A Day Early

I’m not sure if you get an e-mail or something, when I upload the next installment of my fascinating life (?) but if you do then I don’t want you to get too excited because this is essentially a day early.  I usually knock something out on a Thursday, generally because, like every office in the world I suspect, mine goes very quiet at the end of the week, as various people find excuses to drift off early, or not come in at all for that matter.

Well, tomorrow I will be one of those people.  I’m going to a big company meeting/ gathering/ presentation thingy.  The CEO of the contract I’m working on is giving a presentation about something and we’re all invited.  There’s a bit more to it than that but there’s a free lunch and a raffle for people who turn up and register before he kicks off at 10 (the more cynical amongst you will simply assume that previous efforts have been so boring, or so long winded, or so pointless, or all three, that they now have to offer incentives just to get people to turn up…… the fact they are having it on a Thursday morning, with lunch also effectively means that the day is a write-off and therefore the end of the week is the end of today…….. It’s why I’m going anyway !)

So, the reason you’re getting your dose of dross a day early is because I’m going to Dubai tomorrow night and therefore to have an excuse to travel halfway there, leave early, and get a free lunch, was too good to miss !

I thought you’d appreciate that.

Don’t forget that I might have to do some work as well – it’s not all plain sailing you know !  (besides, if I go to the office after the free lunch then I can chastise all those who haven’t shown the proper commitment to the CEOs initiative, and been “too busy to go” as well as asking pointed questions about those that were  at the presentation but who haven’t gone back to the office, thinking that they could get away with going shopping or knocking off early to beat the traffic back to Dubai – shameful behavior !  I can then go to the off-license on the way to Dubai whilst feeling smug all the way back to Julian’s !)

Anyway, the long and short of it is – you’re getting this a day early because I’ll be far too busy tomorrow to have time to entertain you lot !

On a slightly related note (entertaining you lot) – I’m sure that you’ll all be glad to know that I spent yesterday in quite a lot of pain.

After my last blog (you may have worked out that I was a little peeved when I wrote it ……) you may or may have worked out that I had done quite a lot of exercise at the weekend and was feeling quite bullish about it – well I went for a swim on Sunday night (which takes most of the pressure off my legs) and then a run on Monday.  I have been adding a bit to my runs every week, and Monday night was due to be 14km, and as always I set off with the intention of listening to my body and changing to plan B if necessary.  The plan was to run 7k around the camel track (a full circuit is 8.3k) and turn and come back to complete the other 7k.  This gave me a get-out if I didn’t feel too clever as it was easy to continue around, complete 8.3k and pack up without losing face (so to speak !).  Well, even before I set out my legs felt heavy so I was already expecting to find an excuse to kick it into touch early and as I got to the 7km mark I was running OK, but my left Achilles was starting to argue with me.  It had been stroppy for a couple of k but as we got to 7k I decided that it was clearly making enough noise that something must be wrong.  So I carried on instead of turning around.

What happened after that is a bit of a mystery – well, what happened isn’t a mystery (I kept running, having used a few minutes of boredom to work out how far 8.3k I would need to run in order to turn around and come back to complete 14km……..), why I did it is the mystery !

I’m not entirely sure what was keeping me going (I had plenty of energy and all the other bits of my body weren’t complaining any more than usual) because my Achilles was by now screaming at me to stop.  To cut a fairly boring story short, I finished, stretched and didn’t feel too bad but as the evening went on, after I had had a shower and some dinner (I had wrapped my ankle with a bag of ice and some clingfilm) , things started to stiffen up.  So a bit of Deep Heat and early to bed and everything was fine.

I was also fine when I woke up in the morning – right up until the point when I swung my legs out of bed in the morning and stood up……… or more precisely, tried to stand up.  The pain shot up through my leg and out of the top of my head (well, that’s what it felt like anyway…..). 

Ok, 36 hours later, no exercise (apart from a bit of hobbling around) and I seem to be winning – the Achilles has reached “a bit stiff” but no longer painful (I’m sure you’ll all be terribly glad to know) and I’m going for a swim tonight.  I’m mostly going for a swim tonight as it’s relatively unlikely that I will do anything that looks remotely like exercise all weekend (unless Keira Knightly turns up in my room early on Friday morning, with a coffee obviously, otherwise I’ll have to send her away again !).

As I intimated earlier in the week, I’m off to Dubai tomorrow and it’s my first night out since Christmas I think (I mean proper night out – starting at lunchtime……. I had some when my family came to stay but they don’t count !).  I’m staying at Julians which means pool and curry/ pizza/ beer/ wine/ Cheetoes on Thursday night, and then he’s going off to play golf on Friday morning and I’m going to lay in bed and do as little as possible, then maybe go and have a coffee with a work colleague or maybe with another UK friend who has now moved in over here, and then it’s off for a veritable meat feast of a brunch as part of one of his mates “stag weekend”.  Personally I can’t see it running much past “drinking as much as you can for a fixed price” between 12 and 4 but you never know !  The rest of Friday is likely to be a bit of a blur and then I have some bloke shopping to do on Saturday morning, and then off to AD to a BBQ (it’s going to be predominantly South African, and they call it a Braai……. But it’s a BBQ really…… bless our colonial cousins !).

If I survive all that then it’ll be back to the sand for an assessment of current fitness levels (which will probably involve falling face own onto the bed) ready for another working week !

The only real worry this week was that because I could hardly walk on Tuesday, I sacked my usual visit to Yas Marina circuit for some bike laps – this is a bit of a worry following my declaration for this stupid 12hr endurance race as I was planning to get as many laps in between now and the end of March as possible (just to get the tender parts of my body toughened up, you understand.

Anyway, part of the bloke shopping on Saturday morning is to get some more comfortable (for comfortable, read “padded”) cycling shorts – I think this is likely to be essential in the great scheme of things, and along with a couple of other cycling related shopping items, forms the bulk of my shopping expedition on Saturday morning, along with gels, pumps and another water bottle holder.

Right, I have to get on and do something useful now (swim, pack and eat !) and then to bed – have a lovely weekend and keep your fingers crossed for me on all fronts (I don’t go to Dubai very often now and the whole weekend is loaded up with jobs !)