Back in training

Usually I come back off holiday refreshed and raring to go but unfortunately my break was quite a test as the boys did not sleep well during our stay in Richmond/Twickenham. I think Sara and I averaged about four and a half hours sleep a night.

I had committed myself to not going running and concentrating on looking after my boys and my nieces despite being near the beautiful Marble Hill Park, so I had not been running for almost two weeks.
I was really looking forward to the gym today and doing a 10km session on the treadmill but yesterday I stood on a shard of glass at the Riverside Festival in Leicester, which went through my trainer and punctured my foot.
I scrapped my gym plans and it felt pretty sore walking to work today.
I'm not going to run tomorrow, I might make it out for a road run on Thursday. It is all hugely frustrating.
Before my holiday I achieved a PB for 5km of just under 24 minutes. I now feel less confident about doing it again soon.
I have read conflicting reports of how quickly we lose fitness, but I'm guessing with a sore foot and at least 16 days without training it's going to take a while to get back to where I was.
I'm really finding running a psychological test as well as a physical one. To that end I'm really surprised how much the activity has got its hooks in me.
Last week I decided to blog more, mainly about my progress so I could keep a diary, and follow a running challenge between now and my next holiday in eight weeks time, in order to improve my speed and lose some more weight.
It hasn't started well, but on the plus side, things can only get better!

Twins update

It's been more than a year since I last blogged. This is largely because life with twins doesn't slow down.
The challenges change and I'd be the first to admit life with two boys aged nearly two years old is far more interesting and rewarding than life was at the start when the main aim was to keep them clean, fed and alive.
I wrote an article for the Leicester Mercury -
http://tinyurl.com/6hx8yce - about my first year as a dad, choosing to look at the big numbers involved rather than a wistful look back.
It's almost a year since I wrote that article and life hasn't been as simple as taking last year's numbers and doubling them. Some things have gone - babygros and formula milk - and some new things have been introduced like wellies and a child-proofed house.
The boys are now walking, saying their first words, eating us out of house and home and sleeping in little beds and no longer in cots.
This development has proved to be a huge transition and, at the start, quite stressful as two little boys run riot around their bedroom, enjoying a new found freedom.
Things are settling down with that now thankfully.
During the day we are are having to find more and more activities to keep them occupied too, often heading to Leicester's play parks and watching them tackle the slide and giving them a push on the swings.
It may sound like hard work but it's far better than being stranded at home with them all day, so we are making the most of the good weather and getting out.
The rewards during this time have been seeing their confidence grow as they walk and climb, hearing their new words, which seem to come daily, and seeing the interaction between the two brothers.
Socially, Sara and I feel able to go out together a little more, and in the next couple of weeks I'm heading to Berlin again to watch my beloved Hertha play - the third time since the boys were born so I can't complain. I've even escaped to watch Leicester City a couple of times but yet to make it back to Sincil Bank to cheer on the Imps.
So the twins update as they approach their second birthday is that they are still hard work but life is suddenly very rewarding.