uh, what happened?? Just now it was seven years ago. I hurt myself and had to radically alter course to avoid crashing on the rocks of life's chaos.

And now?

Now it's 2017. 2017 I tell you. I have a new pair of Walshies. All my old running gear still fits me, although it's a bit too tight for comfort. I live in the South East again after five years in Bristol, which is possibly the greatest city on earth, and I can run in the forest I live in.

I have a dog. She doesn't like to run with me it seems. Sometimes she doesn't even like to go out for walks. What a weird dog. She is half boxer, half labrador and her name is TessyDog. I think the boxer half keeps her lazy so I'm not going to encourage her to run with me if she doesn't want to. She'll just slow me down, like being a stone over weight. Which I am.

My plan is to run gently for the next five weeks and then - BANG! - i'm gonna run a marathon distance across the South Downs.

I might write about that endeavour.

This morning, in the blowy forest and drizzle, I ran easily for half an hour and 2 1/2 miles. The chalk of the South is slippy and even with PB's you have to be cautious at times. Fortunately the rain stirs up the mud and that's sticky for the most part.

I'm following a Jeff Galloway plan which emphasises the importance of walking in my training sched. I've been on it for four weeks and my long run / walk is 7.4 miles. The rest of the week i do two runs - both 30 minutes alternating 2mins walk, 3mins run.

I think it's good to err on the side of caution right now. You know how hard it is to reign in the brain, and that ultimately screws over the body.