…because I did three miles yesterday and am doing another three miles tomorrow in order to achieve various Strava challenges. I was disappointed not to get my planned half marathon length run done at the weekend, but have decided to spend another four weeks building up to it and am feeling a lot more comfortable with my running balance this week as a result.
It kind of feels like nothing is certain at the moment and so I’m sort of planning for a lot of potential futures instead of one definite one. One of the more frivolous of these potential futures involves me and Geth getting an XBOX Series X (the next-generation XBOX, released this Christmas) that will be backwards-compatible with the three previous XBOX models. As such, I have ordered a couple of XBOX One games online despite the fact that we don’t own an XBOX One. Getting in before everyone else does, while they’re still cheap 😀
I managed to get my work, admin and housework done fairly promptly today and so have been working on various game creation-related things for the rest of the day. I’ll be getting back to my non-running exercise tomorrow, but I’m hoping to get a good chunk of work done on the next game in the afternoon as well.
For the upcoming Adventuron game jam, an optional challenge is to make the game portable to ZX Spectrum. This requires compatible graphics, and so I’ve been playing around with unfamiliar software today!
Today’s earworm playlist:
The Weeknd – ‘Blinding Lights’ Duran Duran – ‘Hungry Like The Wolf’ September 87 – ‘Bad Dream Baby’ Robbie Williams – ‘Karma Killer’ Wham! – ‘Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go’
Anyway, this box is typically well-kept for a London phone box. From the Street View image, I’m guessing that posters etc. are not allowed on the box even in the summer, but I bet it doesn’t stop people trying.
…as when I first stepped out the door it felt like it had gone from summer to winter in the space of twenty-four hours! I did warm up while running, though, so there’s no need to pull out the winter gear again just yet.
It’s super grey and dark out there today, which is sort of okay with me as it feels like the weather’s gone back to normal. I’ve just been getting on with work and admin and housework so far – hoping for a bit of time to work on my coding this evening.
THE BLANKET IS BACK. Basically any time it’s not boiling hot outside I have this with me on the sofa. I think it’s a comfort thing more than anything else.
Today’s earworm playlist:
Michael Land – ‘Mêlée Island’ Michael Land – ‘Slappy Cromwell Juggling’ Elbow – ‘One Day Like This’ Hiroyuki Sawano and Gemie – ‘Ashes Suite’
…before the sun disappeared this afternoon. Looks like we’ll be having some cooler weather for a while!
I’ve been making a few test minigames in preparation for the next game jam today. I’ll be working on those for the next couple of days just to make sure I know what I’m doing, as there are a few limitations that need to be worked around this time.
At least the sunshine disappearing means that I don’t feel guilty for not being out in it!
The telltale silhouette of next door’s cat, who only just realised today that we’ve had our windows open. Always desperate to get in!
Today’s earworm playlist:
Levellers – ‘Julie’ Michael Land – ‘On The Hill’ Michael Land – ‘The Barbery Coast’
…and then I had a fairly light day workwise, as I’d worked quite hard over the weekend getting Goblin Quest finished and released, and there was a lot of stuff going on today. Geth had some highly-anticipated (and highly-worried-about) work meetings related to his upcoming career trajectory, and we were also waiting to hear about some important news from his side of the family. I can’t talk too much on here about what’s going on, but I am ending today with a hopeful feeling, which is about as much as I can ask for.
I’ve been doing some initial prep for the next game I’ll be working on, and will hopefully get some more done tomorrow, but on the whole I’m having a (deliberately) slow start to the week. I’ll get back into things properly in a few days’ time.
I find myself woefully unprepared for the hot weather we’ve been having over the last couple of weeks, so I’ve been lounging around in the sarongs that I’ve had since my teenage years.
Today’s earworm playlist:
Lady Gaga – ‘Bad Romance’ Ta Mara & The Seen – ‘Affection’ Michael Land – ‘Monkey Island Main Theme’ Michael Land – ‘LeChuck’s Theme’ The Wonder Stuff – ‘Don’t Let Me Down, Gently’
On the 31st of May 2015, I was sitting on the sofa, about a third of the way through my first playthrough of Mass Effect. It suddenly occurred to me that videogame characters could run forever, never getting tired or slowing down, and as Commander Shepard ran forever on my TV screen, a fleeting notion came to me. ‘I’d like to be able to run forever,’ I thought wistfully, before being launched into another space gun battle and forgetting all about it for a few more hours.
On the 1st of June 2015, I started running.
On the start line of the Great North 5k 2015, next to a rain-soaked River Tyne.
My first running route was a 1.1k loop around where Geth and I live. On that first day, I had to take two (planned) 50-second walk breaks; the total route took me about ten or eleven minutes, nearly twice the time of the fastest kilometres that I do nowadays.
I got home and had to sit down on the stairs for a while, my breath icy and my chest aching. I had spent 2010-2011 doing Wii Fit on and off, and had attended a Zumba class twice a week for the last eighteen months before we moved from Southampton to Newcastle in February 2015, but running was a whole new level of cardio and I wasn’t used to it. As I thumped at my chest to try and bring it back to life, Geth looked at me pityingly. ‘This isn’t going to last,’ he observed, and in that moment, I also had my doubts.
However, I’m a stubborn cow, and so I went out again to do that 1.1k loop for the next four days in a row, cutting the duration of the walk breaks down by five seconds each day. I decided to run five days a week, Monday to Friday, and do a bit of strength training at the weekends. At the end of week one, I signed up for the Great North 5k, already feeling the need for a target race to help with motivation. By the end of week two, I could run the whole loop in one go (slowly!), and by the end of week three, Geth was convinced enough to buy me my first pair of running shoes (Karrimor trail shoes, because I didn’t know anything about running shoes). For week four, I doubled the loop to 2×1.1k and started again with the 50-second walk breaks.
Training for my first 5k was not without its challenges. I was a lot heavier then, and so I suffered from a lot of debilitating hip pain that really slowed me down. I also spent a week in the south of France with my family, and every morning I diligently staggered up the steepest hill I have ever run on, in 30°C heat! I later had to take a week off training due to an attack of runner’s knee, and found this a bit panic-inducing, not yet realising that training plans can be flexible. In the event, I only managed to run my final 5×1.1k training loop without stopping once… but that was enough, and I completed the Great North 5k 2015 in 35:51, a 5k time that I wouldn’t be able to beat for nearly two years, even after I started parkrunning most weeks.
While I had big running ambitions and dreams when I started, and always hoped to be able to run faster and for longer, I’m still amazed sometimes when I look back over the last five years. I have run approximately 1,770 miles (Strava says 1,769, Smashrun says 1,771, FetchEveryone says 1,773!), which isn’t huge mileage over five years by a lot of runners’ standards, but I’m more than proud of it. I’ve completed three 5k races, 112 parkruns, ten 10k races, two 10 mile races, eight half marathons, and one full marathon – my proudest achievement, even though my time wasn’t much to write home about. In the early days, I regularly staggered in with the tail runner at parkrun, and came last out of thousands of runners in the Great North 10k 2016. I am still slow, but on my good days I’m almost a mid-packer now. On New Year’s Day 2020, I started running every day, which has massively improved my speed along with my mileage.
I can’t express how much running has enhanced my life. I prioritise health and fitness in everything I do now, and I’m not sure that I would have lost five stone or managed to get sober if running hadn’t made me more aware of my general wellbeing. I’ve made friends through the wonderful running community that exists in the north-east of England and beyond. Above all, it’s an amazing hobby that I’ve been able to share with Geth – he was inspired by that first Great North 5k that I did, and started running himself the following year.
This morning, I ran that first 1.1k route again as part of my regular 2k-ish easy run, and cast my mind back to that first difficult attempt. I think that on the 1st of June 2015, if you’d told me that I would one day be able to run that loop without even really noticing I was running, I would never have believed you.
I still can’t quite run forever. But a marathon feels like forever, and for the time being, that’s enough.
Post-run this morning. The best way to start the day.
