Anyone for tennis?!

Confused? I know I am!

 

Prior to starting this blog I had never been on Twitter, but as Al doesn't do Facebook and C refuses to have any link between me and him on his account, it seemed like the obvious answer to also 'tweet' a link to my blog so they could read it.  Al has since all but stopped using his account but before doing so, did encourage (and this is where I struggle with the terminology) his 'followers' to have a read! At least a couple of them did, and at least one of them has stuck with me!

With the sum total of three followers (which makes me feel like I'm recruiting - albeit rather unsuccessfully - for some sort of cult) or put another way three people following me (which makes them sound like stalkers) I think it's fair to say I haven't exactly embraced Twitter as a communication medium! Of the three, one is related to me (thanks C), one I see most weeks (thanks fellow parkrunner) and one is unknown to me personally, but is someone Al came into contact with after tweeting about his first parkrun a year ago!

Given that I don't actually know the third, when they chose to contact me this week via Twitter, I decided this constitutes a success for my blog on a par with a purchase from an unknown person on Etsy! Thank you MM, which given the news that you are going to be running London 2015, has to make you Marathon Man!

A few messages on and I was starting to feel like I was getting the hang of this tweeting malarkey, when an email notification telling me that 30 Second Tennis have favourite a tweet I'm mentioned in starts to cast some doubt over this.

Initially I got my hopes up that, seeing as MM had mentioned tennis ball rolling for a knee injury, perhaps 30 Second Tennis was just what I needed to kick start my exercise regime and sort out my aching calf muscles (after all 30 seconds with a tennis ball might be preferable to several minutes with a foam roller....) but on delving deeper all I can find on their website is reference to actual tennis coaching from a company based in Seattle.

Now I am really confused, either they are friends with MM  (actual or virtual!) or someone has picked up on the word tennis and decided to share it with their following, not knowing that it referred to the torturous and somewhat ungainly activity of rolling a tennis ball along some aching muscle!

I might not understand the inner workings of social media, or the inherent dangers that apparently lie within, and I may have mixed feelings about whether or not it is a good thing, but I like that it keeps me in touch with old friends, and enables me to make connections with new ones. Good luck with your training Marathon Man, I am sooo envious of you having your place for London, and almost wish I was running in 2015, April 2016 seems a long way off...

M - 527
Brighton Half - 84
Glasgow Half - 308
Total Distance covered      399.6 miles

ELEVEN Pipers Piping...

Whooo hoooo!

Not surprisingly it was still dark when I got up this morning at quarter to six to eat my breakfast in enough time for it to have settled slightly before setting off on our run.  It was however still dark when HMG and I set off just over an hour later, oh and it was also raining, just to add to the whole experience. But with our usual Saturday morning greeting of 'we must be mad' off we set on a new route to run eight miles to parkrun.

Dark and with fogged up glasses the first four miles or so were a bit of a blur, but it's OK we'll still be running this route next summer so plenty of time to familiarise ourselves with the scenery! A bit of a killer of a hill mid way round but a lovely feeling of satisfaction when we got to the top knowing that by and large it was downhill all the way from there to the park (ignoring the REALLY steep bit that we finish our run just before so we can walk up it!).

By the time we reached the park I was already post run euphoric and enjoyed the final three miles - week before last when I 'only' ran three miles to get there aside - I ran my fastest time for a while which on the end of my furthest ever run is something to smile, write and potentially harp on about for the rest of the day! Even if Al can trump it....

Over eight minutes faster than when he ran parkrun for the first time a year ago this weekend, he managed a PB of 23.31 and although still not euphoric has at least admitted to being pleased! (not least because he managed to beat parkrunfastfinisher!! But only just!)  You've come a long way from those first few runs when your only focus was not to be sick Mr L! I love you (still a bit on the emotional side) and I love that parkrun has become part of our lives and something that we can share together. Extra bonus that C joined us this morning. Extra extra bonus that he decided to ease himself back into running gently and finished behind both of us! Love you too C!
 

Been a roller coaster of a week, but ending in a better place than it started! And for whilst there weren't eleven pipers piping us in past the finishing post today, there will be thirteen awaiting us at every mile marker next October in Glasgow HMG and sisterofMG750! Long way off I know but I'm looking forward to it already! 

M - 528
Brighton Half - 85
Glasgow Half - 309
Distance covered                11.1 miles
Total Distance covered      399.6 miles (aarrggghhh! Sooooo close!)

PS Just in case you ever do read this H - love you as well x

Black Friday

Never ever ever again!

Drawn in by the latest marketing hype - Black Friday - I decided to get up early and grab myself a bargain.  Trouble is, so did everyone else. 

It was a nightmare.  I could get onto the website, I could even find what I was looking for and put it in my virtual basket, but try as I might I couldn't actually purchase anything! Every time I got close the website crashed and I got kicked out, only to have to try and start the process all over again.  As it got later and more and more people got up to join in the fun, it got worse to the point where I couldn't even get on to any of the websites I wanted to visit. 

On my way to completely losing the plot, I decided to try an actual shop.  Bad idea! Entering Argos, it was like acting out trying to get on the internet, only this time there were actual queues of people all waiting for their turn to flick through the 'book of dream's'* I left without finding what I was looking for.

Rushed home to walk the dogs, and came back from my walk resolutely telling myself I would not to succumb to any more 'today only' 'must act now' emails when there is one from East Coast Trains - the date for our outward trip to Brighton is available! Get your bags packed HMG we're booked on the 10.15!

Still no luck on the gaming websites and I had to dash off for my long awaited and much needed hot stone massage. What a disaster! I got lost, I was late, and when I arrived and suggested to the scariest looking masseuse in the brightest tightest red dress, that perhaps putting the name of the building (which is visible from the road) instead of the number of the building (which isn't) on the voucher, I found myself being chastised in a manner that made me think of Anne Robinson. Apparently I was the weakest link in this exchange, being told that other people manage to keep time, and that if I had used a Sat Nav I wouldn't have had to abandon my car on the main road to find the place on foot. Plot well and truly lost by now, I told her where to shove her massage, flounced out, came home and booked myself in at a local salon that I should have just gone to in the first place!

It was heavenly and made all the nicer by the fact that when I returned home afterwards Al had made the tea and lit the fire. I'm a lucky woman, and in my post massage state of wellbeing and with the anxieties of the day (and past few weeks) washed away I may have pointed this out to him, repeatedly, like a bit of a soppy drunk!

In the end it took me eight hours to be able to purchase something from a particular gaming website, but I got there in the end.  Shame that I spent all the money I saved on a massage that didn't happen and another one that did! Oh well you live and learn, and just to be clear never ever ever again!

However this morning's shopping trip wasn't a complete waste of time, there is now Granola Squares and Chocolate Chunk Shortbread in the cupboard - it's like being at yours sisterofMG750!

M - 529
Brighton Half - 86
Glasgow Half - 310
Total Distance covered      388.5 miles

* should hopefully take you to Bill Bailey video clip!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggOa9aSG-Ow

The Hunger Games

Contender, Ready?!

Didn't sleep particularly well last night, then spent most of the day either exercising or rushing about - consequently I'm exhausted and back to falling asleep whilst typing this.  I am also starving.

It's awful. All afternoon I have been desperately trying to find something in the cupboards that might take the edge off it, but we've nothing in. I know there's nothing in, no biscuits, no cake, no GRANOLA SQUARES (that I've been fantasying about since about three o'clock) but I still found myself staring that the shelves and looking in tins like there might be something lurking somewhere, overlooked for just such an occasion.

With a craving befitting an expectant mother (better not be!) I have become obsessed with the notion of a particular supermarket's own brand Granola Square. I've only ever had them once (at my sister's in October) and yet apparently they are the only thing that is going to hit the spot and stave off my hunger.  Al was very nearly sent into said supermarket on his way home from work to see if they had any, and it was suggested he detoured on his way back from his guitar lesson this evening on the off chance of finding some.  Rushing out to get to his lesson I don't think he truly understood the severity of the situation - but somehow I don't think I'll get away with sending him to the twenty four hour store several miles away on his return!

Not entirely sure where this hunger and fatigue has come from, I did go for a run this morning, and I did find it hard going, but at four miles there shouldn't really have been much to complain about, although with my usual Thursday lead legs on I did spend quite a lot of it grumbling to myself!  In hindsight I think it might have been the dog walk.  One of the fields is very steep and given the amount of rain we've had recently it has turned to mud. Trying to walk up it is akin to trying to reach the top of the Travelator on Gladiators - in wellies! I think my legs got a bit more of a work out than I had anticipated!

Clearly there's only one thing for it... going have to spend tomorrow refuelling in preparation for our next run on Saturday. How awful!

M - 530
Brighton Half - 87
Glasgow Half - 311
Distance covered                    4 miles
Total Distance covered      388.5 miles

PS Happy Thanksgiving to those of you reading in the US - hope it's a good one.

Christmas is coming

and my thoughts turn to food!

Looks like it might not be just the goose who's gaining weight!

If, as I mentioned last week, there is something inherently wrong with trying to find time to write about not having any.... then taking time to write about all the things I want to do rather than actually doing them isn't much better! But it requires much less energy, motivation or indeed action!

Having spent the past couple of days drifting, I decided this morning that what I needed was to be a bit more focussed, working on the premise that if I could feel a bit more organised perhaps I would also feel a bit more in control.  But my day just seemed to slip away from me and I got nothing done.

Part of the problem is one that I've encountered many times before, and talked about it on more than one occasion.  Unsure of where to start, I end up not starting at all.  I think some more time spent prioritising my list is called for, but I'm not clear about when this level of organising my need to be organised becomes a procrastination tactic.... possibly when I've thought about it long enough to talk about it, definitely when I'm writing out the job list for the third time so that it looks neat and more aesthetically pleasing!

Unfortunately I don't have that much time to waste - Christmas is one of the items on this list.

Speaking to someone last week, she asked if I had started or finished my Christmas shopping and I had to inform her that the answer was neither. A week further on and I'm no further forward.  I genuinely can't get my head around the fact that four weeks today is Christmas Eve, nor has is sunk in that my friend isn't making our Christmas Cake this year and I should have done it weeks ago! I think the lovely restful weekend curled up in front of the fire that I had been planning may have just been replaced by a weekend in the kitchen, interspersed with frantic card making!

Add the post parkrun Christmas Cafe that I'm planning on hosting on the 13 December (fancy a wee pre Christmas visit to coincide with Dad's birthday the day after sis?!) to the mix and I'm not sure how I'm going to fit it all in.

Maybe I'm one of those people who works better under pressure! But why oh why did I start the tradition a few years ago of making H an advent pillow case with 31 (he likes it to run to his birthday) pieces of individually wrapped nice chocolate and handfuls of sweeties inside?! Thankfully C is content with a couple of bars of decent chocolate, which is much easier but rarely lasts till Christmas let alone New Year!

M - 531
Brighton Half - 88
Glasgow Half - 312
Total Distance covered      384.5 miles

Still here

For the time being at least!

I have spent a lot of the day mulling things over but the jury is still out regarding the future of my blog.  Having written it for two hundred and eighteen days part of me is loathed to stop now, whilst another part of me could walk away.  Never known for making rash decisions (unless it concerns purchasing vast quantities of fabric) I need to take time to evaluate what I'm doing this for, but aware that if I stop I may live to regret it, I have come to the conclusion to keep going for the time being. So, here goes....

As sisterofMG750 predicted in a text early this morning, it wasn't difficult to find things to keep me busy.  First job being to tackle the washing and ironing mountain that had built up over last week when I was too busy to notice let alone do anything about it.  The arrival of H downstairs yesterday morning wrapped in a towel looking for pants, socks and a school shirt alerted me to the impeding crisis on the clean clothes front.  It took a large part of the morning but I think it has been averted!

Next up trying to sort the money we raised on Saturday into bags of change that the banks will accept so that I can pay it into my account.  Sounding a bit like a 'Grumpy Old Woman', or heaven forbid 'Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells' it does rankle me slightly that unless I hand the money in, bagged up in the correct amounts of 'no mixed coins', so that they can weigh rather than count, they won't touch it.  This is not helpful to a fundraiser whose donations do not come in such neatly packaged sums! Thankfully H is far less fussy and more than willing to take a pound worth of copper, five and ten pence pieces to spend at the local shop! The shop may not be so welcoming when they see him coming back tomorrow with the next bag!

I could always put it in the 'Coin Star' machine at the supermarket but am loathed to give them 9.9% of my money for the privilege, but thinking about it this would make better business sense than the 100% it's costing me to reimburse my Barnardo's fund for every bag of change that I give to H!

Money sorted I started planning how best to do the rest of my jobs so that I could incorporate my dog walk and then, once home, put the heating on, curl up and not have to go out again - when it dawned on me that today is a run day and I hadn't as yet been for my run! Damn!

A somewhat chilly two degrees outside I tried to convince Al that we could light the fire and curl up in front of it instead... BUT I'm glad we didn't. After a slow start I found my running legs and ran our five mile route in my second fastest time.  It was exactly the run I needed to blow a few of the cobwebs and dark clouds away. Not quite basking in sunshine but feeling better this evening than I did this morning - which is a good way to finish the day.

M - 532
Brighton Half - 89
Glasgow Half - 313
Distance covered                  5.2 miles
Total Distance covered      384.5 miles

Thrown off course...

and not sure of the right way back.

Painting the faces of a group of students on Saturday we were talking about what I was raising money for, and they were all of the same opinion that they couldn't ever imagine wanting to run anywhere let alone a marathon.  Remembering how I'd felt last month whilst running around the city I was a student in, I pointed out that perhaps they didn't feel the need to run because they felt fit just by being twenty, and that in another twenty years perhaps at least one of them would find themselves buying some trainers in an attempt to do something about recapturing that feeling!

Woke up this morning and don't think I'm on my way to turning any clocks back, although my skin is trying it's best to make me feel youthful by erupting in a fresh bout of acne, which at forty four is just not right! Every other part of my body however feels old, my hair has decided to turn to frizz and I just feel run down, jaded and so far removed from the peak physical condition I am aspiring to!

Not for the first time I am thinking that if I want to do this without constant pain in my ankles and knees I'll have to get serious about doing some glute exercises, and if I want to feel better I'll have to eat better, but right now I'm a bit too tired to get my head around it.

I have for the past week been so looking forward to having a bit of breather today, and decided to indulge myself by tackling one of the nicer jobs on the to do list. Part way through doing it and a very dear and wonderful friend phoned to tell me that what she thought was an abscess, is in fact an abdominal tumour and is currently awaiting surgery to have it removed.

Stuck in the most horrible period of limbo until they operate and discover exactly what they are dealing with and what the implications for her future health will be, there is nothing anyone can do except sit and wait.

My day kind of lost direction after this.  The dogs were walked, albeit in a rather aimless way (especially as our usual route was blocked off by livestock and so we just had to tramp around some fields in a bit of an ad hoc manner until it was time to come home) but no matter how hard I searched for some way to make sense of it all, there is no justification for what's happening.

With an unexpected change in perspective it has made my blog about my aches, pains and domestic trivia seem somewhat shallow and trite and I'm struggling with the whole concept of it this evening. Time I think to go and immerse myself in all the jobs that got side lined earlier and just see what tomorrow brings.

M - 533
Brighton Half - 90
Glasgow Half - 314
Total Distance covered      379.3 miles