Oh Christ

Only 25 days now until the Great North Run half marathon. I'm going to have to pull my socks up if I'm going to reach my target of 1:45 - 1:50. Right now I feel about ten years off it. Ten years in the past to be frank. When I was 25 it would have been a piece of cake. Now I'm not so sure.

The last time I ran it - in 2005, I creaked in at 2:20. The week previously I'd pulled my medial collateral ligament in my left knee. Like the stubborn toss pot I am though, I was buggered if I'd waste all the training I'd done.

So I dosed myself up on 1G Paracetamol and 800MG Ibuprofen and set off. I felt nothing until the last four miles when my knee cap nearly exploded out of my leg. I limped past the finish post half an hour after the target time.

Stoopid I know, because I was off my feet for three days and endured three months of physio just to get up to a half mile jog. A sage lesson - never run when injured.