THE FIRST CUT IS THE DEEPEST

I suppose it's only natural to try to blank out trauma we experience in life. Certainly events which  happened
over 40 years ago do not emerge on a daily basis; but ,of course, reminders do occur and prompt thoughts of if only....?! One of the tracks which came through the headphones during Friday's jog on the grass was KAISER CHIEF'S "Saturday Night" on CD Employment in they sing "Pneumothorax is a word that is long. They're just trying to put the punk back into punctured lung"

It reminded me that  this month 40 years ago I started running again after bilateral lung surgery to bring to an end a series of collapsed lungs I'd suffered and prevent future reoccurences. The surgery was successful.

Before the trauma of the surgery in 1969 could be buried again I turned the pages in this morning's paper only to read the heading, "Why young, fit, tall men are more likely to have a collapsed lung"  Just what I needed to read about.  But I did and the conclusions were pretty much as they were in 1969.  Body type.
I always say if we were meant to have surgery we would have had zips fitted!

So the run that followed was naturally reflective. As always I came to the conclusion that life at times deals us bad cards and we have to deal with them. Without that series of pneumothorax I may well have achieved more successs running wise but would possibly  still be teaching, possibly down south. As it was I switched my degree course to Leeds, taught in the north, started the running business  and still feel I've had a pretty good running career. Still it does make you think what if.....?!

In this reflective mode the first two miles of today's run from Silsden were as cautious as normal (9.24 and 9.22) feeling how the old legs were after yesterday's track session. But once I hit the canal the pace picked up nicely throughout the 11.5 miles.

8.49    8.41    8.33    8.36    8.18    8.12    8.23   8.27    8.02    4.02

    I regard "steady" pace as about 1.30 above race pace. So anything around 8.30 would be acceptable and this was certainly achieved with 8.33 overall; faster taking out the first  2 warm up miles.
    Reviewing the week, all has gone to plan.  Ran everyday, managed a longish run today, 2 track sessions, a tough up hill run and over the 50 mile target with 51 in total.