ON THE SHOW TOMORROW!

Katie Waissel – We’ll have former X Factor contestant Katie Waissel on the show tomorrow morning!! Find out what she’s really like when we put her through her paces with our usual Fully Charged interrogation.

It’s FRIDAY!! Holy hole in a donut Batman, 4 day weeks are totes amazeballs!! And to treat you for the day that’s in it we’ll be breaking out my new (second hand) 5ive albums that Tracy got me for Christmas for Five Day!! Allllllll-right!

Pop Bitch - There’s another chance to take Tracy on in a game of Pop Bitch tomorrow morning just after 8 O’Clock. It went down to a tie-break on Wednesday (which was Santa Baby because we forgot to change it!) and if you think you can go all the way tomorrow then tune in just after 8 for your chance to play.

Fully Charged with Ryan Phillips and Tracy Clifford is back on the radio tomorrow morning from 6.45am, only on the Most Music Station, Spin1038, Dublin

ON THE SHOW TOMORROW

Smarty Pants – Alan is our current Smarty Pants. He’s won €100 so far and he’s back tomorrow just after 8 looking for another €50, the greedy git! We’ve got a load of general knowledge questions for you, and the more questions you answer and the longer you stay on, the more cash you can win! Smashing!! Tune in for a qualifying question to play!

JLS - We’re continuing our look back at our favourite interviews of 2010 (we had Enrique Iglasias today) tomorrow morning at 9 with the boys from JLS. We’ve caught up with them a few times this year, but the last time they came in we had a ball. Tracy breaks out Scary Mary and we all have a right good larf! Don’t miss it!

Countdown to Christmas - Can you believe it’s only 4 days to Christmas? Wowsers!! We’ll be looking for more Good News from the little chizzlers tomorrow morning. We had super cute Zoe aged 7 this moring, and it could be your little person tomorrow. That, plus our good news (Tracy met Barry Kenny from Iarnrod Eireann on Saturday, amazing!) and yours too!!

Fully Charged with Ryan Phillips and Tracy Clifford are back tomorrow morning form 6.45am, only on the Most Music Station, Spin1038, Dublin

We spoke to the winner of the X Factor 2009, Joe McElderry. Here the full interview with Joe here. He is the nicest popstar we’ve ever spoken to, what a bloody nice bloke. Joe explains that they decided not to give him media training because they didn’t think he needed it, and we tend to agree. Joe was actually on a day off and in London doing some Christmas shopping. So if you’re a fan of Joe McElderry then click on the media player to here the full interview

Yes, that’s all you’re getting by way of salutations today. Now, about the best catchphrases from TV ever? Yeah, but no, but…..

On the Show Tomorrow

Go Jedward!! We’ve started our campaign to have John and Edward be put on the main stage at Oxegen 2010. Love them or hate them, you know they’d be entertaining! Join our campaign by texting “Jedward for Oxegen” to 085 7 11103

Leona Lewis - Speaking of world class singers (ahem) we’ve got tickets to Leona Lewis to give away all this week in Get Your Pigeon Hole. Myself and Tracy didn’t get in tickets (sob) but it’s ok, because I already bought some for Orla for Christmas. Win them tomorrow morning just after 9.30

Son of Obituary – Be entertained and informed tomorrow morning just after 9 with another Son of Obituary. Tracy outdid herself today by correctly guessing that Rory was Talking about Dr Kellog. She was very impressed with herself. We know this because she said so. Repeatedly. And she was right to be impressed with herself!

Fully Charged with Ryan Phillips and Tracy Clifford, back on air tomorrow morning from 6.45am only on the Most Music Station, Spin1038, Dublin

According to the plan, you shouldn’t run two days in a row. That makes sense. What I’m a little bit unsure about is whether I should do some other form of exercise on the days I’m not running, like cycling or cross training or swimming, or perhaps weights? Thoughts or suggestions welcome?

Anyway, today was a real test, because I had to do a 4 mile run, and because of the snow and ice and what not, I decided to do it on the threadmill (which I’m trying to avoid because it’s not good for my knees and ankles). I was a bit worried, because I’ve skipped the first two training programmes on the website (total beginner and 5km run) and I dont want to start off too hard and injure myself. Also, I wasn’t entirely sure whether I’d last 4 miles. Thankfully I did, relatively easily, but running off what I would like to be my marathon pace. I’m aiming for a pace of 12km/ph (the threadmills are in kilometers in the gym) which would mean a time of 3.5 hours. I ran the 4 miles today at 10 km/ph (a marathon time of 4 hours 12 mins if run consistently).

So I need to pick the pace up a good bit, but I was still happy to have at least gotten the ball rolling and be back in the gym and back on some sort of a proper schedule. Unfortunately, I could feel my left ankle complaining a little bit having gotten off the threadmill. That’s disappointing having gone to the effort and expense of specifically buying proper training shoes to try and prevent injury. Still, I was on a threadmill instead of grass where I’m supposed to be, and I probably have started training a bit harder than I’m supposed to.

All in all, I did about 1/6th of a marathon in not appalling pace, and there’s 286 days left to train, so I’m actually reasonably happy!

Anyway, ate my weight in junk food and wine again today, together with truck load of booze and the races at leopardstown (abandoned due to fog after 4 races, and I was only there for 2…arse), then mate up with one of my best mates who is about to emmigrate to Canada (eh) for a few years. So good for the spirit if bad for the health and fitness, can’t win all the time.

Not the Gym, strictly speaking...

I was all chuffed with my day’s work on the cross trainer (it is only 27 December, still pretty impressive to be back in the gym in my humble opinion) that I posted a picture of the results on facebook so everyone could give me my Kudos!

Impressive, or so I thought...

Sadly, the kudos was in somewhat short supply from a certain Mark McCabe. 30+ indeed….

So day 60 was 25 December 2009, exactly 10 months before the Marathon on 25 October 2010. There just still seems like such a mountain to climb to be honest. I mean, I’ve come a pretty respectable distance in the last 2 months, and I’ve intentionally being taking it pretty easy, but now I’m going to have to ramp up the training a good bit becuse I’m one sixth of the way through the year’s training, but in no way shape or form am I anywhere near one sixth ready for a marathon, nor I suspect could I run one sixth of a marathon today if I had to….well, actually, that would only be about 4.5 miles, so I actually probably could. That’s actually kind of unintentionall encouraging!!

It came out at Christmas dinner with the family that my Aunt’s boss is a regalar listener to my radio show Fully Charged on Spin1038. I knew that before, because Ailish had told me so. She also had said that he is a fitness freak and we’re on in the gym every morning. Turns out that he’s a big marathon runner and runs marathons all over the world and he has offered to take me out on a few training runs and things. How decent of him is that!

So, usually I’d pass on stuff like that, but I’m actually going to take him up on it in the new year once I’ve done a few runs myself. I also bought myself and iphone and I’m going to set that up to map and track my runs too. How clever of me eh?

I saw a number of people out jogging today, on Christmas day. They made me feel very bad about myself! Damn them.

To be honest, the message I got from the Doctor yesterday had me a little on edge because I don’t know what they saw on the ECG that made them think  I should go for the echocardiograph. So I called today, but the doctor was gone away for Christmas and there was just some guy on the reception and a locum doctor in the surgery. That didn’t really shed too much light on the diagnosis, so I did what any sensible person would do and sought free medical advice from the Fully Charged listeners over the radio. It turns out that an Echo is basically like an ultrasound they would do for a baby, but it’s of the heart and it’s to see what the muscles and walls of the heart are like. According to a listener who is a med student, a spike or something must have shown up in the ECG and that’s why they want to have a look at the muscles. She said my heart is probably not dodgy, but more likely “unique”. That was sweet of her, but didn’t really but my mind at rest.

My doctor is back next week and she’s supposed to call me to organise the Echocardiograph then. I’m sure it’s nothing major at all, but it would still be nice to know and not have it sort of hanging over me for Christmast. Bastards.

Here’s what BUPA have to say about it!

Interestingly, and of relevance to the whole marathon training thing, I got a call from my Doctor to say that maybe someone had already been in touch with me, but that I needed to go and have an echo-cardiograph done on the basis of my ECG results. As I said, I was rushing about trying to get everything done and Christmas presents bought and I actually forgot to call her back to find out what the story was and what I needed to do….Bit of a rubbish message to get 2 days before Christmas though!!

So to summarise, because of whatever showed up on this

I have to go and have one of these

BUT I’m not entirely sure when where or why. Lovely