Run Bruce Run: Oh brother, where art thou?

Guess how much weight I have put on over the last seven days? Give up? Quitter! I will share this fascinating information with you. 7lbs. That's right half a stone in old money! I have to say, its amazing how much tighter a brand new shirt felt on me by the end of yesterday.

Give me ten days I reckon and it will be gone. Will keep you posted.

Apart from 'some' beers, plenty of excellent wine and large amounts of food I have taken in a few exercise sessions. Firstly, on Saturday the 23rd after a rather boozy session in London with my two big Brothers I got out for a thrash on the Mountain bike and bloody enjoyable it was too. Really cleared the head and reduced my anxieties about getting drunk again that coming evening. Which I did and bloody enjoyable that was too.

The Morning of Christmas Eve had me feeling less than sharp but I knew a huge roast dinner was planned at my aunts house that lunchtime so I had to get out for a some exercise. A short but hard run was the order of the day and I opted for my hilly 10k course and I was revved up for it. So much so that I ran another Personal Best. 41minutes 45 seconds. Over a minute quicker than my previous best. Rock on. Roll on the roast beef.......guilt free roast beef thanks to the run. A few short hours after this saw some friends and I once again consume enough alcohol to sedate a family of gorillas.

Christmas morn was a real pleasure. Its not often that all three Brothers wake up in the same house and even less common for all of us to have our Mountain Bikes in the garage ready for a little fresh air. So, after completing the Christmas Morning ritual of smoked salmon and scrambled eggs we exchanged some great gifts and headed out in to the country side. My eldest Brother and I are very familiar with the route we took and we proceeded to show my city dwelling middle brother the great outdoors. Oh yes! We were mightily impressive in our guidance.....until eldest brother who was in third place could be heard taking a rather large fall. We cycled back round the corner and all I could see were two legs poking up out of a ditch like a pair of bunny ears. Possibly one of the funniest things I have ever seen (see picture) and because of the way he had come to rest i.e head pointing down slope, he struggled to flip him self over. Much like a turtle floundering on its upturned shell!

Rather poor photography skills on my part though, I rushed back to get a picture and dumped my bike next to him. Naturally I wanted capture the bunny ear moment and headed back round the path to capture the shot. Like a nugget I left my bike in the way. I redeemed my self though..........On the way back home I really raised the bar in terms of high speed accidents. Sprinting down a rather steep slope I managed to get a bit of course and this piled me into a hedgerow and dumped me into a ditch witch, rather annoyingly was filled with freezing cold water. During the crash I managed to bang my head on the floor and I experienced the rather odd sensation of my neck being forced some way past the normal range of movement. This hurt, I was worried that I might of done something rather serious. However, the freezing cold water that I was now sitting in was enough to make me jump up and sort my self out. Oh yes, we really showed that lazy city dweller how to tackle the Essex countryside. In fact, Stuart (middle brother) was the only one of us not to fall off! He always was the smart one.

Any way, that is it in terms of exercise for me over the xmas period. To summarise: two bike rides of approx an hour and a half and one 10k run.