Month: March 2020

The mother of all Friday the 13ths

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A lovely relaxed run back and forth from my counselling appointment…

…and that’s where today’s good vibes ended.

While enjoying my post-run snack, I got a text from Geth’s colleague telling me that Geth had been taken ill while at a meeting in Stevenage and subsequently hospitalised. This led to an afternoon of phoning around trying to find out what on earth was going on, the realisation that he’d been discharged from the hospital while still not himself, and finally an evening of worry while Heulwen and Laura drove down to Stevenage to pick him up. They’ve got him now and he’s sounding a lot more compos mentis, so I’m looking forward to having him home tomorrow.

In the middle of all that, the news came out that the London Marathon has been postponed to October due to the coronavirus, so those 17-milers in the stormy weather have all been for naught. On any other day, I would have been devastated about this, but today I’ve been so worried about Geth that it’s easy to put it into perspective. The training that I’ve done so far meant that I got a PB at Inverness on Sunday that I hadn’t even dared to dream of, and the marathon has been postponed rather than cancelled, meaning that I will still get to run it this year. Just means the Great Scottish Run (which takes place on the same October weekend, and which I had been planning to do this year) will have to wait for another day!

Currently curled up on the sofa for the traditional viewing of Friday the 13th, a film about some people having a marginally worse day than me. Honestly, I’m finding it quite relaxing.

Friday the 13th DVD
Camp Crystal Lake and strip Monopoly, I am coming for you.

Today’s earworm playlist:

Koichi Sugiyama – ‘Unflinchable Courage’
The Knack – ‘My Sharona’
Icona Pop and Charli XCX – ‘I Love It’

A few days of virtual adventuring

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A useful running-an-errand run this morning…

…followed by a few hours of day job work… and then I curled up on the sofa to play text adventure games. After a week or so of real-world running adventures, it’s been nice to spend some time exploring virtual worlds instead!

Tomorrow will be similar – I’ve got an appointment in the morning, so will run there and back like I did for my appointment today, and then I’m hoping to have some more time for gaming in the afternoon. Still lots of jam entries to play.

Text adventure game
Despite the fact that we weren’t allowed to use graphics in this jam, I’m really pleased with the way my game looks. The Adventuron TWO style can be customised in really lovely ways 🙂

Today’s earworm playlist:

Will Powers – ‘Kissing With Confidence’
Prince – ‘The Most Beautiful Girl In The World’
Sesame Street – ‘The Pasta Song’
Koichi Sugiyama – ‘Unflinchable Courage’
Calvin Harris – ‘Summer’
No Doubt – ‘Don’t Speak’

And a bonus track that Geth was humming earlier:

Bill Conti – ‘Gonna Fly Now’

Phone Box Thursday: Main Road, Mynachlog-ddu

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A very rural phone box from Mum and Dad’s Welsh trip for you today.

Red phone box
Red phone box, Main Road, Mynachlog-ddu, 11th September 2019.

(Coordinates 51°94’14.7″N, 4°70’50.6″W.)

I am not at all sure that I have the right coordinates for this one – from the Google Street View image, I think it might be a different phone box. However, it was the only one I could find in Mynachlog-ddu (I couldn’t find St Dogmael’s Church, which this box is near)… so it’ll have to do for now!

Update 19th March 2020: Dad confirmed that it was a different box (but additionally that the one linked on Street View above was also still in situ when they visited – they just didn’t have chance to take a picture of it!). Here’s the correct box:

(Coordinates 51°92’15.2″N, 4°71’77.3″W.)

Anyway, this phone box had a notice inside saying that it had been offered to the community. I wonder if anyone’s taken BT up on the offer?

The return

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After another recovery mile (no midweek middle-length run this week)…

…I drove back to Newcastle. Geth and I had stayed in Edinburgh for an extra night post-Inverness trip, as I was a bit tired yesterday. This worked out quite well as it meant that I had plenty time for doing the final polish on my adventure game yesterday. Today I’ve had the chance to play a few of the other jam entries, which has been enjoyable so far!

Getting back to normal tomorrow.

1990s pop stickers
The boarded-up fireplace in my old childhood bedroom is still covered in 1990s Smash Hits stickers. I really need to steam them all off and put them safely in a scrapbook at some point so that Mum and Dad can have a nicer-looking guest room.

Today’s earworm playlist:

Depeche Mode – ‘Everything Counts’
Justin Bieber – ‘Love Yourself’
All Saints – ‘I Know Where It’s At’

Game release day!

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Another recovery mile this morning…

…and then I spent the afternoon doing the final polish for my latest text adventure game – my submission for the current Adventuron jam. It’s a bit different to my previous adventures as the rules for the jam involved no graphics and limited-word text responses! I had a lot of fun with this one, and Geth has already given it a playtest.

Game available to play here.

Tomorrow’s ukulele class has been cancelled, so I should have a bit of time to play through some of the other entries (my favourite part of every game jam!).

Pixel goblin
My goblin is on the run, trying to win medals.

Today’s earworm playlist:

Koichi Sugiyama – ‘Unflinchable Courage’

Stories about other people running

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I did do a quick recovery mile today…

…but the day’s main project has been finishing the coding and initial playtesting for my current text adventure game. Jam deadline is tomorrow night so I’ve got one more day to do the final polish!

My game is about a goblin who is competing in an athletics tournament. It’s nice to be writing about somebody else’s running for once… even if he is a fictional character 😀

I’ll post a link to the game once it’s up tomorrow night!

Cereal bars
Geth and I have been finishing off the last of the cereal and protein bars from the weekend. Those Kind ones are a bit weird and salty and I don’t think we’ll be having them again!

Today’s earworm playlist:

Ed Sheeran, Camila Cabello and Cardi B – ‘South Of The Border’
Cast of Chicago – ‘Cell Block Tango’
Duran Duran – ‘911 Is A Joke’
Badly Drawn Boy – ‘Once Around The Block’
Justin Bieber – ‘Love Yourself’
The Chordettes – ‘Mr Sandman’

Quick post-race update

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Ran. Ran well…

…still alive, but very sleepy.

Hoping to be a bit more with it tomorrow!

Pre-race at Inverness Half Marathon
Just before the race, when we were a lot less tired!

Today’s earworm playlist:

Vangelis – ‘Chariots Of Fire’
Justin Timberlake – ‘Can’t Stop The Feeling’
Lewis Capaldi – ‘Someone You Loved’
Katy Perry – ‘Roar’

Race eve

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A new-to-us parkrun this morning…

…and then Geth and I went shopping in town. Geth bought some new Keyforge decks to celebrate having completed his 100th parkrun, and I am now the proud owner of a new pair of running shoes. My old ones were not coping well with my newfound daily running habit and had worn down to the foam! I will be getting a few new pairs over the course of the next few months, as rotating the shoes means that they don’t wear down as fast (apparently the shoes need forty-eight hours to ‘recover’ in between runs!).

We then went for a meal with Mum and Dad for pre-race carb-loading. I think I’m as ready as I can be for tomorrow – just a good night’s sleep needed now.

Inverness parkrun
The pop-up sign is a bit broken and sad-looking (I think it’s probably suffered the ill effects of some strong winds in recent months), but Whin Park is such a beautiful location for a parkrun!

Today’s earworm playlist:

Peabo Bryson and Roberta Flack – ‘Tonight I Celebrate My Love For You’
Culture Club – ‘Victims’
Toto – ‘Africa’
Vera van Heeringen – ‘Riverside House’
Status Quo – ‘The Wanderer’
Duran Duran – ‘Shadows On Your Side’

And a bonus track that Geth was humming earlier:

Tracey Ullman – ‘They Don’t Know’

Blogging about running again. Sorry!

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One last pre-weekend ‘recovery’ mile this morning…

…before a slow shakeout parkrun tomorrow morning and then the race on Sunday. I’m so excited about this race that I’m starting to wonder if my 2019 autumn running strategy was a bit of a mistake. For context: in 2017 and 2018 I ran my last races of the season in October and November respectively, meaning that I felt a bit burnt out after a long race season each time and ended up having a ‘winter running slump’ (i.e. six to eight weeks with no running at all) both years as a result. As such, I decided to end my 2019 race season with September’s Great North Run, in the hope that I would feel more refreshed and avoid the slump this winter.

This sort of semi-worked (I did have four weeks off between late November and late December, but that was due to a really bad cold rather than not wanting to run!). However, because this last six-month period has been my longest break between races in three years, I find that I’ve really built this race up in my head and am bouncing off the walls about it. I sort of wish I could calm down a bit, because I’m nervous about going out far too fast on Sunday now.

However, it will not be my last half marathon this year – I’ve got quite a few booked – so if for any reason it does all go wrong, I do have several more chances to get it right. It’d be so nice to have a good confidence-boosting PB going into the final stages of London Marathon training though!

After that nice gentle parkrun (Geth’s 100th!), we’ll be doing some shopping tomorrow 🙂

Snowy road
I was driving up a mountain in a part of the world that’s still quite wintry today. Geth took some photos from the passenger seat.

Today’s earworm playlist:

Justin Bieber – ‘Love Yourself’
Ram Jam – ‘Black Betty’

Photo collecting

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Just a recovery mile this morning…

…as it’s one day closer to race day, and one day more exciting!

I’ve been spending some of my spare time over the last few days collecting together lots of online photos from the last few years, mainly from parkruns and races. It’s something I’ve been putting off for years, so it’s been both fun and strange looking at running photos from three or four years ago – Geth and I have both improved a lot and lost a lot of weight.

More of the same tomorrow, plus a bit more work on my game 🙂

parkrun volunteering
In some ways the parkrun volunteering photos are more interesting than the running photos. I really like this one from October 2017. Photo from the Newcastle parkrun Facebook page.

Today’s earworm playlist:

Soft Cell – ‘Say Hello, Wave Goodbye’
Justin Bieber – ‘Love Yourself’