I've been having a discussion with my coach these last few days over email (our preferred mode of communication). It began with me questioning - for curiosity's sake and because I like to have as much evidence as possible to support any theory - the universality of running at a high cadence, which is a technique he's proposed I work on. I wondered simply whether it's likely for two people of wildly differing physiques - say a 6' 4" man weighing 13 stone versus a 5' 8" man weighing 10 - to be able to maintain the same cadence and go the same speed? In my mind it's going to be a whole lot easier for the lighter man to run at a higher cadence, and there are so many arguments in running circles of the validity of losing weight to increase speed, that I thought this might be a reasonable line of questioning.

2 days later I feel like a defeatist neurotic pessimist who has serious hang-ups about her size. How did that happen?

I have never seen my height (and, by association, my weight) as a disadvantage in sport. In fact quite often I see it as the opposite. Certainly in cycling I tend to think of it as advantageous to be relatively light weight for the length of levers. And while in running I probably don't have the ideal physique, I know tall (and relatively heavy) friends who buck the trend. I have certainly never looked at myself in the mirror and thought "Oh you're so disadvantaged - you look nothing like an athlete - give up now!"

I'm not a fast runner, and I've been running for about 10 years now so I ought to know! But I'm not horrendously slow either and know I can maintain a decent pace over quite a long distance. I've always wanted to get a bit faster and never really thought to examine my technique so intensely, but I'm looking forward to the potential over the next year of shaving seconds - minutes hopefully - off my personal bests. To which end I am extremely willing - excited in fact - to pursue any technical improvement I possibly can, cadence included.

But my coach has ended up associating the size question with some kind of inner issue, and going beyond a simple pep-talk and instead criticising my negative attitude and telling me that athletes only ever look for the positive in what they do. This too, I beg to differ with. Athletes are normal people after all, prone to disillusionment and anxiety as much as the next person. Strength of mind and positivism are not synonymous. I resent the implication that you cannot be an athlete and a realist (realism by nature involving a little pessimism and scepticism, in my view). And that you have to spend hours in front of the mirror practicing the sort of inane self-foolery that makes my skin crawl: "You can win the London Marathon; You are the most beautiful person in the Universe." That approach is not for me: Whether athlete or not, I am the same person. I might be prone to self disbelief, but I also like to prove myself wrong. Self belief and confidence don't come - for me - through 'talking it up'; only through hard work and proven results. I will never deny my sceptical side because it's part of who I am. Goodness. Only egotistical optimists need apply? Bollocks to that.

Obviously the discussion - though staying polite - has got way off track and I'm now aiming to leave well alone rather than go on making things worse, since each placatory email I send seems to exacerbate the issue. Roj thinks I should maybe leave the psyche out of the coaching relationship and talk to other friends about that; that I should question less what my coach says. And I think he's got a point; certainly if my questions are going to be subject to such misunderstanding. Maybe I should pick up the phone and talk it through with him, but something tells me it might be better to let him have the last word and just shrug it off. Which is taking some work, as you can see!

In other news of failure, my dishwasher is still broken. The part won't arrive until the end of next week so I guess I'm looking at the middle of the following week to get it working again. A month after the breakdown I'm getting bored of washing up.

However, the weekend was very enjoyable. I had a stressful day on Friday managing a host of assorted things in a small timeframe, not least of which was organising cards and presents for the two kiddie parties that afternoon. The first was a school friend of Jody's at Gambado in Chelsea - our first visit and very enlightening. About as close to an indoor fairground as you can possibly get (dodgems, merry-go-rounds and an enormous soft-play area, as well as juice bars, cafe and party tea areas). Since there was a public session going on at the same time, it was easy enough to hang around with Miles too, and let him have fun instead of rushing him out of child nirvana. And I even met a couple of new mums who were fun to talk to while I indulged in delicious home-made chocolate cake.

The next party was a neighbourhood low-key affair with tea and banana bread. Very relaxing. In fact so relaxing it was very difficult to drag myself away in time to meet my parents at the doorstep as they were arriving in a taxi at nearly 7pm, Roj having already brought Golden Hind fish and chips home for all 6 of us.

(The only thing that went seriously wrong on Friday in fact, was food. My food. Friday's training session has to take place before breakfast since I look after Miles all of the rest of the day, but I didn't have time to come home and eat afterwards, and needed to go to Watirose before toddler group in the morning, hence leaving a proper breakfast (apart from a banana and a tracker) until about 9:45am (4 hours after getting up). I didn't have any time for lunch at all, and ended up eating a muffin and a juice at Gambado at about 3pm. And then the salt grinder decided to unscrew and empty itself over my entire dinner in the evening (luckily ¾ eaten already). I felt utterly jinxed! (Food is very important to me).)

On Saturday we abandoned the kids to their grandparents and set off to beautiful Wiltshire for Nick and Abbie's wedding (congratulations indeed) which was very beautiful and lovely. The couple looked beyond happy, and it was very nice catching up with a handful of friends from ye olde days, as well as some new ones (although there were a couple too many "And what do you do? Oh you're a mum? ... Well isn't the weather nice!" moments for my liking). The weather was nice though, with a rare sighting of the British sun at the reception venue, so that we were able to bask in the heat and appreciate the views while snaffling up our champagne and canapés! Not bad!

However dinner was over by 9:15 and we were already yawning our heads off (because we're pathetic party people!) and not looking forward to two more hours of disco (we don't really do disco!) before the bus departed back to Marlborough. So we ducked out early via a taxi and made ourselves comfortable in the rather over-priced Castle and Ball. Only we were lying in a room directly over the bar which was open til 1am and although Roj had clearly drunk enough white wine to pass out in oblivion, it took me a good couple of hours to doze off, during which time I managed to twist my knee and make the rest of the night uncomfortable too.

And then the alarm was going off at silly o'clock (6am) and it was time to drive back to London for the real reason for our early departure from the wedding reception - Roj's 9am entry in the London Duathlon. In glorious sunshine once again, fortunately or I'd have been a very reluctant supporter. I did the obligatory cheering thing and chatted to a friend we bumped into who was also doing the race, and nearly missed Roj on his first bike loop (too busy practicing my panning techniques!) And then I was waiting for him to go past again ... and waiting and waiting and he just didn't materialise. So I started to think of all the things that could have gone wrong; paramedics on the hill; blowouts; pass-outs; who knew what was going on? So I meandered back to the transition area where I finally saw him sheepishly walking his damaged steed back with a DNF (did not finish). He'd got a puncture towards the end of the first lap and unfortunately been rather heavy-handed with the CO2 while fixing it, causing a dramatic and unfixable blow-out. Poor Roj - hasn't had much success with his racing season so far.

So we packed up and headed back to relieve my mum from her babysitting duties (the kids had been good enough, it seems), and to have lunch and for me to complete my 2-hour cycle session in Regent's Park (snore). But it was nice weather and, tired after a few late nights (I also went out for dinner with Rose last week, which was very lovely indeed and incorporated the very best mushroom risotto I've ever had - at Carluccio's St. Christopher's Place), I was quite happy really to just twiddle the pedals - focusing on a higher cadence than I'm used to - and concentrate on nothing more than avoiding pedestrians.

My mum was around on Monday too (my dad was in Belgium on business), which was great. We took Jody to school and I did my characteristic blitzing of the flat for my cleaning girl on Monday afternoon, and then we kept out from under her feet in the very best possibly way; by taking Miles to lunch at the Wallace Collection which we discovered is rather a hidden jewel amongst the Marylebone crush of patisseries and restaurants; a beautiful calm spacious restaurant inhabiting the entire inner courtyard at the museum, with delicious French cuisine (of varying complexity) and excellent service. We passed a lovely couple of hours there, glad that Miles was complicit, and were quite surprised in the end that it was already time to fetch Jody by the time we finished. A rare but well-deserved period of calm and indulgence that, I hope, might be repeated.

My parents left on Tuesday morning and I have since been intermittently struggling with the instructions for my turbo trainer which I need to set up by tomorrow for my 20-minute time trial. I've also had a 400m swim time trial this week, amongst other sessions, as well as a bit of a struggle with this run cadence thing (I feel like a cartoon character when I do it - blurry legs and all - and don't seem to be able to rate above 85 no matter how hard I try unless I cheat on the downhills!) Lots of work to do then, but the new schedule is still novel enough to be interesting. I can see I'll soon have to wear my iPod in the pool though; the water sessions are going to get tedious methinks.