Great Gorilla Run

The eagle-eyed amongst you will have spotted there was no post last week (though I did end up in the Guardian again). I seem to have acquired some kind of tendon or ligament injury to my right foot during the Marathon du Médoc that is taking ages to get better - it was so bad last week that I was worried it was a stress fracture (props to all those I bored with my whinging) but it has gradually got a bit better over the last few days. So instead of running, I spent my time watching the Wire - now half way through Season 3. That and eating. I've been to Olivomare with my mum (great), Franco Manca with Lotte, Harriet and Ben (just about lives up to the hype), Haozhan with Catherine (poor), Chisou with Nick, Dom and Rob (great) and the C&R Cafe (with a bunch of the Caius lot) in the last 10 days. Normally I get away with this kind of behaviour but I've not been running because of the foot. I am now massive.

And so to today. Obviously, I didn't want to go on too long a run. I wanted more of a short-ish test to see if my foot was OK. Luckily, I'd entered the Great Gorilla Run, a gentle 4.5-mile meander that started walking distance from my flat. I thus found myself putting on an animal suit for the second time in two weeks and wandering down to Mincing Lane for the start at 10.30am, generating the odd admiring glance. Come the race, obviously, the distance wasn't a problem but it was still a tough run because of my new-found furriness. I thought I'd leave my costume fully on the whole way round and ended up very wet indeed. I was expecting to be pretty moist but two unforeseen problems arose - the condensation inside my head/mask (not pleasant) and I also noticed (about half way round) that my hands/gloves were watertight and slowly filling up with sweat. Not at all pleasant. The event itself was obviously hilarious and it was nice to bump into Richard P at the end, an old friend from school and college.

My foot now hurts again. Hardly unexpected but... bugger.