I went for a shakeout parkrun this morning, which was nice – it’s always a good atmosphere at Newcastle parkrun on GNR weekend. Felt really comfortable and absolutely ready for the race tomorrow now.
After catching up with some admin, Geth and I played a couple more missions of the Lord of the Rings: Journeys in Middle Earth boardgame, and I’m now settling in for an evening of Strictly and Puzzle Pirates.
I’ll update about the race tomorrow evening!
Not an OOTD: gratuitous token shot for the boardgame.
Today’s earworm playlist:
Philip Bailey and Phil Collins – Easy Lover Mike & The Mechanics – The Living Years Duran Duran – Girl Panic! Rizzle Kicks – Mama Do The Hump Muse – New Born Michael Land – Jojo The Monkey
I’ve spent all day doing editing work for clients and sorting out my to-do list, but I’m finally done and Great North Weekend is here! It won’t be as intense as it usually is as there’s no CityGames athletics to watch on the Quayside this year (they’ve moved the event to Stockton-on-Tees for some reason), but I’m still looking forward to a shakeout parkrun tomorrow morning, eating all the pasta (may have started already) and watching the Strictly launch show before getting an early night ready for the race on Sunday.
In the meantime, it’s another evening of escaping into my videogames. I’m finding that it’s really helping me to relax at the moment.
Not an OOTD: Geth has found a version of Tetris on the Switch that has the best upbeat dance version of the classic theme tune. Can’t watch the screen, though, ’cause I just keep getting frustrated by his placement choices!
It’s been an okay-ish day. I had a good loss at Slimming World this morning (not sure how, but I’m relieved to be losing again after a few consecutive weeks of gain!) and have been writing all afternoon. Geth is out boardgaming this evening, so I will be going back to my videogames.
Work all day tomorrow and then it’s Great North Run weekend!
OOTD: my favourite top for weigh-in. Glasses Emporio Armani (2017), hoodie Uneek Classic for Mesh (2016), vest top Primark (2018).
Today’s earworm playlist:
Timecop1983 and The Bad Dreamers – Back To You Duran Duran – Rio Disney – Prince Ali* Shakin’ Stevens – Green Door Pretenders – Back On The Chain Gang The Beatles – Drive My Car
I know I shouldn’t wish my life away, but today is the day I always start to get excited about autumn, my favourite season of the year.
It’s the first of August – just a month away from meteorological autumn – and while I know most people are still enjoying the summer (I’m not sure how, given that after last week’s brief heatwave the weather has since returned to a constant cool, grey dampness that means Geth can’t mow the lawn), I’m already dreaming of darker evenings and Hallowe’en chocolate and getting my ’80s jumper collection out again.
The BBC are starting to announce the first few Strictly contestants, and I’m stepping up my training for the Great North Run, and I’m already busy planning out my writing for all the fiction and poetry competitions I’m going to be entering from September to November. I’ve got a lot of gigs lined up for that period as well – it’s going to be a really great autumn this year!
In the meantime, I’ve got one last summer trip away to enjoy this month. It is Shetland, though, so I’m not hopeful for the weather (last time I was there, it rained the whole time).
A nice normal Thursday today now that we’ve got the internet back – Geth and I went to the earlier Slimming World group today so that we could be in when the new router arrived, and we’ve got boardgaming guests coming round this evening for more adventures in the Lord of the Rings universe.
OOTD: weigh-in top with added cosy hoodie due to the cooler weather. Glasses Emporio Armani (2017), hoodie Gildan for Resistanz (2016), vest top Primark (2018).
Today’s earworm playlist:
Haim Saban and Shuki Levy – The Mysterious Cities Of Gold Main Theme Ed Sheeran – Castle On The Hill A-ha – Take On Me Andy Taylor – Broken Window Lizzo – Truth Hurts Gunship – Dark All Day
An early start, aided by my new Spotify playlist that collects all my favourite running-reminiscent songs! After getting our stuff together, Geth and I headed out for a good walk to the Great North Run start line. We put our rucksack on the baggage bus and got ourselves settled in the start pen.
Start line selfie! I am still no good at taking these.
It was a good hour-long wait until we finally started moving, and probably another twenty minutes after that walking down to the actual start line (being the world’s biggest half marathon, it takes a good long while to get nearly 60,000 runners over the line), but before too long we were off, and I was able to settle into my comfortable pace for the first few miles.
Unfortunately pretty much all of my recurring aches and pains showed up during the course of the race, and so I didn’t get anywhere near the sub-2:30 I would have liked. I did get 2:43:19, which is a 10 min 36 sec improvement on last year’s PB – ergo I can’t really complain! Looking forward to the winter, though, as I will be able to train a lot better for the various races I will be doing in the run-up to the London Marathon in April.
South Shields and its pubs were as wonderful and necessary as ever. We hung about for a while to avoid the Metro queues, but are now finally home with pizza and prosecco. A very quiet day planned tomorrow.
OOTD: the only piece of clothing that matters today! Glasses Moschino (2006), t-shirt Great North Run (2018).
Today’s earworm playlist:
Ashford & Simpson – Solid
(Another short playlist due to a whole day of having music played at me!)
Great North Weekend properly got started today, much the same as it did last year, with a parkrun volunteering session. There were a lot of people volunteering due to the GNR, but luckily Geth, Ed, and I managed to snag the gate 2 spot, which meant we didn’t have to hang about for too long. Great atmosphere at parkrun though – it’s always good on Great North Weekend.
After parkrun, Geth and I went for breakfast at Costa, and then home to collect a few things before heading into town for the Pasta Party and the Great North CityGames.
We got off at Gateshead and headed for lunch at the Pasta Party first, as the queues just get worse throughout the day. As we’re both running this year, and I’m on my second year of membership, we had a ridiculous number (six) of pasta vouchers:
So much pasta. I ended up eating most of it, ’cause Geth doesn’t have the stamina for pasta-eating that I do.
We then headed over the Millennium Bridge (bumping into Ed again halfway across!) to catch the CityGames long jump, where I took the obligatory blurry photos of Greg Rutherford and Jazmin Sawyers:
People that I usually just see on the TV!
It was Greg Rutherford’s last ever competitive long jump event, so it was pretty special to get to see him. We then went back to the Gateshead side of the Quayside to watch the sprint distance events from the seated area. Despite the rain, it was quite comfy!
Sadly the CityGames is moving to Stockton-on-Tees from next year, so it won’t be part of our Great North Weekend again for the foreseeable future. I’m guessing the Pasta Party will remain in Gateshead though.
A quiet evening in after that, with the BBC coverage of the CityGames, the Strictly Come Dancing launch show, some triathlon on iPlayer, and yet more pasta. I could not be any more carb-loaded after the last three days. Hopefully it will give me the requisite energy for tomorrow’s Great North Run!
OOTD: rain? What rain? Glasses Emporio Armani (2017), hoodie Uneek Classic for Mesh (2016), t-shirt Puma for Great North 5K (2015).
Today’s earworm playlist:
Kim Wilde – You Came
And a bonus track that Geth was humming earlier:
Baltimora – Tarzan Boy
(A short list today, partly due to spending most of the day surrounded by actual music, but mainly because after Geth woke me up for the second time by loudly singing Tarzan Boy, that became my earworm for the rest of the day too!)
