Shopping - Pet Shop Boys

Lyrics:- 'Ah ah ah, ah ah ah, ah ah ah, ah ah' - Tennant & Lowe 

Song Choice:- Not a favourite track of mine  from the 1987 album 'Actually', but one that gets firmly wedged in your mind if you are not careful. S-H-O-PP-I-N-G...

But most apt for today's blog as on a wet Sunday afternoon folk in Cardiff, seem to head into town for 'Recreation Shopping'. It's a pastime for many, as there is every major store imaginable including a favourite of mine, John Lewis.

Not because it's 'Never knowingly undersold' or that our one in Cardiff, is one of it's flagship stores that makes a good cuppa and butters a great scone. Nope, I love it for it's Car Park! And not because it's right under the store and therefore easy access to the whole of Cardiff's St. David's Shopping Centres. No...

It's because it has the longest, cleanest, flattest undercover concrete surface for Zimmer-Frame training for miles around. It's got everything I need right now. Widely marked pedestrian areas, safety painted with a non-slip paint and it has super-wide, 'Disabled Parking Bays'. Well, it's what you'd expect at John Lewis.

It's a perfect solution...So there's no actual S-H-O-PP-I-N-G required and training is dead cheap at £2 for up to two hours. Far longer than I can Zimmer right now!

More tomorrow.

Rory Coleman - 976 Marathons - 241 Ultras

13 Marathon des Sables - 9 Guinness World Records - 8208 Days' Alcohol Free.

No More Tears - Ozzy Osbourne

Lyrics:- A levee of tears to learn she'll never be coming back, the man in the dark will bring another attack - Roberts & Jabari

Song Choice:- The first track from Ozzy's first album recorded 'dry' seems quite apt as an anthem for my week ahead as do the lyrics 'No more tears' as there's a limit to just how fucking sorry you can feel for yourself before a good personal kicking up the arse gets you back into the sinus rhythm of life and back on the road to recovery.

You see, I've asked everyone, many times just how long will it take, and no one really seems to want to put their c's-on-the-b's and give me a working timespan - so I've worked one out for myself. 

The theory is that ones longest nerve is about 1000mm long and as they repair at 2.5mm a week - that's 40 weeks and if my 'C' in 'O' Level maths from 1978 is roughly right, that means roughly Christmas. That's this year I'll add, so that's good news as it could take longer but that's the reality check of my situation right now and one that's been very hard to take on the chin if I'm being honest.

And I may as well be honest as this blog is designed to be, to let you, the reader into my mindset and help you understand why, and what it is that drives me on to do what I do.

My question to you tonight is if you were in my shoes, what do you do? 

I'd really like to know, as you never know just what's around the corner and look what popped around mine. Only I can't remember when that was as my brain has started to go a bit blank.

Blank enough for no more tears...

Rory Coleman
976 Marathons - 241 ULTRA-marathons - 9 Guinness World Records - 13 Marathon des Sables - 8202 Days' Dry 

Duel - Propaganda

Lyric:-' The first cut won't hurt at all, The second only makes you wonder. The third will have you on your knees, you start bleeding I start screaming - Brücken, Dörper & Martens.

Song Choice:- This one cropped up during my 825 metre run this morning. Listen here and be reminded just how good the group was and just how weird the video was too. 

Recorded on the same record label as Frankie which shows in parts it's a great track. Ask my older kids, about this album as I played this to death in my car when the first came out in 1985 on all of our car journeys.

Anyway, back to my 825 meters that I clocked in 2:45, good enough for a 2:05 marathon pb  and a national record, move over Mo Farah - now that would be some sort of miracle happening from the Morello Clinic in Newport in just two sessions.

So coming clean, sadly my 2.45 was 2 hours 45 minutes for the 825 metres which would be a just a snitch under 6 days excluding sleep, feeding and natural breaks BUT it didn't matter as the session was more like a 'It's a Knockout' game of me being suspended like a baby that can't quite walk in a bouncer from the ceiling running, walking, swearing and spitting my way from a box of 55 tennis balls to a tube at the other end where I could post them. How cruel eh? Just 110 trips of the room...

Well, it was for or the first 20 or so trips as I wanted to make an impression on my trainer Jakko about how fast, tough and hard I am when it comes to my running. But after that it was to get a lot harder.

So I calmed down and just took some MTFU pills and steadily worked away at the last 35 balls. It worked too!

Don't get me wrong, it's the hardest 825 metres I've ever covered and the 'Karate Kid, Wax on, Wax off' came to mind many times during the crazy up and downs carrying a tennis ball from one end of a room to another. My legs did get better during the exercise as the muscles started to remember wtf it is they are meant to do and were nicely shredded at the end of the exercise for once

It felt amazing and I've got more to do today? Perhaps...

I have a feeling I'm putting all the tennis balls back in the first box, but who knows 'Wax-on, Wax-off' eh.

More tomorrow.

Rory Coleman 976 marathons - 241 Ultras - 1 passion to walk again.