Frustration and relief...

I had to make a decision last weekend to pull out of Tough Guy. It's the first time that I've failed to do a race, however I couldn't risk repeating what happened to me at the Grim in December. I'm stubborn and bull-headed enough to finish a race even when I'm in agony and doing serious damage to myself, so ultimately the safest option was to not go. The deciding factor was a treadmill session on the Friday, where my knee twinged at 8km... There was no prolonged pain, but just a warning shot to remind me that it was still vulnerable. I was really down about it, however the weather this weekend has been verging on biblical, with sub-zero conditions and snow. Harry, a mate who has done it previously, and did it again this year, has reported ice-covered lakes and "extreme pain". I'm not in optimal shape, and I can't believe anything other than attempting to complete that would have set my recovery back 3 months. Maybe next year...

The rehabilitation is still on target, and I'm running 5'ish miles at the moment, with 7 weeks to go until the half. There is still a long way to go, and I'm hoping the weather warms up a tad soon, as it's extremely hard to motivate myself to run outside right now, while treadmill sessions are just sweatathons. The swimming continues to go extremely well, with the average session covering a couple of kilometres. I need to start focusing more on technique and speed now, and have a couple of articles to work from to aid that. Feeling pretty confident about getting some triathlons under my belt this year now... hopefully this month I can source a bike and wetsuit.

Generally January can be considered the month of birthdays. I'm fairly rubbish at doing anything on mine (I went swimming), however Gill was a star, and whipped up a delicious roast lamb dinner for me (her first ever roast as well). Her birthday was a couple of days later (how organised of us to co-ordinate our birthdays), and we went to Ikea to buy stuff (she has a couple of projects, including a cat furniture tower, while I wanted some kitchen storage), and went out on the Saturday (pizza and film..I'm a classy guy). Then, Kate's birthday (Rob's better half) was on the following Wednesday, so we all went to a Chinese for an "all you can eat, and then a dessert". Delicious stuff all round. Next weekend is mine and Gill's first anniversary (that's shot by) and we are off to Colleys to celebrate. God knows why she puts up with me, but she does, and I'm all the luckier for it...

Work is a bit manic at the moment. There is a big project in the offing, and I have a large chunk of work to do for it. To make things a bit more awkward I took some holiday last week (for all the birthdays), and I was on a First Aid Course for most of last week. The end result is that I have 1 week to do an excessive amount of work. Yay? On top of that we have the fallout from the redundancies from the last month, and a general reshape of the department. The full announcement is on Wednesday, however it looks like my next year there is going to be more than a little hectic.

So lots happening, and lots to do, so doing something stupid like staying up half the night to watch the Super Bowl would be a stupid thing...right? Ohh..2nd Quarter has just started...!