Everyone. Everyone does. Of course you do. Goes great with a side of porcini mushroom fettuccine and a nice riocha. Oh wait. Not that. Not that at all. Triskaidekaphobia is not, as it turns out, a lovely piece of hand reared, alpine mountain, grass fed, prime beef nor is it a beautifully rainbow coloured, Caribbean fresh water fish but is, in fact, the abject fear of the number thirteen. I'm not usually bothered by this kinda thing and usually delight in deliberately poking fun at OPs phobias, so don't tell me hate spiders or you'll get a random delivery of plastic insects through your letterbox, or that you hate the feel of copper coins on your skin, otherwise you'll definitely find one [or several] on your pillow, but when the Ultra Challenge newsletter hit my inbox with the message of "Hi Matt - congratulations for signing up for the London to Brighton Ultra Challenge, you are now just 13 weeks away form Event Day!" my body reacted with proctalgia fugax (aka the "Ten Pence - One Pence" twitch) So whats this all about then? Why the fear this weekend? The date of the event hasn't exactly been kept secret? Well after two years of ducking and diving and dodging (and probably some luck too) I finally got caught by the virus.
Fortunately it was mostly like a mid-range dose of "man flu" which - as everyone knows - is a pretty debilitating illness that can only be treated by bed rest, full access to all digital TV channels, 100% remote control ownership and the regular delivery of hot beverages and greasy food stuffs. The upshot of this means I've not done any significant training for about three weeks so I've promised myself that next week I'll be back out on the road (and tracks, and trails, and paths, and fields) getting some mileage done.
I'm also quite close to my charity fundraising target too so a double incentive to get walking and posting on socials, and hassling, haranguing and moidering colleagues, friends and family for their dollar bills.
Feel free to drop a quid here and in the meantime, in the absence of any actual training related snaps, have a picture of a younger, drunker me on a football trip to Denmark wearing Hawaiian inspired gear and I pinky-promise a proper update later this week with some actual physical exercise recorded too.
Well done! Good luck with training next week xx