Hello there.
It has been nearly seven months since I last put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard, anyway) but to be fair, I thought I would wait until I actually had something remotely interesting to write about. Perhaps I waited too long because I have rather a lot to mention.
Firstly, I am no longer living in leafy Woodford, Essex. I now find myself in the exotic climes of the North of Manchester as I got offered a better job in Salford and I decided to take the opportunity to move on to pastures new and hopefully greener. So far, so great. I am really enjoying my new role. I'm being constantly challenged. I learn something new often. I develop my skills as I go along. I develop more responsibility and confidence as a result. My manager sets me goals periodically. The team I work with are an exceptionally lovely bunch. Basically I feel valued, appreciated and respected and I feel like I am going somewhere rather than merely treading water and going through the motions as I was starting to feel in my previous department.
I am also enjoying my new life and independence up here, being able to do what I want, whenever I want, wherever I want, and to whomever I want. I miss my family and friends who are all back down in London, but I sure as Hell don't miss London. It's overcrowded, overrated, nobody has time for anybody, everybody's in a rush. Manchester, for all its perceived flaws is a really nice city to live in. The locals are friendly, the pace of life is a bit slower, so you start to appreciate some of the finer things in life, and the scenery isn't bad either.
The last bit there, I can say with confidence as I've been going around Manchester, getting around my local area and slightly further afield. Much of this, I've been doing on foot. Yes, folks, I'm still running. I find time to go running at least one weekday each week, during my lunch break at work, and it allows me to take in a quite scenic view of the Salford Quays as well as letting off a bit of stress from work. It gives me something to talk about with my colleagues, and people that I don't personally know recognise me every time they see me going for a run. I'm basically the dark-haired, breathless, sweat-stained idiot running around in circles, wearing the same blue running shirt and turning a funny shade of crimson through overexerting myself. I also find the time to do a longer run at the weekend in Prestwich, where I'm currently living, and that's given me the ideal opportunity to explore the streets in and around my local area and really familiarise myself with the geography of my town. Just last weekend, I ran from my flat in Prestwich, down the A56 (better known as the Bury New Road - it's a very long road that, as the name suggests, runs from Bury to Manchester), into Manchester city centre. Then I turned back and ran all the way back to Prestwich, and ran further North down the other end of the Bury New Road to Bury. Then having reached Bury town centre, I ran back home to Prestwich again down the Bury New Road. Eighteen miles in all. I don't know about Bury New Road, but it's certainly a Very Long Road. I found that run as enjoyable as I found it exhausting.
And why, I hear you ask, am I running eighteen miles again? Have I taken leave of my senses? Am I trying to save money by travelling on foot instead of by car? The real answer is that I have applied for a place in the 2012 London Marathon and have been awarded one with the charity of my choice. It's a different charity from 2011 but prosaically speaking it is actually the same charity but with a different name. The charity formerly known as the RNID (Royal National Institute for the Deaf) is now currently known as Action on Hearing Loss. So, to all intents and purposes, I have effectively resumed my training.
Why am I going through this all over again? I think Einstein, assuming that the quote has been correctly attributed to him, defined insanity as "doing the same thing over and over again expecting to get different results." I'm expecting the same result, insofar as I'd like to complete the marathon again, but hoping for a different result inasmuch as I ran the 2011 Marathon in 4hrs 47 minutes and raised over £3500 and now I'd like to do even better than that this time round.
I've done the marathon once, what more do I need to prove? I guess what I'm trying to say is that I don't have anything else I need to prove, but now that I've done the marathon, the next logical step is to attempt it again, and complete it in a faster time than in the previous year, and raise more money in the process. So that is my goal. The faster time, I can achieve by putting in all the training and effort, but as for raising the money, I will need help from my friends, sponsors and well-wishers.
Doing the 2011 London Marathon was a huge learning curve for me, a very steep learning curve, steeper even than that hill down Roding Lane North that helped me build up my stamina when it came to uphill running. Anyway, where was I? Oh yes. I learned so much when I was training for the 2011 marathon. The experience proved invaluable, as did the advice that I received from other runners, the things that I taught myself, and the mistakes that I made. I can train for the 2012 London Marathon knowing everything that I learned the hard way from training for the 2011 London Marathon, and hopefully the end result will be as successful (as far as completing the marathon is concerned, but more successful in that I complete it with a much improved finishing time and raise even more money for a worthy cause).
