In training

There's a reason my posts here have been somewhat short and sparse, and why I haven't been as good at keeping up with others' blogs as I would like - it's because as some of you know, new obsessions are taking up my time and energy lately.

I began researching the family tree, and that's a bit time-consuming to say the least, but is totally fascinating and will definitely inspire plenty of short stories in the future. The other day I found a newspaper article (online, via this site ) in which I read about how my great-great-great-grandfather's estranged wife was taken to court for non-payment of a baker's bill. She pleaded coverture - which I believe means as a married woman she tried to pass the debt off on to her husband. He was at the time shacked up with his house-keeper, who was my great-great-great-grandmother and the mother of all twelve of his children. (The wife got let off, by the way.) I'm completely hooked on this research.

And the other drain on my time is training. Somewhat foolishly a couple of months back I agreed to do a triathlon in early September. It's a sprint triathlon - the word sprint here refers to the short distances, not the speed at which I'll do it, you understand. It's 400m swim, 18km cycle ride, 5km run, in that order.

Now I've always been active but am not a naturally athletic type, so getting fit for this is no easy job. We're all taking part - hubby's the one who talked me into it, and the boys are both taking part in their age category events which are shorter distances.

Swimming's ok - it was always 'my' sport, though I have decided to do a nice breaststroke rather than knacker myself doing crawl. However good a swimmer you are you'll only save a few seconds or a minute or so over that distance by going faster. Better to concentrate on the other disciplines where you can make greater time savings.

Cycling's ok - well I used to cycle a lot as a student, and after an overhaul at the bike shop my road bike is in good condition and is a pleasure to ride after years of using a cheap mountain bike on days out with the kids. Never underestimate the joy of dropped handlebars, I always say.

And then there's running. Hmm. At school I was one of those kids who got shouted at for walking along the back straight during the 800m. We assumed the PE teacher was too short-sighted to see that we were walking, from the other side of the track. I had a brief fling with early-morning runs in my twenties, but anything which involves getting out of bed before I really have to is never going to last long with me. Plus we had no shower, only a bath, and after running I would lie in it too long and miss my train to work. Then I had kids and that put paid to any regular serious exercise for years. Well, till now, really.

So I've been going out for runs two or three times a week for the last couple of months, trying to build up. We are lucky living near the sea - we can run along the cliff top or the prom, and it's beautiful. Even in this hot weather it's not too bad by the sea, and I usually prefer to go in the evening when it's getting dark. We have two favourite runs - a 3.5km run going west on the cliff then back on the prom, and a 4.5km run going east on the cliff then back on the prom.

But running 5km, as I need to for the race, has been a bit of a mental block. I've never run 5km in my life before. This evening, hubby bullied me into doing 8km - the two regular runs linked together.

And I did it! Woo hoo! OK so I walked up the hill which leads up from the prom to the cliff top, but, hey, it's steep. Anyway my heart rate monitor barely registered a drop in heart rate walking up. I reckon if I'd tried to run up it would have called an ambulance for me. It feels like a huge hurdle overcome - if I can run 8km I should be able to run 5km, even after the swim and bike ride. Shouldn't I?

So if the blog's a bit quiet, with not much about writing for women's mags for the next couple of months you now know why. I'm either huffing and puffing along the prom, or peering at ancient wills trying to work out where all great-great-great-great-great-grandfather's money went.