An interesting month

A wee dram to celebrate 21 wonderful years together

     Apart from one or two spells of atrocious weather that swamped our surrounding countryside and kept me indoors for longer than I'd like, July was a pretty good month. Best of all, it marked the anniversary of 21 glorious years with my wonderful partner. Little did we know how both our lives would change dramatically after she invited me to join her on a camping trip to the Lake District to help plan a route for a forthcoming mountaineering club meet.  I can't recall whether the route ever got planned, but do remember the lake hills and tarns being bathed in a bright new light and wild raspberries never tasted so sweet. Since that auspicious weekend we've run, walked, camped, climbed and swum together in all sorts of exotic places we'd never have otherwise visited. If ever there was such a thing as a 'born again' experience, that was it!

     Running-wise this month, I failed to reach a planned 100 miles - by just one mile, though I hadn't realized it until counting up today. After a hard ten miles around Mossdale yesterday I really don't feel like going out again today, the last day of the month, for the sake of one measly mile. However, another count up reveals I've just passed the 35,000 mile mark since my very first run on April 9th, 1986. Among that grand total are 118 category wins from 171 races - which I reckon is a fairly good ratio for a guy who knew absolutely nothing about running until the tender age of 54. Not that I know a great deal about it now!

Magic box

     Another funny thing happened in July that may or may not prove beneficial in the future. While visiting my physio for a routine sports massage I was introduced to his latest bit of gadgetry, a very clever device with the rather grand name of Cobjack Quantum Magnetic Analyzer which is all contained in something the size of an attaché case. I was linked to it simply by holding a metal cylinder in my left hand and relaxing completely for a few minutes while it collated vast amounts of data from my ancient body that hitherto only God could possibly have known about. To quote verbatim from the website:
    "This method of analysis is a rapid, accurate, noninvasive, safe, testing method and particularly suitable for comparing the curative effects of health products and for checking  sub-health conditions. There are more than 30 main analysis items, including cardiovascular and cerebrovascular conditions, bone mineral density, cholesterol, trace elements, blood lead, rheumatism, lung and respiratory tract, nephropathy, blood sugar, stomach and intestines, liver and gall bladder, cranial nerves, gynaecology, prostate, bone disease, the trace elements of selenium, iron, zinc, magnesium, calcium and more".
     I'm glad to say that after searching every dark corner of my anatomy the clever machine came up with an interesting list of facts and figures as long as my arm (both arms in fact) culminating with a 'Body form Assessment' of 92.8 which it considered 'Excellent'.  The only bad bit of news is that I'm severely short of Calcium and marginally low on Iron, Vitamin C and Folic Acid. Being somewhat sceptical by nature I've given it the benefit of the doubt and invested in a couple of months supply of high strength Calcium tablets after which I'll maybe ask for a re-test.

     What else happened in July? Oh yes, the Olympics have begun, so I'd better get away from this confounded computer and start watching the real stars of the athletics world.  Who knows, I may be inspired to rise to even greater heights.