Saturday 25 July. Time to act.

For the last 7 months I've been working in a job that demanded everything. This meant running once or twice a week if I was lucky, working weekends and evenings and being constantly tired, stressed and pre-occupied. It was a very senior job which paid very well, but it really was not for me, despite the fact I was doing a good job. No balance and no culture that respected the need for balance. I was young for the role, the youngest Head of Service by some distance I think and had a lot to prove, or so it felt. THere was also zero organisational support, apart from within my talented team.

My employer made a huge miscalulation and realised they needed to lose serious headcount some short months after setting up. A voluntary redundancy scheme was launched and I had 11 years service to cash in. I thought long and hard and decided to go for it. I'm glad I did because my role then became under serious threat. They agreed to let me and go and now i've got two months 'gardening leave' and then a decent payoff after that.

Whilst the priority is to find a career i can enjoy, the fellrunner in me sees this time as a great chance to train and achive something during the winter. I've been robbed of so much running, fitness and contentment this year so it's time to redress the balance. A winter round is just the ticket, and where better than my beloved Lake District?

I did the BGR in summer 2007 (the 1363rd person in the BGR club) and just loved it, and the preparation for it. I would like to tackle the Welsh and Scottish rounds someday, but this window points to winter and I know the BGR so very well. It might also prepare for those other rounds in spring/summer 2010...?

So this blog will chronicle the build up from a pretty low level of fitness and a fuzzy state of mind to a chilly, murky, focussed and fantastic day out in December.

Writing a blog was a real help to me in 2007 - it helped me get out the door for a start on those days I just couldn't be arsed. It also helped others who did the round so that would be a nice thing to repeat. Given that I'm down with the kids, i'll be using twitter to log each run and the blog to assess where i'm up to and to capture anything else of note. The twitter will also i don't spend ages racking my brain each weekend trying to remember what I did on the previous Monday :)