**Disclaimer: I have a feeling that this selection of rants and raves may be more ranty than usual. As always, all moans and groans and rants and raves represent my own views and opinions. In other words, please don’t sue me! Dozens of far less negative running blogs are available. I’ve actually made a list of my favourite running blogs and will share them in a post**

As always, I’d like to start by saying Good morning/afternoon/evening to whoever takes the time to read my latest selection of rants and raves. I hope that you are all having a good week. As always, I’ve already waffled on far too much, so here is my latest selection of rants and raves.

Rave: Running

After experiencing what felt like the world’s most persistent knee injury, I was told that resting wasn’t helping and to start following a Couch to 5k type training plan. In other words, I needed to resist the temptation to run all the miles ASAP.

I’ve now completed week two of the Couch to 5k and fingers crossed, touch wood, etc my right knee seems to be coping. I still get the occasional twinge, mainly when I’m walking down the stairs at work, but when I’m running I don’t even notice my knee.

After years of injury problems, I’m not taking being able to run again for granted. I’m following the personalised recommendations that were given to me after I’d completed my detailed gait analysis. I’m also investing more time in strength and conditioning and cross-training. I don’t want to find myself back on the injury bench any time soon.

Rant: The never-ending lurgy

I know it’s only halfway through February but so far, 2020 could easily be described as the year of the lurgy. I was ill at the start of the year and, thanks to my suspect immune system, seem to pick up every cough and cold going. I don’t think travelling on four trains a day and hot-desking help. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be a solution so it’s just a case of getting on with it.

Last week, I completely lost my voice for four days. It made working quite tricky as a large part of my job involves me providing technical advice to others. Having to ignore phone calls and have ‘conversations’ by email was slightly tedious.

[Source]

Apologies if this rant has offended anyone who reads this. I know that I’m incredibly fortunate because I’m generally fit and healthy.

Rave: The Running Awards

Thanks again to everyone who voted for this running blog. I genuinely wasn’t expecting to make the final shortlist so I was pleasantly surprised when I found out that I’d made the shortlist.

I’ve seen my competition 😉 and know I have zero chance of making the top 3, partly because their blogs are amazing and partly because I have a small following on social media. The fact that I’m not prepared to spend a lot of time asking people to vote for me probably doesn’t help my cause.

If you enjoy reading my running blog, please consider voting for me here. Your support really does mean a lot to me.

Rant: ‘Tech Doping’

I wasn’t sure what to call this rant so I’ve gone with an expression I’ve seen used in quite a few articles; tech doping. I’m not going to write an essay, other people have already debated the subject in a lot of detail; I just wanted to share some articles I’ve read recently.

• Nike Says Its $250 Running Shoes Will Make You Run Much Faster. What if That’s Actually True?
• How the Nike Vaporfly War was Lost
• Springs-loaded: test-driving Nike’s Vaporfly running shoe   

There are dozens more articles out there and also tweets from international athletes who can see the damage these running shoes are doing. I can’t even begin to imagine how demoralising it must feel knowing you’ll be racing against a load of runners in these running shoes. It’ll be interesting to see if these running shoes have an impact on Good for Age standards.

I find it a little sad that people are so busy debating running shoes, there was very little coverage of Mondo Duplantis breaking the pole vault world record.

I’m not opposed to all technological advances, but I do occasionally wish we could go back a few years to when running shoes were white and the Runner’s. Yeah We’re Different advertising campaign.

Rave: Runners. Yeah We’re Different

Between 1998 and 2000 when I was in my running prime as a university undergraduate student, Adidas ran what has been described as a memorable advertising campaign; Runners. Yeah We’re Different. I used to spend a fortune subscribing to Runner’s World magazine and can remember the adverts. Several of the adverts have been made available on this site and more information about the campaign is available here.

What became known as the ‘tree advert’ was my personal favourite.

[Source]

And as disclosure matters, I’ve been on lookout duty a few times but *touch wood* have never needed to make an emergency pit stop, yet!

Rant: The Weather

The weather recently could only be described as disappointing. However, this rant isn’t about the weather, I mean let’s face it; there’s not much we can do about the weather. People tried to control the weather years ago and their attempts weren’t very successful. No, this rant is about all the people I’ve seen complaining about their local parkruns being cancelled due to the strong wind, heavy rain, flooding, etc.

[Source]

I get that having to wait a week for the next opportunity to head to your local parkrun is disappointing. I get that Saturday mornings aren’t the same without parkrun. Spare a thought for the Core Team and volunteers. Please don’t leave snarky comments on local event pages. In other words, don’t be a dick!

Rave: influencersinthewild

I’m not a huge fan of the term ‘influencer’. I must be getting old but I personally find doctors, nurses, and scientists etc influential, not people who have a large following on social media. Sorry!

I can’t remember who it was who shared a post from influencersinthewild on Instagram but thank-you. If you don’t already follow the account on Instagram, I’d recommend that you do. Some people clearly have no shame or awareness of their surroundings. It’s actually quite frightening. The account has grown from zero to over 1.5 million followers in less than a month so a lot of people seem to feel the same way I do.

Once again, if you made it to the end of my latest rather random selection of rants and raves, thank you! As always, I hope that my rants were reasonable and I haven’t offended anyone.

What do you think of the expression ‘influencer’? I really hope that I’m not the only person who really struggles with the concept of online influencers.

What is the most you’d spend on a pair of running shoes? I can’t get over how expensive some running shoes are getting.

---