Let the festivities begin!

Not a great week for training, as it has been compromised by two factors. Firstly, the weather and secondly eating and drinking!

The week started well, as I went to football training on Tuesday and there were no problems with my knee, but I took it fairly easy. The only problem was keeping the ball in play at times, as the wind was seriously strong and there is no shelter at all for the astroturf pitches at Castle Rushen High School.

The following evening Man United were knocked out of the Champions League at the Group Stage, which was shocking! Whilst they played ok on the night and had a lot of possession, they just didn't do enough over all 6 games, in what should have been an easy group. The only thing that made me feel a little better was seeing City get knocked out as well. Now we both have Thursday nights in the Europa League to look forward to!

Thursday night I was hoping to get out for a walk, but the strong winds put a stop to that. I did send a text to Vinny to ask him if he was training that night and after getting a response of "no chance", sent a message back to ask him what the problem was, as a little wind never hurt anyone. I also agreed to take part in the SCS Relay Race on Boxing Day, in a team with Dave Mackey, Vinny and Matt Haddock. I have not done a trail run since cross-country when I was at school, so it should be interesting.

Friday night was Kyley's work Xmas Party, which partners were invited to and I'm not ashamed to say I took advantage of the food and drink on offer. The food was really good, but I ate too much and this hindered my drinking for a while, but I managed to get things back on track later in the evening. Ever the good support driver, Kyley regularly got more drinks in for the table and has already started trying to knock off fellow competitors, by supplying Ronnie Kelly (twice Parish Walk finisher) with copious amounts of Guinness. I did manage to get a bit of training in on the evening, as I dusted my dancing pants down and pulled off a few moves.

I was too busy on Saturday morning to have time to feel hung-over, so left that to Kyley. Had to go into work after lunch, so when I got home all I wanted to do was sit in front of the TV and do nothing. However, we had a friends' party to go to in Port St Mary, so no rest for the wicked. We had planned to get the bus down to avoid having to take the car and pick it up the following day, but we managed to miss it, so Kyley decided to drive. Had a really good time at the party and caught up with friends we hadn't seen for a while. The only problem was there was a lovely lady called Eileen who was serving drinks and as soon as you finished one, another ended up miraculously in your hand. We all decided that 'everyone needs an Eileen for Christmas!'

Fortunately, we didn't leave the party too late, as I was doing the 10k in the Winter Walking League at Ronaldsway today. It seemed such a good idea the night before, but at 8.30 this morning it was a very difficult decision to get out of bed. Anyway, I'm glad I did, as the conditions were perfect and I finished in a time of 53.08, which was 7 seconds off my PB. It was obviously the preparation! There were a number of excellent performances and PBs today, but the stand out performance was from 16 year old Alex Eaton who finished in just under 49 minutes, after a good battle with Michael George.

I'm now going to have that evening in front of the TV, starting with our favourite Xmas movie; Elf, accompanied by a late cooked breakfast!