I seem to be recovering now. Hopefully I’ll be back out and running soon, probably on Wednesday. Catch you then!

One of the things he talks about is how to pay attention to your body; how to listen to those early, gentle aches and pains that mean you should back off for a day or so, instead of pressing on and turning the ache into a pain and then into something more serious.

So, seeing as my thighs have been aching quite a lot since Sunday’s run — not surprising, as it’s the most hill I’ve ever climbed — I left an extra day, and tried to do a pretty minimal run tonight.

And I’m glad I did, because even the slow 4K was quite a slog, and my right hamstring did whinge a bit at me. Nothing serious, but I’m going to take the advice in the book — otherwise there wasn’t much point in me buying it! — and take another couple of days off, and then go out for something on Saturday and see how I feel.

If I feel good, I’ll do the normal weekend around-the-Downs run. If I don’t, I’ll cut it shorter.

Still, really enjoyed the 8K in the woods on Sunday, and it’s good to open up another longer, hilly route that goes through greenery and ends up at a café!

Well, turns out I’m actually crazy. Crazy like those weirdos who go out running when they’re ill and tell you that it actually helps.

Because it helped. Not only did it help, but in some ways, the illness seemed to help the running, too. My lack of concentration made me a bit forgetful. I forgot I was thinking of limiting myself to 5K max, I forgot I was going to stick to a flat route, and at one point I forgot about having a stitch so successfully that ten minutes later I thought, “Oh! Hang on, wasn’t I worrying about a stitch? Where did that go, then?”

I went out along the towpath where I started all this running malarkey. I figured it was flat, and more pleasant in the daylight than the boring old A4. Only I didn’t actually turn around at my halfway point, because I’d not really figured out where my halfway point was going to be.

So I ended up at the far entrance to Leigh Woods, a lovely little area of forest on the other side of the Avon Gorge. I used to do a walking route through these woods every weekend, so I figured I’d just follow that, despite it being a bit hilly.

When I say “a bit hilly”, according to the RunKeeper log and map, the middle of my route through the woods maxes out at about 100m higher up than when I started. RunKeeper reckons I climbed 147m overall, including the undulations here and there.

My run ended up with me crossing the Suspension Bridge — for the first time, while jogging — and that’s today’s picture; the view from the Bridge down toward Hotwells, where I live.

And it also turned out a bit longer than I figured, at 8.23km. Not bad for someone who was so tired he didn’t get dressed until about 2pm.

Mind you, I’m knackered now, and while the run seemed to make me forget about being ill for a few hours, I can feel my nose starting to clog up and I’m sneezing again, so I reckon it was only a temporary respite.

Still, at least it’s eased the I’m-not-running guilt, and that should last a couple of days, anyway!

Not sure if I’m going, though. I seem to be ill with some cold-y thing that’s sapping my energy. I just slept for ten hours, got up, had breakfast, coffee and Lemsip, and I still don’t feel like I want to do anything.

I know that running can actually make you feel better when you’re ill, but I’ve never really had that get-up-and-go attitude to illness. Not like my friend Chris, for example. I tend to prefer to get underneath a quilt and watch episodes of Columbo until I’m feeling better, then gradually ease my way back into the world.

Maybe there’s a compromise here. This is a weekend, and I would normally be getting out there right about now, planning to do 7K or more. Maybe I’ll leave it to later, see how I feel, and perhaps get out and do 5K or less (or fewer? Hmm. Grammar advice welcome.)

We shall see. Either way, I think the important thing is probably to make the decision, and stick to it, without feeling guilty if the decision happens to be “cling to a quilt while semi-consciously watching a rumpled detective asking people one more question.”

And I’m absolutely not kidding, by the way. Columbo is on at quarter to two on ITV today, if you’re interested…