Look at the muck on 'ere!

These trainers used to be white.

You can still see some white bits on them but their predominant colour is now 'Dried South London Mud' . I believe Fired Earth may be considering this colour for their new Spring paint range.

Sock Monkey has spent the last 9 weeks running around Crystal Palace with my personal trainer. There is a lot of mud around here right now. Particularly in the forest. Actually I really like running around the forest in the evening, its quite exciting. Kristian meets me at my flat then we take a brisk walk up the hill to the park then start our run.

My favourite run is from the train station across where the Crystal Palace used to be, past all the broken down statues and sphinxes, there's a gap in the fence there so we nip through (under the shadow of the transmitter tower - we are so close to it its really creepy and spine-tingling), past the caravan park and down the road into the forest. Then we run through the forest, loop back up a long hill, through the park again and finish off back at the train station.

A variation of this is when we run through Dulwich past the college. There's another bloody hill involved in this route too. Then he makes me do circuit. Another route is the perimeter of the park. Last night we ran in the forest and covered 4.5 miles by the time we got back to my flat.

I've been really enjoying this (except a: the night he made me do 60 lunges before making me do a 3 mile run - my legs were jellified before we started running and b: the night it was uphill all the way). Last week he made me do an entire hour of circuit instead of running at all. I did 50 sit-ups that night as well as the other 9 exercises. My favourite bit of the circuit training is the boxing.

Next week is my last session with him. Its been great fun and I feel brilliant. Even after the 6o-Lunge-Episode where I couldn't walk down stairs properly for a week afterwards. Although it cost loads its the best money I've spent in ages (money spent on long haul flights excluded). Apparently my hamstring area is very defined now (will have to take P's word for it as, what with me not having the neck rotation of an owl, I can't see it) and my lower back feels really strong.

Now I just have to keep up the momentum for my sponsored 5k run in June. It would be a massive waste of money, time and effort to get all fit and then sit on my arse watching tv and festering.