Not that I am referring to myself as a witch, I hasten to add, but as we gallop headlong towards November, and my morning trips to the gym are in the wind, rain and never ending darkness, I thought it was a pretty apt image to include!

October was a weird month – after finally completing a part time diploma, it was like all my resources had deserted me for sunnier climes.

I got hit with a cold bug that seemed to be doing all the rounds of offices – which would be fine, except I work from home most of the time!

I did at least try and keep going with stretches, while keeping a well-known tissue-brand with balsamated tissues in business, but I was itching to get back to it.

But thank heavens for friends who are personal trainers! Because I was all gung-ho about what I intended to do the next week, and she gave me a bit of a reality check!

So… a quick adjustment to my plans – instead of launching myself straight back to where I was before I got ill, I picked the lightest of the three sessions I do, and just built up slowly from that.

In the last two weeks of October, it meant I could get myself up to my target speed on the treadmill.

The only real casualty of my cold was my hopes of starting some of the C25K (Couch to 5km training plan). This will have to wait.

But the sessions I have been doing I like to call “Mini-Tri… with pampering”!

It consists of Walk/Run/Walk on the tready, ignoring my indignant quads on the spin-cycle, and then a bit of a splash in the pool with 5 minutes each in the Steam Room and Sauna.

As a former hurdler, all I had to worry about was not clouting bits of wood and metal. In the pool, however, I resemble a blind seal, generally flailing about for a mere smattering of lengths until I can go collapse and bake in a moderately heated sauna, before leaving to stand in a shower for 10 minutes.

Psychologically, I wanted to get to at least 14-15 minutes of the combined walk and jog on the treadmill, before I started deconstructing the C25K sessions for a bit of variety.

In even this short space of time, I have seen that once my body gets wise to the sessions, and the duration, weight loss plateaus slightly. That is not necessarily an issue for me – I view this as a marathon more than a sprint… which is a little ironic given my previous events!

So that’s been October. Next time – it’s all about the perils of tennis in the dark!

Till then…