February - Lent or gluttony?

Hello avid Jog Blog readers... or just bored souls

Apologies for not updating the blog in a while. I'd love to tell you that it is because of a lack of spare time due to training so hard, but as you'll find out, that would be a lie!

At the end of January, with only days to go, I left you with the "Cliffhanger" of whether I would last the reaming few days of my non-alcohol stint. Well sadly things didn't go according to plan, and I failed to make it :( I lasted till January 28th when I went to my cousin's 18th Birthday party. I had intended in not drinking at this, but when I'd seen how they'd gone to such a great effort to make me feel welcome by buying in some Guinness (I'm the only one in the family who drinks it), I decided the date was a bit academic and wasn't worth appearing ungrateful for the effort they had put in... never mind, there's always next time!

Anyway, onto the training runs in February... well... there weren't any! That's right, for Lent I decided to give up jogging, and descend into a party lifestyle. In the end, it just turned out to be a busy month for me. One weekend was taken up with my birthday (I'm now a quarter of a century old!). This was a weekend well spent in my books... action packed, with all you can eat Chinese, trip to Manchester, a couple of games of bowling, and an expedition to Staly Vegas with both Rangers and Uni mates. Another weekend was taken up round at Justin's new place which was fun. There was also a weekend spent on holiday in Bratislava. This was a fantastic trip. There was only three out of the usual four (Anton, Paul and myself.... Marcus Trescothick was absent due to high government workloads, well somebody's got to make sure that the next generation of kids understand the stats on Football Manager 2006!). Bratislava is a fantastic city, with some great looking areas, as well as some not so great ones, which by Western standards could look quiet intimidating. However, even in the not so great ones, we were made to feel welcome and I saw no trouble all the time we were over there. It just goes to show how true that old saying, "You shouldn't judge a book by its front cover!" can be. Don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating throwing caution to the wind in unfamiliar countries, just that sometimes it's worth taking a step back and asking if there really is any evidence to be worried, and not going off appearances alone.

Anyway, to recap, February's training had been none existent, and so heading into March the thought did cross my mind as to whether I was putting enough effort in to deserve a place in the Great Manchester Run? After all, it didn't seem like it based on this month's performance. Would I be able to snap out of this casualness I had adopted towards my training, or would I be following the path of George Best into career retirement before my time due to a heavy party lifestyle? Only time will tell...

Cheers

Andy