Eat my monkeydust

Last week I added Google analytics to elephpants.com just to see what kind of a response it would get.

The site has no content, other than a lovely picture of Elefina, and as far as I know it’s only linked from this blog, although I only added that link a couple of days ago.

Already the site has had hits from Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur), Brazil (Rio de Janeiro), the US (Mountain View, California) and Germany (Bonn).

Google analytics tells me that one person came as a click from this site, and three from Google after a search for “Elephpants” – which kinda makes sense.

If you are responsible for any of those clicks, please do let me know – as I am intrigued as to what makes people “click”.

Feeling sorry for myself

Next year I turn 30, and with that I look back at my 20s and wonder about all the promises, hopes and goals I had set myself. What were they? Did I achieve any of them? Are they too late to salvage?

All in all, I’m in a good place now – despite the Irritible Bowel Syndrome which has set new eating challenges for me, and cooking challenges for my better half, I am fit and healthy. I am in a well paid job that I enjoy, I live in a beautiful country with new and exciting adventures, I have embraced new sports (volleyball, skiing, snowboarding) and my technical development is on a rapid upward slope.

However, and here’s the thing… What happened to all the dreams about climbing E10s, winning orienteering competitions, completing marathons in under 3 hours, being as fit and strong as I can be? The truth is, I slacked off. My strongest climbing years were over 5 years ago – at the time I thought I was on the up, but really I was hitting the peak (excuse the pun).  My best running was over 2 years ago – again, I thought it was the start of my climb to triathlons, marathons, ultra-marathons, iron man! In reality it was the best I could do without much effort – and my lack of effort since has of course meant that if anything I’ve become worse.

The year of the runner

It’s time to “catch up”.

After 6 years of trying, I have my guaranteed place for the Flora London Marathon, and if I’m training for that, why not a few more? So here’s the list so far:

• 15th March – London (Silverstone) half marathon. The perfect time to run a half marathon in the lead up to the full marathon.
• 9th – 13th April - Jan Kjellström International Orienteering Festival. I missed this last year, only two weeks before London so I’ll have to be careful not to overdo it. (maybe just run the short courses)
• 26th April – The Flora London Marathon. This is the big one, what it is all about. I Have been waiting for this for years!
• 16th May – The Gothenberg half marathon
• 20th June – The Midnight Sun marathon (Tromsø, way up North in Norway)
• 24th October – Blodslitet (Literally “blood exhaustion” – or maybe for fun “bloody knackered!”)

I’ll come right out now and say that I’m hoping for good results – I don’t just want to get round these races, I would like to be hitting 1:45 or less for the half marathons and 3:40 for the full ones – although with the crowds and atmosphere at the FLM I think I’ll be happy with anything under 4:00. Silverstone will be the marker – it will decide my pace for the races to come. Depending how the training goes in the next couple of months, I hope these targets get even lower.

So if you see a very tall, thin shape pounding the streets of Oslo in the near future wearing some ridiculous streamlined, dayglo running gear – that will hopefully be me. If you don’t, please feel free to kick me, spam me, throw things at me and remind me that if I don’t train, I’m a loser.