It’s been a while. I’ve been running. A bit. I’ve been swimming more, but now the summer hols are here, it’s a fortunate day when I find time for either.

I don’t love running in the hot weather so if it’s over 20 degrees that’s an automatic pass. Having said that, I’ve had some lovely runs, and for weeks I have had absolutely no pain at all. I suspect that swimming helps, and not running so much also helps. Finally I’ve found the secret: run less, stress about it less, enjoy it when you do it. Perhaps I needed to have established a foundation of actually being able to run whenever I want to, to crack that secret.

In Wales last week, I ran 3.2 miles barefoot along the shore of Oxwich Bay. Bloody lovely. Barefoot was an interesting experience and if I had 3 miles of beach at my disposal I’d do it all the time. I’d just finished reading Christopher McDougall’s Born To Run, which helped.

I’m really looking forward to the start of term, though, so I can get back into swimming again.