Six inches won't stop this kiddie

Well, my Olympic training programme remains on hold thanks to this pesky weather.

We've had huge 2 mililitre snow drifts here which means, of course, that everything has ground to a halt. No roads to run on - well the roads have been there, but buried underneath an inch and a half of ice. So, too dangerous this week to even step outside the front door. In fact, its been all we can do for Ernie and I to get to the Brick and Trumpet - the Half Share has been struggling to clear the road, to be fair. But today has seen another deluge of the white stuff. It must be deep out there because I heard the Half Share tell Buttocks the Oil Delivery Man that she hadn't seen six inches since 1997.

But if this weather is going to hang around much longer then I'm going to have to devise a special winter training plan - and I've done just that.

No matter the weather, I am grateful for having the opportunity to get outdoors. Well it gets me out of a few jobs apart from anything else. And being outdoors in fresh snow brings so many opportunities to show how you feel about certain people. Like the selfish ha'porth who insists on revving his motor bike every morning at 7 o'clock. So he got a snowball on the back of his helmet; as did the traffic warden, as did next door's cat who insists on peeing on my bike wheels.

But running in the snow is not without its hazards of course. But I say get your self dressed, get prepared and get out and have some fun. We didnt win three world wars with a give-up attitude did we? Lets see a bit of that old Gundog spirit eh?

Here’s a few Ron suggestions if you do opt to get out there:

Always dress properly.
For me, this means:
o proper head gear - for me that's my 1969 Leicester City bobble cap (minus bobble)
o a good quality pac-a-mac
o tights are for strange people and wally runners - I wear woollen leggings
o a proper Millets anorak
o wool socks
o Dunlop wet weather shoes - though if the snow is really deep, I run in wellies. It helps to build up my stamina. You may laugh but when did you last see Paul Ratcliffe in wellies eh? Exactly - and how many races has he won this year? Point proved.
Watch your footing!

There may be a sheet of ice under that fresh snow, so make sure your wellies or pumps are well scrubbed.

In fact, come to think of it, if the elements are against you and you find it just too slippy, why not just do as I do?

Forget the whoel bally idea and just go to the pub instead.

Keep on tapering

Ron

Happy New Year everybody!!

Or, as the French would say "Gut New Jaar".

Well what a Festive season this kiddie has had! Life as an icon isn't easy sometimes you know and that's why I awarded myself a clear two week pass to just relax and get some much-needed carbo loading in to preface the kick start to my London Marathon regime.

Well, folks, ask me how I feel now?

The truth is, entre noo, I think I may have overtrained somewhat and I'm beginning to regret that little bit of Christmas spirit I entered into and exited from with some degree of whoosh. I spent the time with family and like-minded people and I'm afraid the Olympic diet and training programmes have drifted south.

I realised I might have got my timings slightly wrong when I came home on New Year's Day after what I thought was a fairly agreeable evening of Chicken Tikka Masala and a few tubes down the Dog and Bucket with Ernie. Well you'd have thought I'd kidnapped Ted Heath by the reception I got from the Half Share and Cash Drainers who apparently weren't happy that I'd gone awol for a couple of days.

But I did explain that Christmas is a time for families - New Year is a time for mates.

That went down well.

But not as well as New Year's Day. It started after I suggested that a couple of bacon butties would be just the job for me and Ernie. Well before you could say Bobby Davro, I was chewing the rough end of a set of bathroom scales. After some encouragement from the Half Share I did eventually stand on the bally things.

Well, Ronettes, you could have knocked me down with a quilt. I thought the flippin' thing was telling me the time - but horror of horrors it was my weight. And I was kind of a bit the wrong side of where I shouldn't be.

And that is putting it mildly. So that was it! The Half Share whipped off me kex and after thinking it was some kind of foreplay that's where the fun stopped. Before I knew it she'd flung a set of my Festive Lycra and a pair of green flash at me and pushed me out the front door for what she called a pre-training walk. Walk? I haven't even driven that far this Christmas!! Eleven and a half miles she had me walking - over shingle, sand dunes and beach. My calfs felt like they'd been ripped off my legs when I'd finished.

And it didn't stop there either!! There was no way I could run yesterday so as a punishment I wasn't allowed a pie.

I now know that I need to knuckle down. I know because it has been written on a piece of paper and stapled to my head. So this morning I went for my first run in weeks. Two flippin' miles!! That's all I could manage - 2 miles!

More to the point, I was so traumatised by the experience I couldn't take my lycra off for hours - I just sat in front of the fire hugging a cup a soup. And as I sat trying to get my Olympic flame to light I decided that I needed to have a few New Years Resolutions to encourage me to glory in 2010 - just two years now mind you - before my glorious Olympic medal winning occasion.

So here are my commitments for 2010:

1. January is officially a 'No Pie' month. Well at least until the last weekend in the month when I have insisted that no trip to Cork can be considered fulfilled without a pie.

2. I'm having to leave the tubes alone in January - apart from Saturday nights.

3. Learn to play a musical instrument. Might sound ridiculous but when I appear on chat shows I need to be able to play or sing a duet with people like Des O'Connor. So the Half Share has bought me a ukulele.

4. Learn a foreign language. I need to connect more with the Cash Drainers so I'm going to learn to speak text.

5. I must stop lying on the couch watching rubbish TV. So I've bought some exercise and workout DVDs and I'm going to sit and watch them instead.

6. I'm going to stop delaying things. Starting tomorrow,

7. I'm fed up with being in the same old rut - so I'm determined to find a new rut.

8. I've got a job so I'm going to stop working in the office in just my Y Fronts. I'm going to move the computer into the bedroom instead.

9. Get a place on the GB Team - I'm not fashed about competing I just want one of those fancy track suits.

10. Buy some 'Blong' so that I can look like those proper athletes.

I'll be doing my best with these - and in the meantime, the serious running business gets under way this week. I need a good three or four runs before the weekend. Then, on Sunday, its the Swanley 10K - and at the moment I have to say that I'd struggle to make the distance.

Anyway, from all my team here - Ernie and the Half Share, the Droog, Hylie Minogue and the Sod, here's to a great New Year. In the words of Griff Rhys Jones 'Go Bang a Drum'.

Keep on tapering.

Ron