Month: September 2020

The first of a few rest-ish days

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A very early couple of miles this morning…

…in order to see what my mile route looks like in the dark so that I’m prepared when I start running just after midnight on Sunday morning. I’m almost never awake at five in the morning, let alone out running. It was super peaceful!

I spent the morning getting work done (and trying not to fall asleep) and then headed out for a walk in the afternoon. I’ve not been out walking for a couple of weeks as I’ve been too busy with multiple run training, and it was really nice to crunch through the leaves (Newcastle is looking very autumnal now).

I get to sleep in tomorrow morning (no, really, it’s on my training plan – I need to start shifting my sleep pattern in preparation for the weekend). I’m fairly busy with day job work for the rest of the week, but my much-lighter run days will make it feel like a bit of a holiday!

Autumn leaves
I love these leaf colours 😀

Today’s earworm playlist:

Zombie Nation – ‘Kernkraft 400’
Cast of Pocahontas – ‘Colours Of The Wind’
System Of A Down – ‘Chop Suey’
The Cure – ‘The Hanging Garden’
Robin S – ‘Show Me Love’

And a bonus track that Geth was humming earlier:

Limahl – ‘Neverending Story’

Time for a (short) taper!

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Six laps of my 1.2-mile route today…

…and I’ve found it really does get disorientating when you’re doing so many laps! Thankfully I’m done with the practice now and it’ll just be one short run per day until Sunday…

Other than running practice, I’ve just been working today. Looking forward to having some time to catch up with admin and the like tomorrow!

Race number
My Virtual London Marathon race number arrived last week, which was a nice surprise – I didn’t know they’d be sending one!

Today’s earworm playlist:

Duran Duran – ‘Ordinary World’
Lady Gaga and Colby O’Donis – ‘Just Dance’
Pointer Sisters – ‘Automatic’

Final week of race prep

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Five more laps today…

…meaning there’s just one more day of multiple run training to go, and then I will have four recovery days for (gently) practising midnight runs. Starting to get a bit nervous about Sunday but I’m sure I’ll be fine once I get going! My RNLI fundraising page is still available if anyone who hasn’t donated already can spare a bit of cash 🙂

Other than running, I’ve just been doing day job work today. Everything will be done by the middle of the week, meaning that I should manage some really quiet days in the lead-up to the challenge.

Not sure what I’m going to do with myself next week!

Great North 5k 2015
I recently paid the reduced ‘waited a few years’ price for my first ever race pictures from Marathon Photos. It’s important to remember how tough I found that first summer of running and remind myself how far I’ve come since then.

Today’s earworm playlist:

The Smiths – ‘Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want’
Elmer Bernstein – ‘The Great Escape’
Cast of Pocahontas – ‘Colours Of The Wind’
Depeche Mode – ‘Precious’

A much-appreciated Friday

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Four more laps today…

…which went really well. Hoping that the last four days of multiple run training go just as swimmingly! Nine days until marathon/challenge day…

Work has been really busy this week so I’m really glad it’s the weekend! I’ve not really had the energy to do much in the evenings the last few days so I’m looking forward to having a couple of afternoons for catching up with stuff around the house (including the last bit of my decor project… I hope!).

Running vlogs over the weekend, will next update properly on Monday.

Autumn leaves
Another ‘autumn leaves’ picture from my walks last weekend. Looking forward to having a bit of a wander this weekend as well 🙂

Today’s earworm playlist:

The Smiths – ‘Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want’
Carter USM – ‘Prince In A Pauper’s Grave’
Queen – ‘One Vision’

One step at a time

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Some very wet laps today…

…but the runs themselves were fine – legs seem to be behaving themselves at the moment.

Pretty much everything is just one foot in front of the other at the moment, just like running. There are a lot of difficult things going on at the moment, and 2020 is not improving, and it’s a bit tough to think long-term right now because it’s all a bit too overwhelming. I’m used to dreaming about the future a lot, but that’s not really possible in the current circumstances. Just one day at a time, and sometimes one hour.

Tomorrow will be tomorrow. I’m not thinking about it just yet.

First jumper of the season
It was properly cold today for the first time this autumn, so I have officially declared it jumper season.

Today’s earworm playlist:

Neil Diamond – ‘Sweet Caroline’
Dusty Springfield – ‘I Only Wanna Be With You’
Sigala, Ella Eyre, Meghan Trainor and French Montana – ‘Just Got Paid’
Carole King – ‘It Might As Well Rain Until September’
Gunship – ‘Black Blood Red Kiss’
Midnight Oil – ‘Beds Are Burning’

Phone Box Thursday: Monument Road, Comrie

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Here’s another phone box that Mum and Dad found in Scotland this summer.

Red phone box
Red phone box, Monument Road, Comrie, 31st July 2020.

(Coordinates 56°37’55.3″N, 3°99’21.3″W.)

This box doesn’t have a phone in it, but otherwise seems relatively well-kept (and makes a very nice feature on the street corner with the accompanying postbox), so hopefully it won’t be disappearing in the near future.

One more from Scotland next week, and then we’ll be heading south again…

Autumn TV nights

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Three laps of my mile(ish) route today…

…and it’ll be the same again tomorrow. With less rain, I hope!

Now that the nights are properly ‘autumn dark’ (i.e. sunset at 7pm), I am in a TV-watching mood again. Not that Geth and I did anything in the evenings all summer except sit in the house with the TV on, but it feels ‘right’ again now that it’s blankets ‘n’ candles season. Tonight we are resuming our Star Trek marathon, which we last paused more than four years ago (in May 2016 according to my notes!). We started the marathon circa 2010 and it’s been off and on since then. There’s been a lot of Star Trek made since the ’60s, and rather inconveniently they’ve started making loads of it again in the last few years, meaning we will probably never be caught up completely. It’s good stuff though.

I also have a ‘highlights from past series’ Strictly show to catch up with sometime this week, having recorded it last weekend!

Another three laps (and some more work and TV-watching) tomorrow.

Star Trek DVDs
Looking forward to getting back to these DVDs! I just had a look on Amazon and the packaging style has changed sometime in the last half decade, so the Enterprise ones won’t look quite the same when we get round to buying those…

Today’s earworm playlist:

Midnight Oil – ‘Beds Are Burning’
Leo Sayer – ‘Moonlighting’
Tight Fit – ‘The Lion Sleeps Tonight’
The Smiths – ‘Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want’

And a couple of bonus tracks that Geth was humming earlier:

REM – ‘Bad Day’
Patrice Rushen – ‘Forget Me Nots’ (or rather the ‘black bin bags’ parody from Phoenix Nights)

Full days

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Two laps of my usual mile route today…

…to start the last set of multiple run days before the big challenge on 4th October. Not long to go now!

My days at the moment are busy but enjoyable. I’m mostly running and working but managing to keep on top of admin and housework too… just about! I am looking forward to my post-challenge weeks when I will be easing back on the training for a bit and returning to my coding and writing. I already have this year’s NaNoWriMo all planned out!

Geth is watching a lot of YouTube documentaries at the moment about ultrarunners who run 100-mile races, which is making my 1.2-mile lap seem very short indeed. It’s still fairly intense when you’re running it every hour on the hour though!

I’ve been pointedly ignoring the UK COVID situation (although Geth and I did watch the briefing earlier) because it’s depressing and there’s nothing I can do about it. Like everything else, taking it one day at a time is the best thing.

A similar day tomorrow, which I’m very happy about.

RNLI glass
I love this plastic tumbler, which came in my RNLI goody bag the first year I did the Great North Run. I’ve taken to drinking supermarket own-brand zero-sugar Lilt (sorry, ‘tropical crush’) in the evenings, as it is super tasty and non-caffeinated.

Today’s earworm playlist:

Mumford & Sons – ‘The Cave’
Cast of Pocahontas – ‘Colours Of The Wind’
Vera Lynn – ‘We’ll Meet Again’
Carter USM – ‘After The Watershed (Early Learning The Hard Way)’