Category: Running

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21!

Pic of the week 8/11/20

It is still hard to believe, but on Wednesday it was Sophie’s 21st birthday. Where have all those years gone? The muse deserts me – I don’t have the words to describe the joy, happiness pride and love she has bought me over the last 21 years.

Despite lockdown I think (I hope) she had a nice day – lunch in Ask with Becky and Sam and then all of us at home for tea, a lovely family time.

We were also hoping, on Wednesday, to hear the results of the American Presidential election, but it proved to not be clear cut, so we have had an agonising wait for a few days until it was announced yesterday that Joe Biden won the race to the White House, or more importantly, Donald Trump lost. In this strangest of strange, most difficult year, at last some good news, a new hope.

Although it developed into a beautiful, sunny, clear autumn day, Wednesday dawned cold, with the cars frozen over and the temperature at zero. The perfect, and first, opportunity for me to see if changing the glo-plugs in the Micra had solved the cold start problems it had developed in late March. I turned the key part way, saw the glo-plug symbol illuminate and then go out, turned the key completely and it fired straight in to life. So it seems my diagnosis and subsequent repairs have done the job. Chuffed.

Today I ran my 1,000th Kilometre of 2020, another reason to be chuffed. It was Lockdown 1 what did it, running nearly every day in April.  I have, this year, run a total of 1006 Km in 80 hours, 36 mins (or 3 days, 8  1/2 hours). I have now run a million metres

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The Gathering Gloom

Pic of the week 1/11/20

A rather apt photo of me striding confidently into the gathering gloom.

The pic was taken on Wednesday as we (Becky & I) headed home after a walk in Combe Hill woods, but the it is, perhaps, symbolic of the darker days to come of the next phase of lockdown which was announced yesterday, to begin on Thursday (5th Nov) for four weeks. Schools are not closing, so I suspect that the new lockdown will actually make little difference to me.

Half term ends today, despite the weather (its been wet!) and despite not being able to go to Barcelona its been a good two weeks that I feel I have filled productively.  Looking back, I’ve enjoyed a number of good walks, met up with friends (Steve & Nicky), potted and tinkered with the cars, read, tidied the garden and planted some bulbs, sorted our new re-cycling centre, practised my Spanish … I’ve really enjoyed the two weeks, it seems like a long time since I was at school and I’m ready to go back for the next half-term, whatever it may hold.

Bottom right shows the pumpkin I bought and carved, the other three pics show those that I have grown. I don’t know why, but I always feel a great sense of pride about those pumpkins that I grow myself.

I’ve also run quite a lot over the last two weeks, and October in particular. 85.75 Km in fact, and I am now only one run (4 Km) away from completing 1,000 Km in the year. Maybe next week …

 

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Back to school!

Pic of the week 6/9/20

So the long summer holidays are over and its back to (physical) school for the first time since late March.

This last week has been INSET week and I’ve been in on most days, but it was Thursday and Friday that were the official INSET days. It was good to be back and see so many people in one day! On Thursday evening, sat on my sofa, I felt exhausted, in part because I’d “done” a full day, but I suspect it was also because of the many social interactions I had during the day.

However, things are very different from September ’19, staff wise we are “bubbling” in the department which is fine, and understandable, but it will be a shame to not so easily see friends and colleagues from other deprtments. We’ll also be teaching much more “electronically” (rather than using paper), and lunch times etc will be different.

The picture above shows me “suited and booted” as on Friday I had to record a short piece to camera for the Year 10 assembly, no more physical assemblies for now. I’ve enjoyed loafing around in shorts and a T-Shirt for six months, but it was good to be “looking good” in suit and tie again.

As predicted, I didn’t run as much in August, as I have done plenty of refereeing, and have swum 4 times, but still managed 115 Kms

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New Car

Pic of the week 30/8/20

Picked up our “new” (old) car on Friday, a 56 plate Vauxhall Corsa (D) 1.4 Design, with 90K miles for £995.

I’m pleased with it. It looks good and drives well.

Fixed the dripping kitchen tap today, having finally figured out how to remove the collar/shroud around the head gear (bodge tape on said collar, and the mole grips …)

I also ran a 10K pb today, 46 min 32 secs. Before this week, I had a week were I didn’t run at all (referee-ing, swimming) etc. and then ran on Tues, Thurs, Fri & today. I do feel very fit at the moment, so a PB was probably a just reward. I do find having a few days off from running does then boost my pace on my return. But, I fear, my running will soon start to diminish as term begins and the football season kicks off.

Weather – its a bit chilly! Yesterday & today have been bright but cool, but earlier in the week we’ve had a lot of rain and thunder and lightening, including one bolt that i’m sure was almost directly overhead – the loudest rumble of thunder!

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Back in Black

Pic of the week 2/8/20

So Saturday saw lock down conditions ease a little, and grassroots football to begin. Since the government announced the easing, my phone has been pinging through with requests for me to ref and, at high noon yesterday, 1st of August, I blew the whistle to begin my new season of refereeing, taking charge of a friendly between Ashcott reserves and Victoria Sports. It was good to get back in the saddle and I enjoyed the afternoon – something different after months of groundhog day. And today I did another game, New Forresters v Woolavington – the standard of football was pretty low, but again, good to be out and about once again.

With refereeing starting again, my running stats will begin to fall again, but here they are for the end of July:

So not quite the heights of April, but still a fair few k’s covered in July: 189 Kms to be exact, taking my total so far this year to 777 Km.

Friday was the hottest day of the year (so far!) and Becky, Sam and I headed to Burton Bradstock beach for the day – another lovely day out at the seaside, the sea was a little waveyer than before, and as ever, swimming in the sea was a highlight of a lovely day out.

Sophie didn’t come with us, she had an (virtual) induction day for her ONS work experience year, and she also heard her exam results for the year, scoring 82% – a First (the threshold was 70%).  Some great news to cap a great day.

 

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Pumpkins and plans

Pic of the week 26/7/20

Not a lot has happened this week – but unlike the groundhog weeks of earlier, its been quite nice to have had a reasonably chilled week.

Possibly the most exciting thing to happen is the emergence of a couple of baby pumpkins, one each on self seeded plants. Its always a nervous few days to see if the pumpkin has actually been fertilised and grows on to be a big daddy – I’ve had too many disappointments in the past when the swelling “seed” has clearly not been fertilised and then drops off after a few days. But a quick inspection leaves me encouraged, and a least one of them appears to be almost visibly growing.

In other news, Sam went away to Poole for a few days with some pals. He had a nice time.

I had a scare on Thursday.

7 Km into my morning run, I felt tweak at the base of my left hamstring. Kept going, 10 metres later I felt it again. I turned round and jogged gingerly home (0.5 k) I rested for the next two days, this morning embarking on my standard Sunday 10Km which was all good.

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June/July

Pic of the week (I) 5/7/20

(My) hols have begun, but the weather has not been brilliant – quite showery – but on Friday I decided to tackle the box bush out front. It does a look neater, and therefore much better, and I had a bit of a tidy up of one of the adjacent shrubs. Today, I begun moving some of the gravel from the front (although you might be hard pushed to notice) with the view to gravelling the whole area with decorative gravel.

Pic of the week (II)

Many of the plants are now in full flower and looking good, and the veg plants planted are putting on quite a spurt. All is looking green and healthy in the garden (even the lawn looks quite lush right now. Probably indicative of all the rain we have had.)

Pic of the week (III)

Ran my 600th Km this week, on 3rd July.  Ran 125 Km’s total in June.

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Half-term

Pic of the week 24/5/20

And so half term has arrived. But Groundhog day continues.

We remain under lock-down, I’ve concluded that this is how medieval man must have lived – never going further than his feet could take him, and his human contact limited to those in his immediate family.

It could be worse – I have a wonderful family and we live in a beautiful place – but I’ve come to realise that it is the consistency of life that is so crushing. No ups following downs, nothing different to look forward to, just one day seamlessly segueing into the next. Normally one would arrive at summer half term with a sigh of relief, catch your breath, enjoy a rest before the short final sprint to the glittering prize of the long summer hols. This year, I just seemed to have stumbled from working at home on Friday to not working at home on Saturday and Sunday.

(And, unlike medieval man, we can now hop in a car to go somewhere for exercise, which is why we’ve been up the Poldens a few times. The pic above was taken on Saturday when the weather was a bit breezy and cloudy.)

One beneficiary of lock-down has been my running: with all other forms of exercise (swimming, spinning and refereeing) denied to me, I’ve been doing a lot of running. And (at least when lock down began) we were told you could only go out once a day, for up to an hour, for exercise I decided I’d make the most of that time and run either my 9K or 10K routes (taking circa 45-50 mins). As a consequence, I’ve been racking up the miles, and yesterday passed the 400km mark. After today’s run, I’ve notched up 414Km.  Don’t think it will happen, but a though crossed my mind today – could I end up doing 1,000Km in the year? (I hope not, because I hope to have returned to spinning, swimming & refereeing, as well as running.)

Other news – and I mention this just so I have a point of reference when I look back in the future – the news this weekend has been dominated by Dominic Cummings and his refusal to resign, despite having been caught breaking lock down rules.

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Skills!

Pic(s) of the week 17/5/20

Skills!

The lock-down continues, and Becky could take it no longer.

She had to have her hair cut.

(I sympathise)

Fearing for their safety should they do a bad job, the children both refused the task. So it was left to me to step up to the plate.

And I’m rather pleased and proud of my handiwork. It can’t be too bad as I have lived to tell the tale. In fact, I would say as much that Becky’s hair looks much, much better.

In other news, not a lot has changed. Becky & Sam went on a long walk across the Poldens which was good, and today – at last – I went to the tip to dispose of most of my garden waste. Tomorrow night I put out the brown garden waste bin for the first time since mid-March: its the little things that I look forward too!

Toady, I ran my 10K in a new PB for the year in 47 min 22 secs, which also pleased me.

One more week of online teaching before a welcome break of half term.

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Glastonbury 10K

Pic of the week 3/5/20

Today was the Glastonbury 10K road race.

But this being lock-down Britain, it didn’t happen.

But that didn’t stop me doing a Sunday morning 10K, and the pic above shows me in last year’s top, and the Tor – that you famously run around on the Glasto 10K – is just about visible in the background.

Annoyingly, my Map my Run recording has been awry both today and yesterday, so I don’t have accurate stats for the run, but I reckon I did it in 48 min 14 secs.

Yesterday evening (& on Friday, sans Becky) Sam, Becky & I went for a walk in the Poldens. We parked in the car park and headed further east than we have been before.  Its beautiful. The trees are in green leaf, and the sunlight glimmer through the gaps was pretty, but I (and I think I was the only one of the three of us to think this) preferred it when we broke out into open space and were welcomed with vast vistas across the levels.

Easy to say, but we must make a commitment to continue to visit the beautiful landscape more regularly.