Today’s earworm playlist:
Traditional – ‘Näcken och Sko Ella‘*
50 Cent – ‘In Da Club’
*Happy Father’s Day, Dad. Great performance!
Month: June 2020
Driving, training, drinking (fake) bubbles
A longer running vlog today…
…not because my run was anything special, but rather because there’s been a bit of news about a couple of the postponed races scheduled for later this year. Edinburgh Marathon Festival has re-postponed from September to its usual May date, and so Geth and I will be deciding whether to apply for an entry refund or roll our entries over to May. I’m leaning towards the latter at the moment as I was really looking forward to doing the Edinburgh half – we just need to organise the diary properly, as late May/early June 2021 is already getting a bit packed with rescheduled events!
The other race news (or non-news, really) from today was that the London Marathon announced that they’ve not made a decision about whether to go ahead in October yet, and will update us again on 28th July. This was a surprise, as I fully expected them to announce a re-postponement to next spring. I have mixed feelings about this development (as I’ve explained in detail in my vlog linked above), and I still think it’s very unlikely that the October date will go ahead, but I think the best way of looking at it is to appreciate the structure that another five weeks of marathon training will give me when it comes to my running.
In non-running news, Geth and I finally got round to collecting some books from his office at the university today (he needs them for working from home, as the university won’t be back working on campus for many months to come). As we were out in the car anyway, we took the opportunity to do a big shop at Asda. It’s so much easier when you don’t have to lug it home by hand 🙂 I found a couple of bottles of my favourite alcohol-free fizzy as well!
I’ve mostly been working on my game otherwise today, though I have been fairly distracted by the London Marathon issue! Looking forward to spending some more time on it tomorrow.
Today’s earworm playlist:
ACE+ – ‘Engage The Enemy’
John Williams, Michael Land, Peter McConnell and Clint Bajakian – ‘Indiana Jones And The Fate Of Atlantis: Opening Theme’
Living In A Box – ‘Living In A Box’
Green on black
I did a ‘marathon training’ midweek run today…
…and I’d forgotten how long midweek runs need to be, even right at the start of the training period! I did four miles today and will be doing seven on Sunday. In the very unlikely event that the London Marathon don’t announce a re-postponement in their next update on Monday, I’ll be doing the same next week.
I then spent the afternoon working on my game. It was great to be able to set aside a day for doing that, although the code is starting to swim in front of my eyes a bit now! I’ll be spending tonight getting on with a bit of evening admin.
I’m driving Geth to his office tomorrow morning so we can pick up his books, but after that I’ll be settling in with my game for the weekend!
Today’s earworm playlist:
Michael Land, Peter McConnell and Clint Bajakian – ‘Monte Carlo’
Phone Box Thursday: Queensway, London
One last London phone box from my November trip last year!
(Coordinates 51°51’05.6″N, 0°18’70.1″W.)
This box is only about twenty feet away from last week’s box, and is also outside Queensway tube station. It’s slightly more unkempt than its neighbour, but nowhere near as badly-maintained as the soon-to-be-removed rural boxes we’ve been looking at recently. It’s a London phone box, so I expect it’ll be sticking around for some time!
Working our way north again next week…
A slightly mixed-up Wednesday
I didn’t get out for a run until nearly mid-afternoon today…
…as I wanted to get some work finished first. By the time I went out, it was actually really warm and sunny, and I regretted wearing leggings instead of shorts! The sun has disappeared again now though. Hopefully it’ll make a reappearance before too long.
Looking forward to settling down with my game coding again tonight.
Today’s earworm playlist:
Heaven 17 – ‘Let Me Go’
Chas & Dave and The Matchroom Mob – ‘Snooker Loopy’*
GRL – ‘Ugly Heart’
*RIP Willie Thorne, you absolute legend 😢
Working girl
Managed to squeeze my mile in today…
…but it had to be quick, as I was very busy today with some day job work. I’m always grateful for day job work in the current circumstances though! There was a scary period early on in lockdown when nothing was coming in at all, and all the clients who’d been making enquiries pre-COVID seemed to have disappeared, and I was starting to panic a bit. Over the last couple of months, though, the trickle of work has become a bit steadier, which I’m really happy about. Hopefully academia in general has become a bit more settled down, and people will have written more stuff for me to edit over the summer.
Just getting on with some admin this evening. I’ve been sleeping late the last few days, so I need to set an alarm tomorrow – not for the crack of dawn or anything, but just an extra couple of hours tomorrow would be really helpful.
Today’s earworm playlist:
Duran Duran – ‘Late Bar’
Duran Duran – ‘Hungry Like The Wolf’
Back to it
Just a mile today…
…because I managed a fairly long run (well, long in terms of my recent efforts!) yesterday, which I was quite pleased with.
The weekend was really good. I spent most of it curled up on the sofa working on my latest game, with Geth playing Xenoblade Chronicles in the background. Today was more weekday-like though – I had a bit of day job work to do, and quite a lot of admin to catch up with. I’ve been neglecting the ‘coronawall’, which is basically a giant display of multicoloured lists pinned up on the living room wall, keeping track of all the stuff we were meant to be doing this year that got cancelled, and what’s happening with rescheduled dates and refunds and so on. After a bit of work this afternoon, it’s now up to date as far as the Great North Run, which was announced as cancelled this morning.
I still find it strange that back in early March I was still living my busy normal life, with races and parkruns and social running groups and family visits and gigs and boardgame meetups with friends and ukulele classes, and wondering why I never had time to get anything done, and then suddenly it all just… stopped. I find it even stranger that I still feel like there aren’t enough hours in the day!
I don’t really see my own life going back to the way it was, either, even if the world does eventually. The occasional event will be nice, but this year has proven to me that I need to spend the vast majority of my time at home, just me and Geth. The improvement in my mental health over the last three months has been absolutely immeasurable, despite the situational anxiety of COVID and everything else that’s happening.
Another nice productive day tomorrow, I hope.
Today’s earworm playlist:
Yoko Shimomura – ‘Colony 9’
Pet Shop Boys – ‘On Social Media’