Caring family man

Google throws up the oddest results sometimes. I think it may have developed a sense of fairly sick humour. I wanted some kind of cheesey, super white teeth smiling family man photo with which to illustrate this post, but instead the first image result for 'caring family man' was this ...



Not really what I had in mind. Anyhoo ...

In my efforts to combine running with being a caring family man and generally good dad I have been trying to figure out how I can increase my mileage and at the same time drop my weekend long run. No idea why I didn't think of it before but I have decided to run to my running club (a distance of 6 miles), do the run (5-8 miles) then run back (another 6 miles). I'll do this every Wednesday with the 4th one off for recovery purposes giving me a mid-week run of 17-20 miles. That way I have Saturdays free to be a dad and my wife is much happier with the whole ultra running daftness. Super.

I did my first such run this week with a nice 17 mile snow and ice filled escapade in my new Kahtoolas. Marvellous.

Running on snow and eyeing up the year ahead

I started up my training for the 2010 season just before Christmas and have been building up the miles and time on feet. I found that running on snow whilst up in Scotland meant I had to cut back my mileage aspirations and change them to time on feet aspirations. Cumbernauld, where I was staying, was, like most of Scotland, snow bound so 9.5 mile fast trail runs turned into 1hr 30 mins events as I worked hard through knee deep snow in places on the moorland around the local country park. I used to live in arctic Sweden and love the snow. Soft and fluffy or hard and icy. It's all good. I can see from Ian B's and John K's blogs that they don't share my love here though. I can't understand it. Snow is great to run on, much better than pavements. :-)

I had a great 14.5 mile run around the Trossachs with Stan B and John Malcolm just before Christmas. Nice powdery snow and a hilly circular trail with good company and crisp blue skies. What more could you ask for? But my munro bagging, microspike wearing ambitions came to nothing when a brief but sudden kidney / UT infection hit me on the 27th, putting me out of running action for a few days. C'est la vie. All I can do is read about Pete Duggan's exploits in microspikes and gaze lovingly at how to put them on now that I am back in snow-less MK.

What's coming up first racing wise then this year? The 45 mile Wendover to London Country to Capital race is in less than 2 weeks. Drew Sheffield and John Millen should be running it so it'll be a good chance to catch up with them as we pound out the miles. Before that there's a sneaky wee hilly multi-terrain 5 miler in the Wendover Woods. Stoating down a clay mud forest trail then back up another one as fast as possible. Superb fun. 2010 here I come!

Looking forward to hills and snowy conditions

I got into running mainly through having a long history of various kinds of mountain activity from hiking to a little climbing here and there. So I am always keen to take advantage of our little family's annual trip to Scotland for Christmas.

I've two runs planned and I'm hoping a few folk will be able to join me:

22nd December - 18ish mile hilly trail run from Loch Venacher to Aberfoyle over Menteith Hills and back via National Cycle Route 7. Pint afterwards in the Lade Inn.

28th or 29th December - Ben Lawers group (Meall Greigh, Meall Garbh, An Stuc, Ben Lawers, Beinn Ghlas starting from Machuim Farm) - 19km with 1750m ascent. I've been pointed at either YakTrax or Kahoola running crampon devices and am planning to bring an ice axe up with me along with a pair of one or the other. Bring on the ice and snow! Tanking up a mountain ridge with ice axe and crampons will be great fun.

Other than that I'm feeling pretty good. Managed not to make a fool of myself at the running club Christmas do, through only consuming 5 pints of fizzy lager pop stuff. Then even went for an 18 mile run the next day and felt fine, no muscle soreness afterwards either. Not sure I'll be that limited this Friday though with the works night out. The lads at work can drink as much as I used to be able to do, and which I still think I can but plainly can't (as my wife seems to take great delight in informing me). Saturday might not see so sprightly a Brian.

Good old British understatement

I was glad to be out running this weekend. Yesterday I thought about joining together a 6 mile route out and back along the Grand Union Canal (GUC) towards Leighton Buzzard from my house with part of a nice trail run route in Stockbridge Country Park. Not knowing exactly how long it would be it turned to be a nice 12.3 miles with around 600' of ascent and descent plus a lot of flat running along the towpath. I kept a steady 8:30 mins / mile pace and didn't push it throughout the run. I just let my legs work and my mind ease out of the strains of last week. It worked a treat.

I then went out for a just shy of 8 mile run today from my house, along the GUC to Caldecotte Lake then around the Lake and back to my house via Fenny Stratford High Street. As I ran towards the underpass which goes under the A5 between the GUC and Caldecotte I passed an old fella with his dog. 'A bit muddy along there, a bit flooded' he said in a reasonably understated way. I responded in a jolly manner 'that's half the fun' and ran on until I got to the underpass, or part of the River Ouzel as it had now become. A bit muddy? Try a path with water up to your waist and a soft, thick covering of sediment for about 80'. Anyway I hummed and hawed for a minute about the chilly water and my no longer visible feet before plunging forward, enjoying the almost mountain marathon feel of what is a fairly pedestrian running route under normal conditions. :-)

Out of the woods and on the mend

Great news. The 48 hr culture test results came back and no bacterial meningitis, or indeed bacteria of any form. Hooray! She has been released for hospital alhough still has a canula so that the remainder of her course of antibiotics can be given intravenously as an out patient today and tomorrow. She isn't quite 100% yet, but not far off. It looks to have been an extremely bad viral infection.

We are so relieved. And knackered. :-)

Thank you to everyone who has posted or texted their support. Reading your messages really helped keep my spirits up. Thank you.

Update on the little lady

Today brought good news and left some significant uncertainties. Little lady E is behaviourally back to herself after a reasonable night of sleep hooked up to a saline drip. Her intravenous fluids were removed this morning and she has eaten pretty well. Most importantly she is playing and doing what most 2 year olds do a lot - saying 'no' and 'mine' a lot (ah the joys). :-)

Her temperature is back from the initial peak of 39.1 to a nice 37.5 and appeared stablilised but started to climb back to 38.1 in the early evening so her body is clearly fighting something. Her white blood cell counts are huge, also indicating an infection and the non-blanching red spots also indicate infection. We won't know definitively whether she has bacterial meningitis or not until tomorrow early evening when the 48 hr culture test results will come back. In the meantime she is being treated as is if it is meningitis.

My mum, the marvellous lady that she is, has arrived from Scotland and is helping out heaps. Kirstin has another night in hospital (what a mum she is) and we (my mum and I) will relieve her at 6 or 7am. Keep your fingers crossed.

A disease you don't want your child to get

Winter time and yet more ups and downs on the emotional rollercoaster that is being a parent. There are some diseases you know are very bad, and which you really don't want your child to catch. Bacterial meningitis is one of them, with the potential to kill within 4 hours.

Little Eilidh was admitted to A&E today. Bad vomiting, fever and shivering. Diagnosed initially as viral infection with resulting bad dehydration. Non-blanching (i.e. red even when pressed) spots became apparent however so she is being treated as potential bacterial meningitis with intravenous antibiotics and saline drip. Are we worried? Yes. Will we sleep much tonight? Probably not.

She has responded very well to the saline but we are not out of the woods yet. Fingers crossed for the little lady throughout the night.