Busy Month - pre- marathon

26/04/2012 - It's been a busy month (a wedding, buying a new car, selling my old car and a unintentional bank robbery, and it's really impacted on my training so I'm even more unprepared for the marathon than I had wished to be. Coupled with an injury to the right foot done in Karate I'm in agony by the time I'm into double figure running. Still I intend to give it a shot even if I have to bail out half way through.

OK so what's gone on then. Well first was the wedding. My nephew was getting married in Scotland at the start of the month so I took a couple of days off work and my family and I flew up there. We were booked into a lovely hotel and our room, a split level affair overlooking the bay, was very comfortable.

The room balcony - Crack open the Champagne

Tired from the journey we chilled, did a little exploring, and chatted to some of our extended family who had arrived on the same day. So a nice meal in the restaurant that evening and it was an early night for us all. After a very comfy nights sleep we had breakfast and explored the local area - lovely and quiet. I then popped of to the gym and did a quick 30 minutes on the tread mill and had a go on the machines my wife and daughter went for a swim. Then in a repeat of the previous day it was a meal and an early night as the next day was wedding day.

So the next day all dressed up we head off to the wedding. Not much to say other than it was lovely and we enjoyed ourselves, me snapping away with the camera while my wife looked on embarrassed. We drank and had fun well into the night until we staggered off to bed knackered.

So the wedding was nice and having flew home my thoughts turned back to the MK marathon. So I went out and did an 18 mile run - not good. By mile 15 the foot was agony every time I landed on it and for the last 3 mile I was running in a sort of hobbled gait. Also I was getting seriously fed up with long runs and being out for hours on end. I was starting to not enjoy my running which is an issue.

Anyway to cheer myself up a bit I'd been discussing buying a new car and the time had come to start putting things into effect. I was in no rush so I organised the finance and set about searching for my perfect car. OK my perfect car would be an Aston Martin DB9 but you know what I mean. Anyway I had decided on a Ford Mondeo. Then after a day in London having fun with the cars at Car Giant I changed my mind and decided I preferred the Vauxhall Insignia. I had hired one while up in Scotland for the wedding so I knew what they were like to drive. I did not buy there though so came home and went on the Internet and lo and behold there's the perfect car only 2 miles down the road. So a quick call, a visit, the negotiation, the gathering of funds and the car is now mine.

Half leather seat - lovely

Then on the same day I manage to sell my old car - a double whammy.

So what's this about a bank robbery? I hear you ask. Well I popped into a small local bank to arrange a large withdrawal of cash for the car purchase. Only gave them a last name with she used over the phone to arrange with a large branch. Popped into the larger branch and went up to the young lady at the desk. "I've arranged to collect a cash withdrawal." I said and she asked for my debit card and wondered off. She came back with an envelop of cash with my name on it - only it wasn't because they'd got it wrong. We had a laugh about that and she got me to pop my pin into one of those little pin checker things and said yes that's fine and gave me the money. I left and it was some time later I realised that I had not seen her - or anyone - put anything into a computer. No I was not paying that much attention but something just felt wrong. It felt like I'd walked in and asked for money and they'd just gave me it.

I checked my transaction online and sure enough there was no record of the transaction being done - hmmm. I spoke to my wife who said give it 24 hours to see if it comes through. I decided to do that and if it didn't to call the bank - no way I wanted to appear on Crimewatch. The afternoon of following day before I have a chance to call the bank my phone rings and it's the manager of the bank "doing a survey" lol. It was so obvious what she needed to know and indeed we got onto what sort of transaction I'd done, what time and how much etc. Once completed I had a laugh and funnily enough a little later the money exited from my account.

So interesting few days and now it's the marathon this weekend - I'll report back on how it went.