The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together

Usually the day after a race I take a rest day, but this week I wanted to get my long slow run in early so it would be out of my legs for the Sunday race. I thought there was an off chance I might manage a PB at the Dewsbury 10k so I wanted to give myself the best possible opportunity.

I went for a slow run round the fields close to home, but instead of the legs getting looser as I ran they got tighter. I had to walk/hobble the last mile as my left hamstring was giving me some grief. 5.4 miles in 56 minutes.

Gave my Monday gym session over to a massage (which was agony) and have been icing on and off all day Tuesday. I was going to miss club training this evening anyway as the mighty Latics are taking on Hartlepool. At the last minute I got what sounds like a better offer (not difficult, I know). It was one of those phone calls that started “Do you remember entering a competition…”? Of course I didn’t, but apparently I’ve won a pair of FREE adidas footwear and an invitation to a marathon coaching evening. When the e-mail duly arrived I scrutinised it to find the catch, but there didn’t appear to be one. Even the small print was only a statement that I was only entitled to the one free pair. I guess “FREE adidas footwear” could be almost anything and may not be the kosher, top of the range running shoes that I have in mind. Still, I’m from Yorkshire so am a firm believer in “owt for nowt”. I’ll stick my shorts on under a tracky and see if I can blag a free massage.

Of course it means missing the football. This may be something of a relief as our current team has developed this habit of taking the lead, marmalizing the opposition for most of the match and then panicking in the last quarter and conceding soft goals. We’ve managed to let slip one 3 goal lead, three 2 goal leads and six one goal leads so far this season. It will be a first for my eldest though; the first match that he’s gone to and I haven’t. Something of a coming of age, rite of passage type of thing. Not for him. For me. It feels like I’m out on licence from my life sentence of watching the dross served up in the third tier of English football.

All I have to do is keep my wits about me at the adidas store; I have an awful vision of coming away with a pair of flip flops and a time share for a chalet in Cleethorpes.