Bad start, good ending

Really wasn't up for it today.  The day started bad by me skipping out on my daughter's harvest festival - it was just too cold to sit in church for an hour and I had way to much work nagging at the back of my head to make me feel comfortable about starting so late - though I must say my lovely boss didn't mind at all.

I have had the guilt trip from said daughter when she got home, especially as she ended up doing a reading and I wasn't there to see her.  Can I also just point out that her dad didn't go either and he was worse than me because at least I went home and worked - he went home and went to bed, but only I got the "it was my last ever harvest festival" sniffles from her.

I absolutely love my job but this week has been so hard, nothing had been straightfoward and having to deal with a mare of a member today was the icing on the cake, if icing was a horrid thing that I never wanted to eat EVER.

So the plan was for me to run off my frustration but a few things went wrong

1.  I couldn't make my brain switch off from work
2.  I forgot my water bottle
3.  It was cold - really cold with a horrid wind and it hurt my chest.

So I gave it up as a bad job and came home after just under 1 mile.


Plus side, I booked Stewart Lee tickets for husband and myself for February next year.  A day can't be too bad when you know you're going to see the 41st best stand up comic ever again :)

Inspired but unfortunately not for running

I was getting a bit bored with my usual route so I went off in a completely different direction this afternoon and found a lovely public footpath.  The problem was it didn't inspire me to run, instead I wanted to slow down - meander, saunter, stroll - and none of those words equal speed!

This photo doesn't do it justice but the sun was shining through the trees, there were birds singing and no traffic sounds, I wanted to take my time, whistle and have a picnic (I don't actually take anything but a water bottle out with my though so that wasn't going to happen).  It was just lovely and after such a busy couple of days  - yesterday I didn't even have time to update my blog - it was really good to be out and find something to turn my brain off work for 10 minutes.

Unfortunately it didn't last long as I got so far down this lovely path and it was so boggy I had to turn right back round again and head back to reality - grey pavements and exhaust fumes (and a pretense at speed).

Yesterday's route
(Just to prove that I did still go out,
I didn't hide indoors and just not blog )

Today!

  

Short Walk - Huge Conker Haul

I spent the morning walking round Meadowhall as my daughter had kindly outgrown all her clothes (and I do mean all!).  I find Meadowhall exhausting, the busyness and the noise usually wears me out completely so I was surprised that when I came home I actually did want to go out for a run.

Maybe I just wanted to try out my snazzy new running top though - with it's pink go faster stripes :)

I made the mistake of taking my daughter with me - I wanted to run, she wanted to go conker picking.  I thought maybe we could do both - sounds easy enough.  I wasn't prepared though for the huge amount of conkers she actually collected and we had a very heavy bag to carry home with us!

Here's just a few of the conkers we collected!

And just for the record - here's the route we followed. But we're not telling you where our amazing conker stash came from as we are keeping that a secret for next year!

          

Todays' blog is brought to you with the words

Squelch and Blind....

It's one thing to set off while it's raining and be prepared to get wet, it's another thing completely to set off in okay weather and then have the heavens open half way round your route.

It rained so hard I seriously couldn't see - note to self: wear contact lenses next time!
It rained so hard that I had to take off my clothes as soon as got through my door and then streak past the open windows to get to the shower.  (An image I'm sure none of you wanted in your head this afternoon)
It rained so hard that my clothes had formed an actual puddle in the hall when I got back to them.

So a bit slower today but I think not being able to see lets me off a bit!

       

Starting to enjoy myself

Over 2miles today and fastest pace yet.  I'm really beginning to like this :)

This was my tenth walk/run and I've clocked up over 20 miles in just over 6hours.  Not bad to say this time last month I was mostly slothlike¬

Sporting the drowned rat look

It was absolutely throwing it down this morning when I woke up but I was determined to go out even though it would mean getting soaked and go out and get wet I did.  The powerful thoughts of the lovely warm shower awaiting me when I got back kept me going.

And I was faster today than ever before - I did my usual route backwards (ish) which meant that most of the first mile was either level or downhill and that made such a difference.

Screengrabs from my phone today as for some reason I can't get my map on the desktop version.

Feeling good :)

 

Weekend off and slow start

Feeling a bit bad that I didn't go out over the weekend but I had a busy Saturday and all my good intentions for Sunday were put off when my daughter practically gave me concussion kneeing me in the face while I was giving her usual sunday morning tickle - my cheek still hurts!

I'll do better next saturday I promise!

Anyway, bit slow today but it is Monday plus I stopped to pick up a massive conker stash I found - now if only conkering was good for calorie burning :)