you meet & beat an Olympic athlete...no it's April 1st. Nor have I gone completely mad...well certainly not yet...so I will explain.. About 3 weeks ago as part of the build up to the GMR I recieved an e-mail from a company called Powerade who are one the sponsors of the run, inviting me to a training morning in Manchester..where running coaches from the Manchester area would get us ready for the GMR. Giving us last minutes tips and advice for the day and bit of workout as well.. As it free I thought why not. Nothing to lose. So this morning it was down to Plattfields Park in south Manchester to see what happens.. It was one of those occasion where I thought would I be the only one but no, there were approx 60-70 people of different running abilities probably thinking "god what have we let ourselves in for". The idea was to split everybody in 6 groups according to how fast you were thinking of running the course...have a group chat, do some basic warming up exercises, go for a little run around the park and have a final warm down.

The organsiers did tell us that a member of Team GB would be coming but wasn't until we got there when we found who it was... it was Dan Robinson who ran in the Beijing marathon countless races for GB and who is running in the GMR next week...what a nice guy, he took time out to go all the groups answering questions, warming up with a group and he actually ran with the group I was in..so I thought wouldn't be great to "beat" him..the group I was in were known as the 45-50 minute group.  After warming up and chatting for an hour the groups headed out on "the course", it was only going to be a very short one..just over 2 miles but what a 2miles , little old me running along side an established professional runner..and yes I knowDan wasn't running anywhere near his competitive pace, but I made sure I crossed the finishing line ahead of him & at least I can say I have "beaten" a professional runner if only in a training run..

After all the groups had finished the run and a final warm down, the organisers finished off by thanking us for coming,as a reward they gave us a goody bag with a running shirt in and a Powerade drink. They will be watching us next week Manchester with interest..The coaches are running and be "our" pacemakers if we want to use them. They will make themselves available to chat to before the the start of the race.

One bit of gossip Dan told us, Haile Gebrselassie may attempt a WR for 10k..have offered my services as a pacemaker for him...somehow I think not...

Today was certainly something differentweek before a major run.Powerade are looking to do these days before other major events..and talking to people afterwards it seemed a good time was had by all.

Today came as relief to what has been a hard week for me...even before my medical appointments on Wednesday it seems every department at Macclesfieldhospital wants to see me for something.. My appointment for a colonscopsy has come through which going to be on the Wednesday after the GMR, the eye department want to see me the following week, to see how field of vision problem I have is..had hoped they somehow forgotten about me.. I should have gone back last September, no chance...My counselling appointment went OK but the bad news from my GP is that to help my skin problem I've been put a drug that maybe and I think already is  causing "problems" with my stomach.. she has been very reluctant to do it because of that very reason but the stuff I have been on just wasn't working.... a case of being caught between the devil and the deep blue sea. Still got to have my 2nd blood test to see how being off the B12 tablets for past 8 weeks has had any effect. That's got to be done tomorrow...talking of which got a nice little PT session with Sarah in the afternoon..oh yeah I wish...I could see how her mind was thinking on Thursday night after Spin.

As for the rest week will not be doing alot...probably do something on Wednesday after work...and then rest til Sunday. Have put my name down to do some speed watching. This week I've been trained up by the Police to be a commuinty speed watcher in the village..There's nothing worse seeing some impatient motorists totally disregarding the speed limits whilst driving through the village...so as part of the Parish plan I've voluntereed my services to educate the motorists of Macclesfield to respect the speed limits a little more...been warned that I am going to have take a bit of s**t from one or two but I am used to that at work anyway.

 Trust everybody has had a good weekend, what ever you have been up to..

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