After 21 days I finally put some recordable running time in my diary yesterday.  Not since I took my first tentative steps in early 2003 have I had so much downtime.  After falling apart in the White Horse Half I’ve not felt inclined to lace up my Frees but I finally broke my duck.  Very gentle and pleasant it was as well.  I trotted the half-mile or so to the track and spent an hour just messing around; mainly slow jogging but throwing in 100 metre strides whenever I found myself at the beginning of the home straight.  With the athletes and coaches away in Portsmouth for the county championships I had the place virtually to myself on a sunny though breezy morning.  It’s maybe quite sad but there are fewer places I’d rather be on a sunny day than an athletics track – relaxing for both body and soul.  I used the surrounding grass banking to break up the run, revelling in the new-mown smell before reluctantly trotting home again some time later.  Truly the best things in life are free.

And this morning I was down there early again, thoroughly looking forward to working with the Minis again.  There are as many coaches as there are athletes in the 12-14 age group right now so Sunday mornings are the best chance I get to get involved with the young athletes who are aged about 8-11.  A better turnout of about 25 this morning.  Long-time Minis coach Dave Lawson showed up and we were therefore able to split the youngsters; I took charge of the younger group.  So a warm-up of Stuck in the Mud followed by-

• Speed ladder
• Sprints over 30-50 metres, in groups
• Start practice, standing and crouch
• Reaction work
• Triple jump sequence, on the grass

We finished off with a 600m race for those so inclined.  I don’t force any child to do this – I’ve seen too many totally put off at an early age by being made to run middle distance.

A great session, and happily I had three slightly older lads wanting to do throws afterwards.  So we got the javelins out – also the hammer, which is an event too neglected.  As well as the three lads one of the Minis, young Lillie, has demonstrated she has an aptitude for throwing and she has taken nicely to javelin.  This morning I gave her a first taste of discus remembering how we started Shadine Duquemin at just about the same age.  It’s high time a few others made their mark in the throws and they have every opportunity and plenty of examples to follow of those that have gone before in the last few years.

A strange time.  Everything has ground to a halt.  A couple of weeks back I had so many plates spinning I could barely keep up.  Now I’m twiddling my thumbs.

Notably my running has stalled completely.  They’re still expecting me in Edinburgh in three weeks time but the crowds will be disappointed.  I’ve got to make a decision whether or not to travel anyway – I’ve a hotel room booked for three nights.  But running-wise I’ve barely set foot outside the apartment since I trailed forlornly around the Oxfordshire countryside three weeks ago.  This is not good – my running shoes are looking at me accusingly from under the coffee table.  In addition my summer running class I was due to hold via Highlands College was under subscribed.

There’s some salvation as I kick off a work-based Couch to 5k course on Tuesday, my fourth.  At least that will get me out again.  Hopefully the enjoyment will return.  In the meantime I’m trying to eat a greater percentage of protein & veg than I’ve been accustomed to – chicken breast + stir-fry coming up in a sec for example.  Who knows, I might finally hit on a reason for the huge peaks and troughs in my running.

But other things have suddenly stopped as well.  All three writing projects, for example.  My first (enthusiastic and naive) vanity novel is finished and Chris Lake is setting it out for printing/publishing.  With the ludicrous amounts of public holidays recently my second book, a better, well-researched effort, got finished and the first draft is being read through by a work colleague.  And my contribution to Chris’s Jersey Athletics History is complete bar a final proofread.  That should be published quite shortly now, though the initial deadline of February slipped a bit!

I got a rotten mark in a distance learning assignment and may pull out of that particular effort.  Birmingham City are unable to chip out the final point that will save them from relegation.  Nothing is moving forward right now.

Coaching-wise I’m committed to the Minis on a Sunday but very little else.  (I hope they’ve done OK in Guernsey today.)  There are so few juniors involved in athletics right now that I’m really surplus to requirements.  I still grab any likely lads and lasses for throws coaching but it’s nothing like in the past.  The other evening a couple of young ladies commented that there was a big group that night – it was about a dozen.  They laughed in disbelief when I told them that, not so long ago, I sometimes had 40-50 junior girls alone in my group at the height of the track season.  This is not good.

So I’m open to suggestions as to projects to keep me out of trouble.

Yesterday I pulled on my Frees for the first time since last Sunday’s meltdown.  I trotted gently over to the FB Fields and did a bit of easy running around the grass.  Onto the track and, randomly, I decided to do a few sprints.  So back to about the 130m mark and I knocked off five of them at pretty much my top pace.  And that was it for the week.

I’ve tried training in all sorts of different ways.  Long, slow miles.  Long intervals.  Short intervals.  Endurance, speed-endurance, speed-strength.  Generic plans, do-it-yourself plans, Bakken 100-day plan using both Kenyan and Italian elements.  I’ve run easy and run hard.  I’ve tried various approaches to diet and energy management.  And I’ve come to a conclusion.  I’m just an ageing, crap runner who is not going to get any better.  And in particular I’m not cut out for marathon running.  I’ve started four, DNF’d badly in the first two before at least finishing the next two.  That’ll do me.  Back in the early days of 2003 when I took up running, 8-10 weeks in I was still struggling to run for 20 minutes straight.  I consider what I’ve done since then to be a fair old achievement.  In the process I’ve gotten pretty fit and healthy as well as keeping the waistline in some sort of check, and I’m happy with that.  I’m not going to pack in running but it’ll be confined to going out when I feel like going out and running long, short, easy or hard as the mood takes me.  I guess I’ll still run in some local races but I’m not going to kill myself going after PBs.  I’ll continue to coach beginner runners as the opportunity arises and try to encourage them to seek out the great benefits, both physical and mental, that running for fitness can bring. That’s the best thing I can do in the future.

Stepping back a bit will also give me more time to devote to coaching the youngsters.  A bit of shot on Thursday and javelin this morning as well as leading the Minis outdoor session.  It’s one of the best things I ever did, getting into track & field coaching – it was pretty much against my better instincts at first but I wanted to help out at a time of coach shortages.  Now I love every minute of helping the youngsters improve and having a bit of fun in the process.  

I’ve also decided not to be a ‘squeaky wheel’.  There is so much NOT HAPPENING at Spartans right now.  I avoided the AGM on Thursday simply to retain my equanimity.  If I’m not prepared to dive back into committee work (which I’m not) then I’m not going to snipe or criticise from the sidelines.  Let others do that, I’ve had my chance.  I’ll just get on and do what I enjoy, as long as I’m allowed.  Life’s short but it ought to be long enough.

The Jersey Athletics History project is weeks away from completion.  The book is pretty much written and Chris Lake is presently setting it out ready for printing and publishing.  Chris has written most of it, I’ve written two chapters and Colin Campbell one, with sizeable contributions from Pete Drinkwater and Sue Le Ruez.  I’ll be doing the final proof read.  It’s been a big project (bigger than Chris imagined when he started it) but we hope that it will be a ‘good read’ and a far different animal from Ray Hollis’s scholarly Guernsey history which was some seven years in the making.  My only concern is that, inevitably, some important names won’t get a mention.  It’s only once you start something like this than you realise how many good people have been involved down the years.

In other publishing news Chris is also laying out my own first bestselling novel which, you’ll not be surprised to hear, has more than a echo of athletics about it.