Week 9 is not going at all to plan, but more of that later, because I'm going to have to have a teensy weensy little rant about birds. Not being a natural athlete and no longer in the first flush of youth, I sought loads of advice about running - what to do, what not to do, what to watch out for.  I even bought Matt's 'Get Running' book which neatly lists all of these things - buy the right shoes, wear the right clothes, eat the right foods, don't over train and try not to get run over (ok, I made that last one up but it should be at the top of the list!). But Matt, Matt ,Matt, Matt,Matt, you've let me down badly. Nowhere in your lovely book (that's the one with the hideous training schedule I'm trying to follow) do you tell me to watch out for the birds...
There was I bimbling along the tow path, a million miles away and not absorbing the fact that there was a bloody huge aviery in the offing, when two ,what I can only describe as small pterodactyl things decided to have a pterodactyl domestic at the top of their screeching avian voices, just as I was bimbling by.
Elevated heart rate? Damn near pitched headlong into the  canal I got such a bloody fright.

Note to self: mind out for the sodding birds