Signed off

I was officially signed off from the physio yestrday over my calf issues... He said they felt fine, and it's back to seeing him once a month instaed of every week! Excellent news.

I've been quite tired over the last few days, and have deliberately ignored the lightbox by turning away and getting Graeme to reset it for 6am once he's up. After Amsterdam I shall be getting up at 5am again, and starting my heat training properly. I have found that my body really doesn't cope well with early morning running, and besides, I won't feel comfortable running in the countryside at 5am in the dark on my own, so getting up to go straight into a sauna sounds a much better option at the moment.

I appear to have slept for an extra hour each night since Sunday, and last night I felt the onset of a cold so took paracetomol and vitamins and wrapped up well. I feel fine this morning, so hopefully I've caught it early enough. It just goes to show that you have to look after yourself and do whatever it takes to keep healthy when you are subjecting your immune system to running for much longer than you're used to. I often wonder how people can do back to back 35 milers and the such, and not look like death! They seem super human to me at the moment, although I'm pleased to say that the 30 miles on Saturday hasn't left me like a zombie or anything. In some ways I feel better than usual, but it's hard to explain what I mean by that!

My food intake has been going well (I was going to write DIET there, but I'm not on a diet). I am still amazed to find foods that I have not considered trying before which are really lovely. I had paneer at the Indian restaurant on Saturday night and that was gorgeous... vegetable pakoras too! What I have found that I don't like, are bean burgers (urghh), I have tried 2 different ones and they are not for me. I also don't like the vegetarian version of chinese curry. Somebody mentioned that they probably use fish paste in the non vegetarian dish and that's maybe why it tastes so different!

And the shoe saga continues... I don't like the New Balance shoes! I put my foot in and immediately thought "No" (as I so often do). I had to phone sportshoes.com and order a pair of Brooks Glycerin 9 on 24 hour delivery because I need to be able to run in them from Saturday. It's another long shot... what if my orthotics slip in the 7.5 size? I do not have the luxury of popping to the nearest sports shop to try them as the variety in the North east is really crap. On Sunday we spent the whole afternoon looking in Newcastle... not one shop sold the Salomons for Graeme or Brooks for me! I always went to Start Fitness, but it's really gone downhill recently... or maybe I'm just getting even more picky with training gear... to be fair to the shop, it's probably just me and my ever growing awkward ways!