I guess last weekends events coupled with the change in the weather finally caught up to me. When I got home from work this morning after a few hours I took a nap for almost 3 hours. I've had a mouse running around my room and my mouse trap Victor caught it a couple of days ago, it was a field mouse, with big ears.

I think that it is probably due to having run the race and the cold weather, but my appetite is very strong at the moment. I eat and then I am hungry a short time later. The fact that I don't have as much fat to keep me warm may also be factor.

It is decidedly colder in the morning when I walk to work, this morning there was a feeling of tiredness, but I felt fine during the day.However when I got home I started to fall asleep at the computer, so I took a nap. My bus ticket for Manchester/ Penkridge arrived in the post, sent by my sister. This will get me home at Christmas time.

Well I'm back from Chicago and everything went well. I got to go to a birthday party on Friday and eat lots of great food. My race went well Saturday, it didn't rain although it was forecast. I felt quite strong and was ahead of my planned pace for the whole race, coming in with a time of 6:11:34, which is 21 minutes faster than my 50k in the spring. On Sunday I got to hang out at my friends restaurant and eat some good food. In the evening we went to a Greek restaurant for dinner, a nice treat. So quite a nice adventure all in all.

I'm just a few hours away from leaving for Chicago. When I ran this morning the temperature was close to what it will be for the race tomorrow, so I know that I will have to dress warmly. I am still a little sore from Wednesday but not much I can do about that, just have to run the race the best I can. Will write something when I get back.

Today at work we got one of our lumber deliveries from Canada. It takes about 4 hours to unload one board at a time with a crew of 8 guys. It is a real workout for the arms, legs and back and assuming I recover well, should help me in the race on Saturday. There were some showers early on which meant that I got a little wet, but in the end everything was fine.

There was a point this morning when I seemed to turn a corner, suddenly my old optimism returned. Instead of worrying about the future I started to live in the moment again. I am feeling a lot better within myself, part of it is that we are becoming quite busy at work and this allows me to just get on with it.

Although we have been running almost every day for the past 10 days, today was kind of our healing run. Utpal and I ran out to Flushing Meadow, about 9 miles ( 15 K ). It was a beautiful morning with sunshine and blue skies. It is just 6 days till my 50k race in Chicago and today I had the feeling that I am ready.

Yesterday I wasn't feeling so great after all the events of the past week. But I have 2 friends from Bosnia in town and it was suggested we go into the city which we did. It was a rainy day with showers on and off, but we actually had a fun time.This included going to the Museum of Modern Art ( MOMA ), which it turns out is free to enter on Fridays after 4 pm. Anyway it made me feel a whole lot better.

It is now 7 days since Sri Chinmoy's passing and preparations are now being made for the interment.I am so grateful to be here and be a part of such a unique experience. When I go running as I did this morning people in the community offer their condolence's and they politely ask what will happen now.

Today I went to work to try and bring some normalcy back. I think it helped a little, but there was no way the day felt normal.I am OK and life will go on having good friends around helps.

yesterday October 14 th I attended the memorial service for Sri Chinmoy, also in attendance were over 1000 of his students and dozens of dignitaries there to offer tributes. Many shared remembrances of times spent with him and the inspiration he offered. This inspiration will be carried in the hearts of each and every one of us. If you go to srichinmoycenter.org you can see many of the tributes and some news articles.

http://www.srichinmoycentre.org/

Yesterday I didn't post because I received some sad news in the morning.My Meditation teacher and Spiritual guide for the last 34 years Sri Chinmoy died.He was and is known for promoting Peace and World Harmony and will be sadly missed in this world. For the next 7 days his students will be honouring his life. He always inspired and encouraged me with my running and through my running I will continue to honour him.

When I got home from work this afternoon I listened to the new Radiohead album on NME radio, I enjoyed it very much. It is called In Rainbows and is only available by download at the moment. It provided a nice transition from work to play. The day started rainy and ended sunny.

It was supposed to be a wet rainy afternoon which it wasn't, but it was noticeably cooler after the hot humid days we have had lately. I decided to get Chinese food for dinner, there is a place 5 minutes walk from my house. On the way back it started to drizzle. Now as I write this post there is a steady rain falling outside my window. I have started to use my desktop computer a lot more than my laptop now, it is faster and the monitor has a bigger screen, but I have to switch a lot of my files over and I'm thinking of getting a new LCD monitor sometime before the end of the year, but we'll see.

The last 2 days , when I I have weighed myself after running I have been 145.5 lbs, which is about 20 lbs lighter than I was on June 1st of this year. I haven't been trying to lose more weight it just happened. After being sick the last 2 weeks my running feels normal again. I used my day off today to get a few things done, which included installing Joost Tv on my desktop computer. It is a new way of watching internet TV, from the creators of Skype, it seems quite good.

It is un-usually warm in New York at the moment so it was running in T shirt and shorts this morning. I feel so much better than last week, so we decided to run to Flushing Meadow and run over by the tennis center. Running nice and easy means that this takes us about 2 hours, which is a nice run. It was supposed to be raining but it was nice and sunny the whole time. I will see if a can do a bit more running this week to prepare for Chicago.

The England rugby team who were expected to lose their world cup 1/4 final to Australia let everybody down and won 12-10. What a great result! My morning began with me running an easy 5k and deciding not to run the 2 mile race again this week. I'm still a little creaky on my left side and don't want to risk anything for the 50k coming up. Other than that everything feels good, I thought I needed some more serious training for the 50k but my body decided otherwise.

I don't watch much TV these days, I watch some shows on the internet on my computer. There are a few new NBC shows that I have started watching. The one that I like the most at the moment is Life, a show about a detective who has just got back on the force after spending 12 years in prison, wrongfully accused of murder.Another one I like a lot is Heroes which is in it's second season here.

I finally got 2 good nights of sleep and my sciatica seems to be stabilizing.I think that I had to deal with all the other things first before I could get that under control. My running didn't seem to suffer much through all of this.

I may have mentioned that a friend of mine is in Paris at the moment working on a project. I am taking care of his Bonsai plants which include a couple of Jasmin and one of them has some very fragrant blooms at the moment.He also has a Pomegranate which is also showing a new blossom. My sciatica is a little better and I am hoping it will slowly improve as the week goes on.

During the evening last night I started to get some sciatic pain along with the tightness in my hamstrings, it wasn't too uncomfortable, but when I went to bed it really bothered me, I had trouble getting to sleep and it actually woke me up at around 2:30 in the morning.It happened that I don't have any painkillers at home. So when I got to work I took 2 Ibuprofen this did the trick and during the day I noticed that my hamstring tightness was also going away. So I am feeling a lot better now and have a bit of a spring in my step.

So it's the first day of October and I have decided to change my work schedule for a while. I am not working on Mondays at the moment. So this morning I could go for a run nice and early, in fact I went out just before 7 am. It was cool and sunny this morning and on the way back home I bumped into my friend Utpal so I turned around and went out with him for a few extra miles. I am still experiencing some tightness in my hamstrings and my left hip, but I think that will work itself out.

My nephew will be happy because his team West Brom have moved into second place in the Championship, a position Wolves held briefly, not so long ago, before they started slipping down the league. It is still early in the season.I did go out running this morning and ran for about 1 1/2 hours. For those runners out there, Haille Gebrselassie set a new world record in the marathon of 2:04:26 in Berlin. It's amazing they can run so fast over 26.2 miles ( 42km ). It seems that it is also Sufi poet Rumi's 800th birthday today.

I still don't feel 100% after my bout with the stomach bug during the week, so I decided not to run the 2 mile race this morning. I did go out for a run however and ended up running between 3 and 4 miles. I have some lower back pain which I am not sure is a result of my cold and stomach bug, but it is not stopping me running at the moment. I have a month to get myself together before I go to Chicago for the 50k and we will see what I do about the 6 hour in 2 weeks time. My friend Ray from South Carolina is running in a 24 hour race this weekend in North Carolina, I will go with him to the 6 hour if he comes up.

It's been a bit of a strange week, started off with me feeling sick thinking my clod had returned. Then having some kind of stomach bug, which has not completely gone but is feeling much better. I don't think I mentioned it but my agent informed me earlier in the month that I had been passed by the latest set of publishers, that's 21 to date. So it's time to have a crack at the next 10. A friend of mine who is an architect/ designer, has just left for Paris to look at a project he may be working on. He asked me to look after his Bonsai while he's away.

I had one of those strange days. I finally started to feel OK and during the morning my appetite was good and no stomach problems. Then I had a nice salad for lunch, about 20 minutes after returning to work I started to get stomach pains and a feeling like I was going to throw up.I decided to leave work 1 hour early, on the walk home I started to feel a little better. I slept for about 90 minutes and when I got up everything seemed so much better. I was even inspired to go out and run a few miles. My legs felt a little heavy while I was running, but later they felt fine,maybe this time I have turned the corner.

The fact that I still have my stomach problem after 3 days tells me that it is not something I ate. Plus there are a few guys with the same problem.I decided to employ an old eastern european remedy and during the course of the day, I sipped hot water and as I am writing this post I can say I am feeling much better, but I don't really have an appetite.

Still wasn't feeling so great today, did go to work and got through that OK. My appetite is kind of strange at the moment, but there seems to be a positive change this evening and I am hoping things will improve through the week. My nephew will not be happy that West Brom lost to Cardiff in the league Cup 4-2.

I had already decided to take the day off today, but when I woke up I wasn't feeling too good.I had an upset stomach and a bit of an headache. So maybe my cold has come back. It was such a nice morning that I thought I would go for a run and maybe it would clear my head a little. One of my friends who also had a cold a couple of weeks ago said he also felt like his had come back. I got a call late morning from a friend in Chicago saying that it was OK to stay there in October when I go for the race, so I'm all set.Though I am running in the 50k I know at least 2 people who will be running in the 50 mile race, so that will be nice.

last night my right ankle became very weak, it wouldn't bare any weight and was very pianful when I tried to walk. I think this was a reaction to my 2 mile race earlier in the day. Experience has taught me that the problem is actually in the calf muscle, so I worked on this. The Hamstring on that leg also felt tight. Anyway this morning it was still there but not quite as bad and it got better as I walked around which I could do. I decided to run as I usually do on Sunday's and ended up running easy for 2 hours with my friend Utpal. There is still some soreness but I think it will be OK. I have a couple of long races coming up and need to do some serious training in the next few weeks.

I went in on the subway with Sadhak for his gig last night. The Yippie Museum Cafe where he was playing was pretty small, but had a nice atmosphere. There was a band on first and then Sadhak played about 45 minutes, mostly his own songs though he did do Eve of destruction by Barry McGuire and ended with a Woody Guthrie song. The audience was small but they seemed to like him, it was a good night out and I was home by 11. This morning I had a better than expected 2 mile race. I have found a group of runners that run the pace I want to run at, so run with them and hang on at the end. My first mile was 7:24, second mile 7:17, for a finishing time of 14:41 again my best this year. I have signed up for a 50K race in Chicago in October, so now I have 5 weeks to prepare.

One of my colleagues at work is also a singer/ song writer and is performing at a club in the city tonight. So some of us are going in to show our support. It's funny I go about a year and a half without going in to the city and now I'm going in twice in 8 days. I signed up to run a 50 K race in Chicago today, the race is by the Lakefront on the last Saturday in October. I may run in a 6 hour race 2 weeks before out on Long Island, for me the 2 races should just about be the same.

One of my colleagues at work had his bike stolen, he is the second on in 2 months. This is one of the harsh realities of living in New York. He locked it while he went into a restaurant and when he came back 5 minutes later it was gone. I ran for the second time this week in the new shoes I got on Monday, I am beginning to like them and will be happy to see how they hold up and if I will use them in a 6 hour race coming up next month.

This morning I ate 1 1/2 lbs of grapes ( red seedless ) and then had a large salad at lunch. My cold is feeling a lot better. Last night I was a bit spacey and while I was writing something I kept spelling one word incorrectly, I did it 3 times and thought it was OK, until someone pointed out what I had done. Now the Champions League report; Ranger, Man U and Arsenal all won there their match day 1 games, so of the 6 British teams only Celtic lost their first game an this years competition.

I had a huge headache for most of the morning, obviously the result of my coldm it also included a bit of a tickley dry throat. It did seem to get a little better as the day went on. When I got home though I felt really tired so I took a nap.The weather is getting warmer as the days go on his week and I hope that will help my cold. Champions League started today Chelsea and Liverpool both drew and Celtic 2-0 to Shaktar Donetsk.

My friend Utpal had to go to Home Depot to get some garden supplies this afternoon, I went with him and he dropped me of at Sports Authority, which is virtually next door. I found a running shoe I liked at a good price, but they didn't have my size, which is 10 US, 44 Euro. Well I have learned a trick a women's 11 is 43.5 euro and fits fine, it's also big for women so they don't sell so many. The regular price is $65, but they were marked $49.99. When I went to pay for them they had a register price of $39.97, can I shop or what.

It got cold last night down to about 50 F ( 9 C ). For some reason I had a bit of congestion in my head. Ran nice and easy with Utpal for about 6 miles, we stopped for hot chocolate and a muffin on the way back. I've had my windows open all summer with the screens in, it's time to start closing them at night, or put an extra blanket on the bed.I forgot to mention yesterday that Arsenal have gone to the top of the Premiership by 2 points, it's early in the season yet.

This is the Terry Fox track where I ran the 24 hour race last week. This week I once again ran a good 2 mile time, my second best of the year 14:46, my splits were 7:27 and 7:19. So once again I am showing that the races are making me stronger. Basically I am just enjoying myself and getting into race shape, or so it seems.

My hi speed internet service went out this afternoon, so i took a nap and when I came around it was back. So Adele didn't play last night, I don't know why, I saw her there. I had the veggie pie with salad and a root beer at the Australian tuck shop and it was delicious, it only cost me $5. It was only a 10 minute walk to the Bowery Ballroom from there.

I am making one of my rare visits into the city tonight. A friend of mine is going to a club called the Stone and I am going to the Bowery Ballroom to see Adele. He suggested that we go in early so that we can have dinner at the Australian Tuck shop which I am told is very good. OK we will see!

Even though I felt good at work I was really tired when I got home, so I took a long nap. I was trying to follow the England v Russia soccer game but missed the last 20 minutes when the score was 2-0, it ended up 3-0 and England moved up to second in their group. The 24 hour race probably caught up with me and that is why I was so tired. I feel a lot better now.

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.