Michael writes...

Three years ago I retired from half-marathons. (See this blog's entry for 4th November 2011.) Two hours was my cut-off time for a "serious" runner and in Nairobi I nearly killed myself getting round in 1.59.38...

                     ...but....

                                   ... before Christmas I went to the pub with Jára,

Here he is. As you can see from his very smart suit, Jára has a sedentary job, so when, after three beers, he announced that he was doing this year's Karlovy Vary half-marathon I said with a churlishly large dollop of irony, "If you do it, I'll do it!"

Later that week he sent me a scan of his entry confirmation. Oh dear. A gentleman has no choice but to be as good as his word, so I had a beer to cloud my judgment, then signed up too. (Another friend who was there made the same undertaking:  I shall not name and shame him - but suffice to say that instead of training, he is gathering excuses not to run!)



So in May I'll be a 48 year-old with dodgy right fore-foot - and  I have to somehow run 21 km, preferably in under two hours. I can't train, owing to the foot. All I can do to improve my chances is to have as little bulk as possible to drag round the course. That means dieting. I did it two years ago prior to a local forest race, so I know what's involved. (High protein, low carbohydrate, no beer, just vodka - sports diet of champions! Oh, and misery, too. Carbohydrate is nice. Beer is very nice.)


Here's the challenge I face:

There's lots of self-denial ahead. That said, I've just had a great fry-up for Sunday breakfast. Also, I have almost a whole crate of beer to get through before I can start the diet. The faster I drink the beer, the sooner the diet can start. Thus drinking lots of beer at this stage constitutes a key element of my training...