Hangovers, garden gnomes and running

Last weeks training:

Monday - Squash

Tuesday - 11km

Wednesday - 6km
Thursday - 11km

Friday - 6.5km

Saturday - none

Sunday - none

When I wrote the last blog I never for one second doubted that I would be able to stick to my plan of running lots of kilometers, minimal alcohol intake and no smoking. But as the week passed my plan slowly started to crumble, and by early Sunday morning when I woke up with hangovers from hell it was reduced to a joke.

"How did it go so wrong?" I ask myself on this dark and rainy Monday afternoon and "Can I fix it?".

My cooking duties at home means that I need to plan ahead an be really organized if I want to run in the evenings before dinner. Serving food later than 7pm in the Madsen mansion means that the kids gets restless and the consequent carnage is to be avoided at all costs. Conclusion: I need to get organized and prepare food before I go for my pre-dinner runs.

The smoking and drinking goes hand in hand. The solution to not smoking is easy: no drinking. And for the drinking part, well, here's what not to do:

- do not organize a to spend the night at the shooting club after the annual 4x4 competition

- do not convince yourself that you'll just have a few beers and then go to bed

- do not drink tequila before dinner

- do not drink tequila after dinner

- do not drink tequila the Zimbabwean way

- do not drink tequila

- and do not, under any circumstance, invite characters like Alex, Alex, Ole and Michael along!

Conclusion: Between now and the Kampala Marathon alcohol intake in the company of any other people than my wife is completely banned.

So there it is. No drinking, no smoking and organized cooking for the next 6 weeks. It's doable.

Hungover Madsen