Lovely day

It does make a change after the horrible weather we've had up her the past few days but it was lovely and sunny on my walk/jog today.

I had a smile on my face and had to stop and take this photo of the sun streaming through the gate at the top of this tree tunnel, it does make it easier to run when it's not grey, gloomy and wet.

And to prove my point, it's one of my better times today too.  34 minutes, 25 seconds.  I'm not shaving much time off (if any if I'm honest) but I'll still out there every day which has to count for something.

Not too bad for a monday

Not very fast today but I went back to doing the NHS couch to 5k plan, starting at week one - again -  and it was easier than it's been before.  I even managed to do some extra running bits after the plan had finished as I wasn't quite back home yet.

I do wish I didn't live near so many hills though, I reckon I could do so much better if I could just run downhil all the time and magically portal back home maybe??

The plan is meant to be followed 3 times a week so I'm thinking I'll do Monday, Wednesday then either Friday or Saturday but still go out Tuesday and Thursday anyway.  I might change my mind tomorrow though, who knows!

Pat on the back

So it's saturday, it's pouring with rain and I still got my gear on and went out - I seriously didn't want to but I didn't want to not go more :)

It wasn't awful either, for a change of pace I'd downloaded my music from my son's phone to mine and it's surprising how a bit of PSY and The Wanted can spur  you on - jogging up the hill with a bright red face, dripping wet hair and singing to Sexy Lady did make the whole exercise a lot more fun :)

Annoying thing is that the GPS on my app didn't pick up until I was half way round my route so it looks like I didn't actually go far but as the starting point isn't anywhere near my house I hope you'll all believe me.

 

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!