With the first quarter of 2013 almost behind us, I must acknowledge that I am bit like the UK’s economy: I have not been performing according to expectations … Even though it would be more accurate to describe these ‘expectations’ as objectives I had set primarily for myself as regards my running for this year (in particular, with respect to a 175km race along lake Léman, called Ultratour Léman 2013 which is due to take place in September, and to taking part in a marathon in Q1), I can still claim that I have not performed according to the expectations I had set in that, so far, I have also failed to meet one of my good resolutions for this year: which is to meet up with my brother once a week in the evening and go for a run with him. The idea behind this good resolution for 2013 is to get my brother to go running sufficiently regularly to have him quit smoking eventually — as I am convinced that one cannot run regularly and continue to smoke close to a packet a day.
However, I do have some excuses:
Winter has been particularly long this year with the temperature comprised mostly between 2 and 8 degrees during daytime almost for weeks, which has made it a little dangerous at times to go running near home after work (these treacherous patches of ice on the hilly terrain I tend to run on) …
Even though in Q1 we did not go snow shoeing nor did I go cross country skiing, fortunately we managed to go on an excursion to the mountains at least once; it was to see a winter carnival procession called ‘Tschäggättu‘ (entry here).
One week later, we went to Basle (I prefer the old ‘UK’ spelling) to see the opening of the famous carnival this city puts up from Monday 4 am until Thursday 4 am following Ash Wednesday.
And then on Saturday 2 March, we had to make use of the fact that the frozen lake of Joux was deemed to be safe and was thus open to the public to cross this wide expanse of ice from one end of the lake right to the other end (see the photos here — for once I thought it would make more sense to write the entry in French as it is more likely to be of interest to locals) …
The following day as I had little time left before having to go to Geneva, I decided to put on my running gear and run to the voting station (my entry on this run also gives you some information on the right of referendum, which seems to be a speciality of our country) …
Then the whole afternoon was lost showing the flat I have in Geneva to would-be subletters.
Then there was also the time spent in Q1 on more mundane matters like shopping, doing paperwork in my study or even spending a weekend at my parents’ to help them with various tasks (including wood chopping) …
And more recently, I have become a little concerned over the potential dangers of electrosmog (wifi, mobile phones, laptops, etc — see my entry) and I have spent hours and hours looking up information on the internet and I have also been reading books on this subject (in addition to scientific publications).
However, I had better get in shape because, for the 32nd edition of 20 kilomètres de Lausanne (on Saturday 27 April 2013), I intend to battle hard against younger runners, just as I had done 2 years ago: in a fit of pique at seeing younger runners trying to overtake me in the final kilometre, I ran myself into cramps in both calves (and the pain in my right calf lasted for months and months) but it was worth it as I was able to clock in 1:41min 😉
Still, I am a little disappointed that today I did not manage to find the will to go out in the rain, take a train to Morges and then run to Ouchy (which I did for the last time on 15 February), as I was looking forward to being able to stop by this building (which is more than a thousand years old) and to taking in some of the positive energy from this place:
Well, let us hope that I am only postponing this by a week!
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