Jersey didn’t suffer as badly as the rest of the UK and Ireland from this week’s cold snap.  Elsewhere runners took to the treadmills or found new and novel ways of getting their miles in.  Running on snow and ice can be challenging and even fun but it is of course fraught with danger.  Discretion was the better part of valour in midweek as I decided that a marginal training benefit was not worth the risk of injury.

My only run of consequence was an 8-miler yesterday (Sun), a laboured effort in the rain around an extremely soggy Val de la Mare and St Ouen.  There’s been some serious tree felling on the eastern side of the reservoir since I was last there.  Despite three layers of clothing  I was getting pretty cold by the time I got home.

After almost a year I’ve started downloading Steve Runner’s podcast Phedippidations again.  I’m pleased to see that Steve is still going strong after five years of podcasting.  He truly is the go-to man when it comes to running podcasts and he sets standards that are difficult to match.  But his work expands way beyond what you might expect.  He is an uber-intelligent guy who, despite his oft-spoken desire to identify with us ordinary runners, drifts often into areas that are beyond the likes of my poor brain.  He draws extensively (for example) on the works of one Dr George Sheehan and extrapolates the simple sport of running into something that has a higher meaning and purpose.  I for one struggle with this and some of his other metaphysical discussion, but I can’t ever deny the research that goes into his work and the sincerity with which he puts it across.  I’m skipping much of his 2010 episodes but on Sunday I was at least on the same page as Steve as he gave an entertaining talk on the history of the running shoe.  In a previous episode we hear of his most disastrous marathon to date, a 6:30 at Boston earlier this year.

On the local front it was good once again to be helping out at the Spartan’s junior cross-country at a rain-soaked Queen’s Valley yesterday, and at the indoor pentathlon for the Minis this morning (Sun).

Miles on the week – 18.3
Miles ytd – 1262.0