6 years ago today I was on a plane flying from Vienna to New York, when we were told that there had been some kind of attack on the financial district and US airspace had been closed. So we returned to Vienna, refueling in Manchester, England on the way. I then spent the next 3 + days learning about what happened. The experience made me think a lot about this world we live in.

Well I jut got back a few hours ago from Canada. The 24 hour race in Ottawa was great. There were about 5 runners in the race who had also been in Drummondville in July, so it was nice to see some runners I knew. Running on a track is completely different, we did change direction every 6 hours so we didn't go crazy, it also helps your muscles. I didn't have any major problems and managed to go pretty much the whole night. I took one 15 minute and two 20 minute sleep breaks. My unofficial total was 81 miles or 131 km, the official results have been delayed. So I improved on the Quebec race, I have to say I feel a lot better the day after than I did in July. So it looks like I may be getting stronger. Hopefully I can post my official result soon. That's it for now.

I'm about 5 hours away from my flight to Ottawa, I actually fly to Washington DC first and then to Ottawa, I have some meeting me at the airport so all I have to do is get there. I went for an easy jog this morning just to loosen things up, so there you go.

Today was my last work day this week. Tomorrow I leave for Canada to run in a 24 hour race. This will be my second 24 hour race in 6 weeks. I hadn't run one for about 20 years and now I am running 2 in less than 2 months. the last one was on a hilly road course and this one is on tartan track, so they are both completely different. We will see what different there is in the results.

On my walk home from work this afternoon as I passed my local park, I could see that the leaves on some of the trees are beginning to change. So I guess Autumn is just around the corner. I am getting excited about my trip to Canada this weekend and I can feel it in my running, only a few days away.

A bit of a strange day today. It was one of those days when you don't really want to work. Here in New York lots of people keep parrots as pets and occasionally they escape, sometimes you will see a flock of sparrows with a budgie in there. Today as I was walking home I heard a strange bird call, when I looked up there were 2 African Grey parrots flying overhead. Lots of these birds seem to survive New York's harsh winters.

It's Labor Day here in the US, so I labored. Well I had to go to work for a couple of hours, the cat needed feeding and there was a Raccoon in the trap. Our Fedex guys have been taking the Raccoons to a local park for us, but this one will have to wait 'til tomorrow. This afternoon I re potted some of my Clivia plants ( I have about 11 of them ) and hopefully I will get some nice blooms, like the one in the photo, this coming spring.

A cool start to the day 59 F. Both Utpal and myself had some congestion, there is a little flu going around. I also seem to get this when I have a race coming up, maybe it's the body's way of making me slow down. Anyway we ran about 4 miles, when we stopped I had a ginger tea he had a froze fruit. Then when I got home I updated my firmware on my router so hopefully it will work better now when I start it up again.

I ran in my first 2 mile race in about a month, also 1 week after the marathon, so I had no expectation. The first mile felt very comfortable and I thought I must be running slow though the time was 7:26, I tried to pick up the pace but still stay comfortable since I didn't want to hurt anything. It turns out that I ran my best 2 mile time of this year 14:43, with a second mile of 7:17. So you never know what is going to happen when you get out there. I guess that just running easy and allowing myself to recover from the marathon worked.

I ran in my first 2 mile race in about a month, also 1 week after the marathon, so I had no expectation. The first mile felt very comfortable and I thought I must be running slow though the time was 7:26, I tried to pick up the pace but still stay comfortable since I didn't want to hurt anything. It turns out that I ran my best 2 mile time of this year 14:43, with a second mile of 7:17. So you never know what is going to happen when you get out there. I guess that just running easy and allowing myself to recover from the marathon worked.

Just wanted to show the Giant pencil from the pointy end.Many people from the neighbourhood have been stopping by to take their photo with it. It will probably become a tourist attraction somewhere.

Tonight I got to go to a free concert given by Boris Grebenshikov, a Russian rock star from the Soviet era. He was performing solo, though he is famous for being part of a band called Aquarium. When he performs he sings in the style of a singing poet, his songs are very sweet and lyrical. The concert was in the open air and it was a very beautiful night.

I woke up in the middle of the night needing to go to the bathroom, I can usually wait till my regular wake up time, but this time I couldn't. When I got up I noticed that my electronic mouse trap had a visitor so I took care of that. When I went back to bed I fell asleep easily, but then I overslept. This sort of thing happens to me 2 or 3 times a year. I find that I am really awake for the rest of the day afterwards. Both Celtic and Arsenal made it into the group stages of the Champions league, so 6 British teams made it.

It was my first day back at work after the marathon and I felt OK in the morning, but as the day progressed I began to feel tired. On my walk home I once again passed the giant pencil, which just looks amazing. There were some Champions League Qualifying games today, Liverpool beat Toulouse 4-0 ( agg 5-0 ) to go through to the group stages,Rangers drew 0-0 ( 1-0 agg ) with Red Star Belgrade to also advance.

Local legend Ashrita Furman is once again making an attempt at a world record. This photo shows the 76 foot pencil he and his crew built to celebrate his meditation teachers 76th birthday. I took the photo as I ran by on my morning run, my legs are feeling much better today and I think my recovery from the marathon is going well.

Went out for a couple of miles this morning, my quads are still sore but they loosened up a little after a few minutes of running. managed to make some arrangements for a place to stay when I go to Ottawa for the 24 hour race. Oh! I forgot to mention that my team Wolverhampton Wanderers won yesterday and moved into second place in the Championship, at least for now.

I woke up at my usual time, but after about 1 1/2 hours decided to go back to bed, which I did for 2 more hours. When I went for breakfast I noticed that my Quadriceps were a little sore but that will go away. Other than that I feel pretty good, it's just a case of allowing myself to recover now. After I finished my calf muscles kept cramping but that seems to be OK now and I don't have any problems with my feet.

I had to get up at 3:45 am to get one of the buses to the marathon. The start was quite humid but cool, it warmed up as the day went on. I ran most of the time with my friend Utpal we were both trying to get under 5 hours. We were both struggling a bit late in the race, but my endurance sort of kicked in on the last 2 laps. I ended up running 4:51:43 which is 22 minutes faster than last year. I am quite happy with that.

Hey I have a marathon to run tomorrow! I left work 45 minutes early today so that I could buy a few supplies. I also wanted to take a nap in the afternoon, since the buses to the marathon leave at 4:30 in the morning. I guess I am as ready as I will ever be. This is really my last long run before the 24 hour race in 2 weeks, so if I look at it like that there is no pressure, not that I really think that way though. Last year I had an injury and just wanted to finish so I was happy with 5:13, I will be happy if I am 1 minute faster, it will be a good endurance test.

I don't know why but for the first time in weeks I actually felt heavy when I was running today. Of course when I got home and weighed myself I wasn't. The fact that I had eaten a sandwich about 30 minutes before may have something to do with it though. Anyway it's just 2 days to the marathon and things seem OK.

Yesterday after my run and for no apparent reason I started getting pain in my right knee and thigh and some soreness in my hip.When I woke up this morning it still hurt quite badly. I massaged a couple of points and it seemed a little better and a few hours later at work it was all gone. I don't know what prompted it but I am glad it went away. The weather for august continues to be really strange, with rain and 58 degree temperatures.

This is something you don't see everyday in Queens New York. I saw this goat being pulled by a guy and escorted by a cop. After I took the photo I heard a woman say the her friend, why did they let that man walk a cow down the street.I guess she doesn't get to the country very much.

Finally Wolves have won a league game, beating Sheffield Wednesday 3-1. The Sunday shock though is that Man City beat Man Utd 1-0. Man U have not won a Premiership game yet having drawn their first 2 games. it's early but not a good start. It was a beautiful morning to run and I did with a visiting friend from Scotland. We both plan to run the marathon on Friday so got in a comfortable 1 hour run.

Overnight the weather turned quite cold, when I ran this morning it was about 61 F and there was a nice breeze. I ran early because today was my day to be the guard at our local tennis ground. It was quite busy today but the day was so beautiful that the day seemed to go by quickly.It's hard to believe that the premiership season is in it's second week, likewise with the Championship. My team Wolves have started off the season by losing another game inside the last few minutes. They did however win a league cup game during the week.

This was part of the new Raccoon family we had at work, you can see mom and the head and tail of 2 of the kids. I talked with my sister yesterday and didn't feel I had to post. I have 1 more week to the marathon, in fact I should be finished by this time next week.

The last 24 hours has been a little strange. One of my colleagues at work hyper extended his thumb, another and myself had a mild case of food poisoning, which made me really spacey. We were supposed to get a shipment of Alum' frames from China delivered, but they were delayed. I don't know why but I seem to be hungry all the time, even with just having had food poisoning.

An old friend of mine ( I've known him since he was about 6 ) just opened a coffee shop here in Queens, in fact it about 3 minutes walk from my house. It actually like a gourmet coffee house, that also serves great organic herbal teas and hot chocolate. It's called; The Panorama of my Silence Heart. It's the only one like it in this area of Queens, so I think it will do pretty good business.

I don't think I mentioned this, but I managed to bypass my router and hook up my digital phone system. I have finally dumped my ground based phone company, whose service has not been too good for the last year. I have a temporary phone number while I wait for my old company to switch my number to my new system.This means that my phone is pretty qiet because no one has the other number. Which means no telemarketing.

I ran on my own this morning. I awoke with some lower back pain and my first few running steps were a little uncomfortable, but everything soon loosened up. I think I ran a little faster than I usually do when I run with someone. I ran for just over an hour, finishing with a few laps around our local track, which is the same as the one I will run 24 hours on in 4 weeks time. My friend Tyagananda has a birthday today, he was born the same year but one day later than my sister.

First things first, it is my sisters birthday today so I want to wish her a happy Birthday, Her name is Georgina. The photo is with my friend Abichal who this morning completed 3100 miles in a race in New York City, an incredible feat setting new Welsh and UK records for the distance.

They were predicting another day like this today. Instead we got a nice steady rain for about 7 or 8 hours and it was quite cold. I am trying to switch over to digital phone and the equipment came for me to set it up, but now I seem to have a problem with my router. So if the phone
company drops my service before I get the other one set up I'll be without a land line until I do. Not a biggie.

There was a Tornado in Brooklyn yesterday, the first one in over 100 years. So you see what crazy weather we are having. It was still really humid in the basement today. There is more rain coming tonight and tomorrow so I hope I don't have a surprise when I get to work. I only work a few hours on Fridays.

This is what it looked like in front of my work place this morning. A lot of that water came into the basement, at the time I was on my own and there wasn't much I could do. We spent all day pumping and shop vaccing and finally cleaned it all up.But it is hot humid work and really takes it out of you.

First of all this is my 700 th post on this blog, which is something. Everything seems to be going quite well for me at the moment. My back problem appears to be gone, I am running again and am quite happy about the fact that I will be going to Ottawa at the beginning of next month to run another 24 hour race, this time on a 400 meter track. So I am hoping to improve on the Quebec race. we will have to see.

My back problem seems to be almost gone and I am running pretty normally, be it with tired legs from the 24 hour race. I don't know if I mentioned it but my weight is back to where it was after my raw food diet. I gained a few pounds after I went back to cooked food but have since lost it , I think due to my training. In fact with the warmer weather I occasionally lose 1 or 2 more. I am excited about my running and I am thinking of races that I can run, I had this kind of excitement 20 years ago and I am about the same weight now. Next race is a marathon on the 24th of this month.

This was my wonderful bed in the dorm in Drummondville, it was in a classroom at the University of Quebec.The room was very quiet and air conditioned. I slept very well. For the last couple of days I have been having some pain in my back. Did some special stretches yesterday and ran 2 miles in the afternoon. This morning I went out with Utpal and ran 10 km, there is still some soreness but I think it is better.

This is the Great Britain team at the World Championships in Drummondville.You can get some kind of idea what the town looked like. After the tiredness had worn off I stated to get some sciatic pain a few days ago, I have been doing some exercises and it seems to be getting better. I have a marathon in 3 weeks, so maybe my body is telling me to rest this week.

This was the lady in charge of preparing all the food at the team dorms. As you can see she was always ready with a smile. The food was good and plenty of it.

This is the Italian womens team at the world Championships. You can see that they all have a dark ankle bracelet, this is the electronic scoring chip that we all wore. This was how the race was scored, totals for each runner were posted every hour. Once you knew where to look it was quite easy to see how you were doing.

This is Stipe Leko, he is a runner from Croatia, the only Croatian runner at the 24 hour World Championships. He didn't speak English so I had to use what Croatian I knew to communicate with him, it turned out he is from Rijeka where I have cousins and is 1 year younger than me. he did 151 km, not his best but as you can see he was happy.

This is Sandy Barwick an old friend from New Zealand, she used to run ultra's infact she holds the womens record for 1000 miles still. She is now the manager for the New Zealand team. The guy on the right is a yorkshireman originally, he gave me a lot of encouragement during the early stages of the 24 hour race.

Got back from Canada around 12:30 am, got about 6 hours of sleep . I had such a great time at the 24 Hour World Championships and will probably spend the rest of this week telling you about it. When we got there, the place was full of athletes from all over world. I met a few old friends and discovered some new ones. I ran 117.9 km ( 73 miles ) which is not great but I am happy with it. The photo is of a sign that was just off the highway exit for Drummondville, of course they speak French in that part of Canada.

I just got a call from my friend Ray K who is driving up from South Carolina. We will hook up tomorrow morning and be on the road to Canada by early afternoon. I am pretty excited about the trip and of course the race to come this weekend. I may get a chance to write something tomorrow before we leave, otherwise it probably will be Monday before I post anything else. That will be to tell you what happened. Wish me luck.

Did I mention that it seems as though we have another raccoon at work, well at least the evidence would seem to support this, though no actual sighting has been made.The cat however does not appear to be very happy that someone is eating her dry food and washing in her water dish. We will have to set the trap again but at the moment it is broken and in need of some repair.

This morning I awoke to a blinking green light telling me that Victor ( the electronic mousetrap ) had received a new visitor. I expected it would be the on that I had been seeing for the last couple of days. I was surprised to see it was a young mouse, maybe the offspring of the 2 original mice. So it looks like there are more to come. It was a cold and rainy day, I took a light and easy run in between breaks in the rain.

Well I did my 2 runs today, although I felt some tightness in my right calf I was quite happy. The tightness probably come from the race yesterday. I have been running the same 10k loop for the last few weeks and today I think was the strongest run of all. Now I have to just run some easy training runs during the week and hope I'm in good shape the 24 hour race.

Ran my 2 mile race this morning. The conditions were great, 65 F sunny with a cool breeze. My time was 15:02 which I was happy with. I felt as though I was in control of my running and everything was pretty smooth. This is my last weekend of heavy training, then I run easy for a few days before going to Quebec. My weight is still good so we'll see how things go.

Just when it seemed to be over, I have another mouse. Well at least a visitor, a mouse came into my room and then left while I was sitting relaxing this afternoon.If it decides to stay "Victor" is waiting for it.I have just bought a small video camera I don't know how good it is, it was quite cheap $ 57.50, it shoots onto flash cards I will try it out and plan to take it with me to Canada next week.

I don't know if the events of yesterday had something to do with it, but today after work I was really tired, so I took a nap instead of going for a run. I am sure I will feel much better for it at the end of the week. I am maintaining the gain of 4 lbs after the raw food diet, it is now 3 weeks since I changed. I will be leaving for Canada this time next week.

1 1/2 hours after arriving at work we had a powerful thunderstorm that dumped a lot of rain in a short period of time. This overloaded the storm drains in the street outside. The water decided to come into the basement, which created a flash flood. There was water everywhere and it took half of the day to clean it up, fortunately the damage was minimal but not a lot of work could get done.It is rare for this to happen, but when it does it is a bit of a disaster.

I may have mentioned before that I have a mouse in my room. I have a new kind of mouse trap that gives the mouse a small electric shock when it tries to get the food inside. On Sunday after sitting there for almost 2 weeks I got a mouse. I thought that was it but then I heard another one moving around yesterday. Then last night when I was sleeping, I heard to sharp buzzing sounds about 5 seconds apart and this morning there was another mouse. The poor mice look quite peaceful just laying there. My room now seems safe.

It seems that over the weekend the 3rd Raccoon was caught and today there was no evidence of any new activity. This morning I felt good after my 2 x10 k runs yesterday. The weather was quite warm today but comfortable I ran an easy 5 k this afternoon. I still have 12 days to go to the race and will be happy if everything stays as it is now.

This morning I went out with Utpal for our Sunday run, he running his long one, me running the first of 2. It was quite humid but I ran my 10 k quite comfortably. After a nice break and a chance to follow the Tour De France, I went out for my second run which this week was another 10 k, it was drier but hotter, but I ran easily and was happy with my run.

This is the mother raccoon climbing out of the area where we pack our goods. Yesterday we caught another young one. Momma should be next.
This morning I ran 15:18 in the 2 mile race, this has become my average time now. I felt strong but had to work hard, I think the training is showing. Have to run again this afternoon.

It's Friday the 13th, but the date means something more to me. Twelve years ago today I had my last conversation with my mother. e talked for quite a while on the phone, not knowing that 36 days later she would be gone forever. I still feel her with me, but I also miss her every day. Cherish the time you spend with your mother, you will miss them dearly when they are gone.

Well there he is out first capture, it turns out that there are 3 of them, The other 2 were nearby when I came in and found this one. He is the smallest of the lot. Hopefully we will get one of the others tonight. We baited him with dry cat food which is what they have been eating for that last 3 days.

The saga continues. The Racoon completely ignored the trap and just broke into the container full of the cats food. I do believe that there is now more than one of them. The one I saw this morning was bigger than the previous days and there were lots of different paw prints. We'll see what happens tomorrow.

The Racoon had made a huge mess of the cats food and water when I arrived this morning. it has been decided that we have to catch it. One of the building management guys has built a trap which has been successful before. we will catch him and set him free on a piece of open land and hopefully he will not return to our basement. The trap is set and we will see if he is in it when I get to work in the morning.

I am usually the first to arrive at work in the morning, I get there about 1 1/2 hours before anyone else. This morning I was confronted with 2 things when I arrived. First we had a flood, the hot water heater had sprung a leak and there was about 1/2" of water all over the kitchen, office and part of the shop. Second we had a visitor in the shipping area where the cat usually hangs out, there was a young Racoon running about and the cat was not happy. After shooing off the racoon, and feeding the cat. I set about cleaning up the water with a shop vac'. What a morning!

I had quite a full morning. First I went for a 10k run, when I got back the Tour de France was happening, then the British grand Prix, followed by the Men's Final at Wimbledon.. Then it was time for lunch a short nap and back out for my second run. This was 5k but by now the temperature had risen to 90 F so it was a hard run. I can definitely see how I have improved since last week and hope that this will continue.

I woke up this morning with a sore right calf, so I quickly decided that I would not run the 2 mile race, which I feel would have made it worse. I did however run an easy 5k run instead. By the afternoon it was feeling a little better and I ran another 5k in keeping with my 2 a day philosophy on weekends.The weather is much warmer with temp's in the 80's F which helps to keep the muscles warm.

I am quite happy with how my first week of training has gone since I stopped the raw food. I have gained back between 4 and 5 lbs, I am feeling stronger and we will see tomorrow how my 2 mile race goes. I also bought a new pair of running shoes that I may take with me to Canada in 3 weeks time. It ha been nice to have a few days off from work and run in the mornings.

Just as the fireworks were getting going last night the rain came and sort of quietened everything down. I slept a little longer than I usually. When I went out for my run it was nice and fresh, though I felt a little sluggish I had a good run. I have an idea to but some new running shoes today so we will see what happens.

It's 4 th of July America's Birthday! Of course there is no work today, in fact I'm off the rest of the week. So this morning a went out for an early run, the weather was nice low 60's and overcast. I did a comfortable 5 K and now I am just relaxing today, though my friend is trying to set up a router to allow me to share my high speed internet and nothing seems to be working at the moment. Hopefully it will get resolved soon.

In the US I use a Kyocera cell phone which I have had for about 3 years or so, but when I am in Europe I use a Nokia 3510i which I like better. So now I just bought a Nokia 2115i it is also called the shorty. I fell in love with it the moment I took it out of the box.

Today I worked just a half day. When I got home I decided to go for my run almost right away. Because I ran twice yesterday my legs were really tired for the first mile but then loosened up a little. On the way back home I found a laptop computer that some one had put out for garbage collection tomorrow. Needless to say I picked it up and took it home, it needed a power supply and the one from my own laptop worked when I plugged it in and turned it on. It is a Compaq Presario 1200 with a 533 mhz processor and 4.5 gig hard drive but it works.

First of all I just realized that yesterday was my 666 Th post so I had to get today's in, not that I am superstitious . Since I decided to run the 24 hr race I have a new training plan and it involves run 2 a days on the weekends. So this morning I ran 6 miles at about a 75% to 80% effort, my legs were a little tired from the race yesterday. Then I went out again in the afternoon and ran another 4 miles. The idea is to give me a chance to get used to running with tired legs, which I will inevitably have to do in the 24 hr race.The day was great, with cool temp's and low humidity.

Apart from continuing to each raw food for most of the day yesterday I did eat a little cheese on my salad, a granola bar, a cranberry muffin and a half slice of whole grain bread. Well today I finally broke 15 minutes in the 2 mile race for the first time this year. With a blistering time ( for me ) of 14:52, The conditions were cool and sunny, my legs felt strong , breathing a little hard near the end. It is an improvement of 25 seconds on last week.

It's over! After 1 month ( 28 days ) I have finished my raw food diet. In the end I lost a total of 17 lbs but mainly I feel a lot better. I am entered to run in a 24 hour road race on the last weekend of July, so I decided I needed to change my diet and prepare for that.You will hear more about everything in the coming weeks.

Yesterday I wrote that there were rumblings but little rain, well an hour or so later we had the most awesome rain storm. There were swirling very high powered winds, T&L and so much rain there was flooding everywhere. The first 1 1/2 hours was the most intense with hailstones. The storm would stop momentarily and then go on again. The whole thing lasted about 5 hours, by the end of it there were trees and power lines down all over.

As I write this post there are rumbling of thunder outside but very little rain. It was a sticky and hot day, once it does rain it should cool down somewhat. I have been making my own homus from some dried chick peas I soaked and some tahini, I have been adding it to my salads at lunch time
, it's another source of protein. i am almost at the end of my raw food diet.

So I had just woken up from one of my power naps, when the phone rings, I don't have caller ID on my current phone so I wait till someone starts to speak. It was a familiar voice my old mate Carl from school and back home. we haven't talked for about 7 months so we had some catching up to do, however it was late for him and he had been making calls all night. Well it gave me a lot to think about for the rest of the day. The weather here has become hot and sticky again.

Hey it's Wimbledon! starting today the lawn tennis championships is going on in London. I know my sister will be glued to the TV every chance she gets. When I lived in London many years ago I lived at one time in Twickenham which is not far from wimby but I never got to go to the championships.

It was a nice cool morning for my run. Utpal wanted to run a little longer, so when we got to the turnaround he carried on and I came back alone. I still ran 10 miles.

With cool conditions this week I ran the 2 mile race in my second best time this year so far of 15:17, just 1 second slower that 2 weeks ago. After 3 weeks on raw food I have lost 15 lbs and felt very light on my feet. I still need to get some race fitness and we will see how much I can improve as the summer goes on.

I don't know why but I felt that today was almost the perfect day. It didn't get too hot, it was bright and sunny and there was a strong breeze to make it feel cool when in the Sun.I set up my new computer, I now have to load it with all the applications I want. For some reason I had the idea to switch on my old one ( the one that stopped working in Feb') and guess what it works now. Maybe it's jealous of the new one. So now I will probably pass it on to someone else.

I came home from work today and there waiting for me was my new computer. It's a refurbished e machines desktop PC, with a 3 GHZ processor and 160 GB hard drive. I have been wanting to upgrade since my old desktop died in Feb', finally finding the one I wanted at the right price. I will wait until tomorrow to set everything up.

UEFA U 21 European Championships semi-finals, Holland beat England 13-12 on penalties after a 1-1 draw. Serbia beat Belgium 2-0. Now I have to support Serbia in the final.

What becomes of me
at this moment in time

The child is cute
but not sublime

I cannot be serious
do not have the time.


-This is one of my new ones.

After I had recovered from running my half marathon and somehow survived the 90 degree weather. I was happy to see that the England U 21 team won their final group game in the UEFA championship to make it to the semi-final. Today is cooler, a little, I managed a short run in the afternoon, just to loosen things up.

My Marathon turned into a Half marathon, I just didn't have the stamina. It was quite humid and I think my body just doesn't have the reserves due to the raw food diet. I am happy that I did a Half Marathon and now need to adjust my food intake to help me build for future races.

first of all I just realized that I passed 650 posts on this blog 2 days ago. Since I am planning to run the marathon tomorrow I did not run the 2 mile race this morning. I went out and jogged an easy 2 miles earlier. I have never run a long race before when on some kind of diet, so I am interested to see how it goes. The weather has turned a little warmer but should be cool at the start. Sometime tomorrow I'll post what happens.

So 2 interesting things happened to me this morning, well at least I think they are interesting. While walking to work I came upon a large brown rooster, just walking happily around on the grass in front of an apartment building. When I got to work there was the cat waiting for me with a small rat, it was dead this time, she made a point of showing it to me. I threw it away and after some extensive petting gave her some Tuna and Shrimp cat food.

I arrived at work this morning to find our cat sitting, just outside one of the doors with a mouse in her mouth. When she dropped it the mouse started to run around, with her patting it from side to side like she was playing with a ball. Then she would catch it and hold it in her mouth again. This was repeated several times. Eventually we got the mouse away from her took it outside and let it go. She seems to like to show us how she can catch and control the movements of the mice.

The last few days have reminded me of one spring when I was at good old P C H ( Pershore College of Horticulture ). It used to rain every night and then during the day it would be hot, sunny and humid. Great for growing things and indeed that is what seems to be happening here now in New York. Today there is a change, this morning was raining and the day is quite cool.

The fragrances of Linden and Ligustrum ( privet ) have joined the fragrance of Honeysuckle in the air of my daily walk. There is truly a cavalcade of wonderful smells to enjoy in Queens at the moment. The UEFA U 21 Championships are going on at the moment in Holland England drew their first game 0-0 after missing a penalty in the 88 minute against Czech Republic. Serbia beat Italy 1-0.

There is a strong smell of honeysuckle everywhere in queens, well almost everywhere. It makes the air smell so sweet when I am walking to and from work, or out running in the neighbourhood. I guess it is one of the benefits of the fairly wet, fairly cool spring that we are having. It's a beautiful day out there and I am enjoying it.

Overcast cool morning when we started our run. I was feeling a little tired from my race yesterday but knew that the pace would be easy. So we ended up running 10 miles and would you believe it when we got back, there was a smell of French toast in the air.

This week was a different story with regard to my 2 mile race. I am of course about 7 lbs lighter and I am managing to eat more protein this time around. I did feel some tiredness in my upper legs, not sure if that was a result of the diet or the 90% humidity. Anyway I ran 15:16 this week, which is my best time so far, with a marathon coming up in 8 days I think I am getting into shape.

Yesterday I had honeysuckle. today it was French toast wafting from someones breakfast table. It was quite cool but humid on my walk to work this morning, with the prospect of a hot day ahead. The forecast said 90 f but it barely managed to break 70 f, also the wind makes it feel cool when you are not in the Sun.

This morning there was a really strong smell of honeysuckle in the air, which made my walk to work even more pleasant. It is much cooler than earlier in the week and there are quite strong wind gusts. It has been just about a week since I started my raw food diet and I am really happy with the way things are going.

England won their European qualifier against Estonia 3-0 today with a fine performance from David Beckham, maybe now the England coach will realize he needs him in the team. I blended my lunch time salad today and it was so delicious and so filling that it took me 2 hours to eat it all, next time I'll only use half as much ingredients.

The grass around here in particular the lawns on peoples houses, had started to turn a little brown in a few places. Due to the hot dry weather we have been having. Well yesterdays rain brought 1.5 inches with it and soon everything will be green again.i am taking a little longer to walk home from work these days since I do some of my raw food shopping after work.Though I discovered that a mouse was eating some of my fruits in the place where I was storing them, so I had to find a new place. Maybe he's on a fruit diet.

It suddenly occurred to me that I had not posted yet today. Well it started with me walking to work in a light rain. By the time I was leaving to come home it was pouring. Of course I got wet, but it is washing day so everything went into the wash. I managed to put some of my house plants outside to reap the benefit of all that rain. When the rain finally stopped it became so peaceful, as though the world were taking a rest before beginning to grow again.

After a few hot days it has turned much cooler. I have a bit of a sore quad' muscle this morning and Utpal is happy to run slowly. We do however run about 6 miles and I don't feel the tiredness form the past week so much.Diet is continuing to go well.

After a tough week, starting with the 50k race and then the lumber delivery and starting my raw food diet. I wasn't expecting too much from my 2 mile race today. My legs were tired but I was quite happy to run 16:24, my splits were fairly even at 8:11 and 8:13. The detox this time has been mild, probably due to the fact that I have stopped drinking coffee since last year.I have dropped 3 lbs since yesterday.

Well it's June 1st and the first day of my raw food diet. At this point it has only been about 17 hours. I am much better organized than I was last year and have lots of different things to eat, I am sure I will come up with a few new creative items as the days go on.

I didn't feel sore this morning after the lumber delivery yesterday, but when I got home from work I could hardly keep my eyes open. So of course I took a nap. Just like last summer I am going to practice a raw food diet, since I am vegetarian that means lots of fruit, veggies and nuts etc. Today is my last day on regular food I begin tomorrow. You will hear how I am doing right here.

I was actually feeling a little sore in my upper legs this morning. Today was one of our twice yearly lumber deliveries at work. That involves us unloading 30 tons of wood boards from the back of a truck, 1 at a time. It took us about 5 hours, but we were luck that it was quite cool and for the most part in shade, with the Sun only filling the yard for the last 2 hours. I think I moved about 17 tons on my own and will probably feel it tomorrow.

Even though I was tired after my run yesterday I found it hard to fall asleep, but I did and the next thing I knew it was time to get up. I didn't feel too bad and work went well until about 30 minutes before it was time to leave. Then I started to feel tired. I think the walk home helped to take a little of the tiredness out of my legs. But I must say there are no major problems after the race and I am happy that I seem to be back on track with my running.