Running on empty

Tomorrow will see the running of the 24th Leeds Abbey Dash and, yes, I'm in it.

It'll be the fifth time I've shuffled to the start line for the annual trundle from the centre of Leeds out to Kirkstall Abbey and back and I don't think I've been so ill-prepared as I am this year. Needless to say, it's all Jamie's fault - well, almost all.

I first hurt my back playing rugby when I was 14 and have had problems with it on and off ever since. I've also had all sorts of treatment from acupuncture to heat lamps to ultra sound.

The most impressive remedy I received was three and a half years ago when I damaged a vertebrae on my stag weekend (long story, but it involved me involuntarily flying through the air in a go-kart).

I was OK for the first 36 hours but, after a good night's sleep, I woke up and couldn't get out of bed. I stayed there for a day before Vanessa shoe-horned me into our Clio and took me to a chiropractor.

Until that point in my life, I had never even heard of a chiropractor never mind know what they did. (I would perhaps now best describe them as as osteopath in a very bad temper). I went into the room and, after a bit of poking, prodding, cracking and snapping, my particular chiropractor warned that he thought there was a very real danger I would be going up the aisle ten days later in a wheelchair.

Thankfully, three treatments and £100 later, I was fine to make the journey unaided.

I've had little trouble since, well, until Jamie arrived that is. But, after a couple of months of bending, lifting and carrying, I began to feel pain in my lower back once again and, despite being ultra careful, it's still there and has now reached my leg.

This has seriously affected my normally strict training regime (!) meaning that I've only actually been running once in the last three weeks. But I've literally bought my tee shirt for tomorrow, got my number and I'm going to do it, come hail or snow (and both are forecast).

None of this bodes particularly well for my planned running of next year's London Marathon but, hey ho, we'll cross Tower Bridge when we come to it.

By the way, I hope you like the pic - not my work, but that of my good friend and sitcom co-writer Ben. (I told you he was clever).