Children are vectors of disease

Just returned from a very sunny, warm and pleasant Vienna, where I was attending the IWA World Water Congress. Far too large a conference for meaningful interaction but some of the sessions were good. I got to go out to my favourite restaurant, Meirerei Im Stadtpark, the cheese and milk bar. It is dedicated to serving products made from milk and if you are a cheese lover like me then it's a slightly smelly heaven. Well recommended.

If you really like cheese and want to find out what your name is in cheese then go to the online cheese comparator. I am Gruyere, St. Agur or King River Gold, depending on whether I enter Brian McIntosh, Brian Stuart McIntosh or BS McIntosh.

I drank far too much good Austrian lager at the conference but did manage to get out for a couple of runs, one 17 miler a week ago on the Saturday before I left, and two whilst I was there (one mid pace, one tempo) along with a gym session. For gym sessions, on the advice of Andy Dubois (WHWR family) I've stopped using weight machines (single leg press etc.) for quad and ham strength training and have started doing clock lunges with dumbells, and single leg squats (tricky balance wise!). Both exercises are great - hopefully they will help strengthen my weak right glute med as well improve my quads.

Andy DuBois demonstrating clock lunge technique without dumbells:



Good demo of single leg squat technique:



Currently I am sniffling with a fair sized quantity of bogies up my nose, having caught a cold from our daughter. She isn't walking yet so we still carry her around. She catches colds from other kids at playgroups and our childminder, Maria, then we hold her and she breathes and sneezes over us. C'est la vie but not so good prep wise for the High Peak 40 race which is coming up this weekend. I haven't trained that much since the Devil O the Highlands so I might struggle with my goal of coming in sub 7, but I'll see. Grit the teeth and bear it I suppose ...