Turbo, run and a bit of gardening (has it really come to this?)

Dragon Hill from White Horse Hill, Uffington

On Monday I extended the ‘clap for the NHS’ concept. I decided that my evening training was a ‘Turbo for Covid19 sufferers’. 45 minutes for 21km – they deserved better.

Although I hold no particular brief for him, that includes Boris Johnson. Like him or not, agree with his politics or not, and whether he was the Prime Minister or not, he’s a human being and that alone justifies my hopes that he recovers – as I hope for everyone suffering with the infection.

He’s an interesting (and somewhat divisive) character, even ignoring the politics. I believe he is very intelligent but he can come across as a buffoon. While David Cameron never shook off the ‘Eton schoolboy’ tag (used as something of a slight), that never seems to be thrown at Johnson. He has a bit of a ‘teflon’ coating that means his mistakes don’t seem to stick and his reputed philandering doesn’t seem to be held against him very widely. I have no idea how he does it.

On Tuesday I ran with my wife – further than our usual runs together at 5.1 miles. It was the first time this year that I got properly warm on a run and it was great but I feel that the approaching need to move smoothly from complaining about the cold to complaining equally passionately about it being too hot.

I then enforced the eviction notice I had served on the plants seeking sanctuary in the conservatory. The forecast suggests we have no frosts on the horizon so the garden is now rich in geraniums, olive trees, catmint, erigeron, a lemon tree and some unidentified bulbs that have done nothing for months.

There were encouraging looking UK coronavirus numbers on Sunday and Monday but, sadly, they owed more to delays in reporting over the weekend and deaths in the UK rose again in the numbers released on Tuesday and Wednesday.

I’m sure that it’s important to look at the figures over a few days to understand them properly but the rate of growth seems to be slowing. The experience of Italy and Spain would suggest that the peak is still ahead (but getting closer).

Of course, then the question will be how to ease the lockdown – and what that does to the the infection rate. In the absence of a vaccination and no ‘herd immunity’ yet, I guess it’s not going away any time soon.

We continue to follow the rules and are relatively little affected on a day to day basis as we have no new work patterns to adapt to and no small children to accommodate, but have plenty of garden space, lots to do and great access to fairly empty and attractive running routes. Although it’s a great shame not being able to socialise with friends, the biggest issue is not being able to see our sons in London. One is ‘furloughed’ from the end of this week and the other is working as hard as ever from home – but both are safe and healthy, which is the main thing.

On Wednesday I drafted the accounts for my father’s estate, having got the probate pretty quickly. It’s sobering and terribly sad to think how many people will be doing the same over the next few months.

Injury update

Knee: I was rather premature when I decided it was injury-free in December. I was probably whistling in the dark because I was going to ski on it in January, come what may. It still hurts a bit – not entirely cured but much better. With no sportive and no ultra marathon to train for I’m wondering if I should ease off to give it time to heal – but it had 9 weeks at the start of the year and an outbreak of good sense like that is unlikely to happen again so soon.

Achilles Tendons: these hurt every morning from about October to April last year, while I was training for the Rotterdam Marathon. I managed to carry on training with them but after the run itself they had a proper rest over the summer and are now fine. I found that hills aggravated them badly but now I might start to reintroduce hill running.

Calf muscles: I guess the problem with these hurting after a run was that I’d over-protected them because of the Achilles problems. Stretching after the runs and some work on them in the gym (ah, I remember the gym fondly) has sorted the problem out but I still stretch more diligently, just in case.