootle down the motorway because of water hitting the car from 360 degrees – standing water, rain and spray from lorries. Realise that if I go home, home will be warm, I will not leave home. Realise that it was something of a miracle that I had actually managed to pack a complete set of running kit and that it would be rude to dismiss a miracle. Stop at the motorway services to get changed. Leave motorway services making a mental note that instead of wearing capris, long tights would stop the wind whipping around my bare calves. Decide I don’t want to miss the chance to run somewhere that’s not home. Decide that the canal is going to be just as wet as anywhere else. Park up. Regret having to leave a nice warm car with Radio Four on. Set off. Realise that rather than being “just as wet as anywhere else” the canal is in fact “much wetter than anywhere else”. Hop and skip between massive puddles and treacherous slippy mud. Give up avoiding puddles and run through them. Regret getting cold, wet, squelchy feet. Decide that I’m not wasting all of this effort by just running a mile. Run a mile. Turn round. Realise that the wind has been behind me for the first mile. Run into the wind. Imagine that this is like a colder, more vertical version of indoor sky diving. Realise that my face is fixed in a rictus grimace. Admit to self that this run is hideous and if wasn’t for Janathon then I wouldn’t be doing it. Give in to the wind and run/walk. Realise that the more running I do, the quicker this will be over. Get back to car, turn heating up, drive home. Be home and Janathoned by a reasonable hour.

I ran for a mile.

There’s not a lot more to say.

This is the third line.

I’ll admit it, I procrastinated a bit tonight. Well it was raining. And dark. And did I mention it was raining? But for once, by faffing around (at least 30 minutes to put my socks on) actually paid off, not only did it stop raining, but I also got to see Mini-Ginge do a new trick. I would have been very miffed to have missed that.

Tonight was the opposite of Saturday’s run, not just in terms of direction but also in terms of general -ness. On Saturday, I felt gooood. The run felt easy, I felt strong and comfortable. It was only when I checked my watch at the halfway point that I realised that it was easy and comfortable because I was going quite slowly. Arse. Tonight, it felt more effortful and hard work. Guess what? It turns out that I ran my fastest 3 miles since having Mini-Ginge and managed to take nearly 30 seconds/mile off my pace.

So tonight I have learned the lesson that running faster feels harder work. Who’d have thought eh?