New Year Plans

It has been a long time since I last wrote, and I have had a couple of people expressing their wish for me to carry on writing something here every now and again, so here I am again.

I had a bit of difficulty getting back into my running shoes after the marathon - not just because I had caught a cold - more probable was the fact of not really having a big goal to aim at any more. And then the wether broke, as well as having a heap of other things demanding my time. So I kept the training ticking over, and fully intended to run the Twin Piers 10K race from Llandudno to Colwyn Bay last Saturday, but went down with another cold from which I am still not a hundred percent recovered.

Last night I returned home from a ten day visit to Britain, where I first attended the Triratna European Chairs Assembly, a week-long meeting for Chairs of Triratna Buddhist Centres, held this time at Taraloka near Whitchurch. At the end of an inspiring week of meetings, discussion and practise, I spent a weekend with my dad in Old Colwyn. He has run the Twin Piers race many time over the past thirty years and I had hoped that we might run it together this time. However, by the time I announced to him my plan to run it this year, he had already decided not to participate again.

As it turned out, I am not too disappointed that my health let me down again, as the weather was incredibly wild on Saturday and the stormy winds and rain would have made the going really tough. Instead I enjoyed a pleasant couple of days with various family members slowly getting better, and being fed extraordinarily good grub! (The sausages were of course vegetarian.)

At Liverpool Airport I was stopped at security and had 250 ml of Marmite confiscated. To be honest, I'd completely forgotten about it in my rucksack, and even so, I probably wouldn't have thought about it contravening the rules. I tried pointing out that it isn't exactly a liquid, to which the security person gently answered, it is a cream. I am happy that I packed the two large jars (500 ml) in my checked-in rucksack, which should keep me going for a couple of months anyway.

The flight played havoc with my ears on account of my cold, and they have not yet readjusted, but they are getting there.slowly sorting themselves out.

Next week I start my ten-week training plan for the half marathon again. I would like to cut a couple of minutes off my best time from last year, when I run in the Berlin Half Marathon at the start of April.