A Week To Go Before The First Race...

...and i'm hungover. Booze is now off the menu until after the race, but getting as drunk as I did last night was not a wise idea, still, I had fun!

The nerves are slowly starting to come into it a bit, well aware that the course I am running has some serious hills and inclines, and it's a struggle to train for that in York.

As it's the week before now, I will be cutting my mileage down to somewhere in the region of 10 miles, this week is my 'taper', and should hopefully have me fully prepared for the race. I hope!

This week I will be a lot stricter on what I am eating too, no office based biscuit binges, no booze, no fast food.  Going to extend my weekly shop budget this week so I can afford key ingredients and make great food that's easily accessible. There will be lots of carbs, like pasta, and sweet potato, superfood salads for work, some cherries and berries in my porridge on a morning, and so on!

I've just been editing a photo of a news article, written by the Barnsley Chronicle, on the big challenge I am taking part in. Then posted it on facebook and got a few likes, and the thoughts of my Dad, coupled with the support made me quite reflective. And it made me think more about my dad, and I just wanted to share a couple of memories with you, of which (sadly) I have very little. A lot of the things I tell you over the course of this blog have in fact been told to me by my mum, or another family member.

I'm going to for for one of my favourite memories of him though. Obviously, you look up to your dad as a child, and you want to be like him and do everything he does, including shave... One night I was having a bath, back in the days when I had toy boats to accompany me too, when I spotted my Dads razor left on the side. Now, this was a very very sharp razor, far sharper than most around today. And I took it on myself to start shaving with this razor, using the bubbles from my Matey bubble bath to give myself a beard to shave. The inevitable happened and I cut my cheek really badly. Sheepishly I climbed out the bath, towel wrapped round me, and went downstairs to see my dad on the computer, holding the towel against my cheek the whole time. My Dad then asked me if I wanted drying off, at which point I revealed the cut on my face. That's about the point I remember up to, but apparently not long after my mum said 'I've told you before you need to put that razor out of his reach'.

I cut myself with that razor at least twice, because I could never stop wanting to imitate my Dad.

Thanks for reading,

I appreciate it