Ok, so this will probably only be news if you work at the muppet show (and have as much free time as I do) or have been on vacation in outer space but…

A book has been created for comic relief, edited by TroubledDiva called Shaggy Blog Stories. A compendium of humourus pieces from the UK blogosphere, no less. My copy has yet to find its way to China (having been ordered all of 10 minutes ago) so I can’t comment from personal experience but I’m sure with the likes of NewsElephant and ArgyBargey in there it must be a hoot.

Go and buy it, it’s for charidy!

A series of runs is being held in Hangzhou and is comprised of the following events:

• FX Outdoor Mountain Challenge – Saturday, March 10th, 2007 (now in the past)
• Easter Weekend Run for the Kids: Saturday, April 7th, 2007
• Hangzhou Mountain Marathon: Saturday, April 21st, 2007

I’m not involved in the organisation of these events (but I do know the nice man who is) but having recently had it pointed out that if you google Hangzhou spring marathon (and several other things) then this site is the first result I thought that it might be worth putting this up here.

More information in the flyer, here.

I couldn’t make last Saturday as we were moving house (more on that later) but from what I understand it was a huge success and quite a challenge. I may also miss the one on the 7th but I’m definitely planning to run the half on the 21st.

I hope to see some of you there!

So experts, it seems, know what they are talking about. I believe the last thing I mentioned on here about running was at the end of my post on the Shanghai Half Marathon and I believe I said “The next one has got to be a full.”

Well the next one isn’t going to be a full. After Hangzhou and Shanghai last year a plan was drawn up to see us ready for a full in Xiamen at the end of March and then the crazy Great Wall Marathon in May.

Then it all went wrong, 3 weeks of not running after Shanghai because of an injury followed by the Christmas part season, followed by a bad-enough-not-to-run cold over Christmas followed by several weeks of working between London and Newcastle and all of a sudden it’s early Feb and I’m back in Hangzhou and struggling to run 6k and horribly behind schedule.

Then it gets worse, trying to get ready for my first marathon but not doing it properly I’ve done 1 or 2 runs a week making big hikes in distance to try and get back on track. 6, 8, 14 and then 20k. The 20k was a week gone Sunday and I thoroughly enjoyed but my foot felt a bit twingy afterwards. So last week I didn’t run, the plan: rest the foot all week and then run a 10k on Saturday and 15 on Sunday to keep up with the boys.

Well suffice to say I managed 3 minutes on Saturday before giving up. The slight pain in my foot became excruciating almost as soon as I started running.

It seems that all of the stuff that is written about how you have to train for these things is right, surprise, surprise. The big goals for the first half of this year aren’t going to happen. I’m going to rest up for as long as it takes now and then if I can train up (properly) to run a half in Xiamen and maybe a half at the Hangzhou Mountain Marathon and the full can wait for later in the year, when I can train for it properly. Lesson learnt.