abendgules: (Confesse)
I regularly notice things either en route to work, or in my day, that are terribly witty and worth sharing.

But I don't seem to get the time to put them in writing.

Real-world recap:

I really enjoyed hearing the Canadian election outcome, though felt sorry for NDP which now has a few years of rebuilding to do.

It's been a pretty good fall in London for weather and fall colours; reasonably dry for most of September and October, which meant I've done more running than before.

I've been diligently getting out at lunch hours, and alternating w/ lunch hours in the gym, doing both physio-recommended stretches and some strength moves.

As a partial result of running, I now have my R foot strapped up, to manage plantar fasciitis. Have to freeze a bottle of water to roll under my foot this evening. Oooops.

Apparently ignoring the dull ache in your foot til it becomes a sharp pain in your foot is not the appropriate response.

Still going to physio regularly to try to manage lower back pain. I can feel that I've gained more mobility in my lower back and pelvis, and I walk more carefully and consciously than before.

Weekends where I'm wearing flat medieval shoes on hard surfaces really show themselves up at the physio.

I'm already on 2 weeks sabbatical from running, to see if I can shake the referred pain down 1 leg. So this week I'm walking not running at lunch. Fortunately the break coincides with weekends away when I couldn't get to a parkrun anyway.

It's halfterm in London so the constant commuting pressure eases off by about 20% as all the parents take time out while their kids get a week off. I treasure this week for travel, but you're always covering for someone in the office who's away this week.

Next week I hope to take 1 day off, to see the current Celts exhibit at the British Museum.
abendgules: (rearview_runner)
I found out about parkrun this year after 3+ mentions of it in a copy of Runner's World - there was a cover article about 5k running, which is why I picked it up. I wondered if parkrun had sponsored the mentions, there were so many.

I've been thinking about going for months, but just before Double Wars wasn't the time to start. At that point I couldn't even picture getting out of bed before 9am on a Saturday.

Don't know why exactly today was the day - possibly watching the world championship athletics this week put it in mind - I loved watching it through lunchtime while I was in the gym. Beats the hell out of news and crappy music videos. Puts your own efforts into perspective, but in a good way, not a depressing way.

So today I ran the one closest to me - one I could find on the bus route - in Harrow.

I figure it was my running that inspired Mo Farah - he's just won the 5,000m in Beijing. :-)

Don't yet know my time. I was so shattered as I crossed the finish I didn't hear the time. I wasn't absolutely last, but I think I was the last runner - the rest were run-walkers.

I did walk 3x - there is a gentle slope on the course in this park, and I found on the laps that it was a good point to walk for 30 paces.

The run director was very kind - asked my name, how I'd found parkrun, then how I did afterward, my impressions, would I do it again.

I suggested setting one up in the local county park - he said he'd run x-country there, but it was potentially muddy - guess they have to choose routes that will be reliable and predictable, even w/ poor weather.
abendgules: (rearview_runner)
I think that's a record.

The tendon-y thing behind my R knee is still sore. Oddly it doesn't hurt when I touch my toes, it's the lunge w/ the sore leg extended behind me that hurts.

So I didn't walk yesterday, to rest it, but tried to stretch on and off all day.

Today I tried to walk round the park without favouring the leg - mostly managed. Also managed a couple of short circuits alternating 9 paces walk with 9 paces jog. It was odd counting paces instead of breaths for a change, and the odd number meant I alternated lead foot. It didn't feel strenuous, but I did breathe harder.

I'm still 'avoiding sweating' per instructions from Gunnar Sandberg for my chest infection. He feels that if you exercise vigourously while you're sick you get better more slowly than if you rest.

OTOH, I managed this walk-run without retching or horking huge gobs of phlegm so the pace was a good choice so far.

We have a lot of walking tomorrow to neighbourhood-hunt, so I kept it a bit shorter than prev walks this week.
abendgules: (rearview_runner)
Went for a run today in the new nauseous pink shoes. Jury is still out.

My knees tell me they've done some different work today, because they're aching differently than before.

Spent much of the weekend with [livejournal.com profile] goncalves and the splendid J, in their new digs in Cardiff, and also visiting Bristol. J has lived there awhile, and gave the tour of the fashionable Gloucester Road, the 'centre' with its gruesome postwar buildings, the redeveloped bits close to the main train station where she works, and some of the S Bristol neighbourhoods.

North and South Bristol are a bit like N and S London, a few years ago - N London fashionable, S London up and coming, w/ big differences in housing prices between the two (now all London is stupid expensive, doesn't matter where you are).

I had no idea you could build a city on a site so hilly; I can't see how they could be built before cars existed. Horse-drawn transport just wouldn't make it up some slopes, at all.

Parts of Bristol are heavily populated by charity shops, which is risky for me because I can lose a lot of time in them. J says the better ones are picked over by Bristol students who have the time and motivation to shop regularly!

On Sunday we visited Caerphilly Castle in preparation for autumn Crown. It was a glorious late-summer day, great day to visit, and the castle was at its best. We had a good visit with the custodian, and have promising ideas about where to host 'noisy' space to keep the crash space in the hall relatively quiet at the event.

One downside: no fires or candles. In an 800 year old stone building, we're not allowed to light fires in the fireplaces - those designated, purpose built areas intended to keep fires contained and managed. Sigh.

The trips to and fro were uneventful, though it was vexing to find that my network card, bought to get me discounts on train fares across the NETWORK, doesn't apply in Wales. The answer was 'You're in Wales love'. Apparently I'd entered a discount free zone, whereas if I'd bought a return ticket, it would have applied on both fares. Stupid stupid stupid.

They were also very full - people standing leaving London for the first hour, and paying £40 each way for the privilege.
abendgules: (rearview_runner)
Went for a run for the first time in weeks yesterday - complaining back, then complaining knees, then Raglan recovery delayed me much of July & August. Man do I miss this.

After work, I went out in search of new running shoes. I think I've found the ugliest shoes in creation, and bought them.

Normally the colour would put me off...but I was wearing the one and only Barbie-pink blouse I own, which was exactly the same colour as the shoes. (It's linen blend and was on sale, so sue me.)

And the shoes were on sale.

But really, they are very pink.

I'm testing out this minimal-cushioning-to-replicate-natural-gait stuff. It makes sense, to a point: our feet are already well designed to run.

The catch is that nature didn't make concrete sidewalks and asphalt paths. I try to run on grass, but I have to run on sidewalks to reach the grass in the parks.

I really, really want to regain some of the stamina I had this time last year, pre-pneumonia; late last autumn I managed 6k round the park... and within days had a cold, and it went downhill from there. I think the occasional 10k is very do-able, if I'm careful about my knees and back.

I want next Raglan to be, if not effortless, then not quite the physical struggle it was this year, to do what I wanted - and I didn't get to do as much as I'd hoped for.

Another resolution: more stretching. I'm already using a standing desk, now I have to move more, not just stand like a statue, and stretch more through the day. I was more stiff this year at Raglan than I remember from previous years.
abendgules: (womaninmotion)
Robert and I spent a relaxed day today - first visiting the Tudor house within walking distance of us(!) that we'd never visited, then braving the hordes at Camden market for clothes from Braintree. I typically try to avoid the market on weekends and holidays, but we're pressed for leisure time between now and when my mum visits post-Easter.

We also stopped at my favourite running shop and scored with these - are they cool or what?

I'll be the envy of the runners in the park!

all the cool kids want them...

The best part is - I didn't even ask for them in purple. That's the only colour they had in this style. Awesome.
abendgules: (rearview_runner)
 ...for completing a 5k run at work, part of the annual summer fete.

I did 3 laps at a run/walk last year, but this year I did the full 4 laps, running, no breaks. And finished, upright and smiling.

With an extrapolation from my time last year, I was given 'most improved' prize for gaining (losing?) 4 mins on last year's time.

Today's post in my training diary on the Drachenwald fighters forum

I don't know if I'm fitter now than at 20, but I'm faster than I was 10 years ago. :-)
abendgules: (womaninmotion)
 ...two weeks running of running - getting out for a lunchtime walk/run 3x/week.
I find that getting out more than 3x/week starts to make a tangible difference - it actually gets easier to run - whereas when my running slots drop to 2x/week, it gets harder and harder to make the time, and the running itself is less fun, and more like work. (A bit like attending fight practice - you can keep it up once you've started, but it's a bugger to get started...)
I think I've worked out a maintainable rhythm: duck out just before noon, be in the park at noon, back shortly after 12.30, shower/change/lunch and back at my desk shortly after 1pm.
The trick will be keeping to that timing (ie. not taking a lot more than an hour total, maybe 1hr 15min) as I increase my distance, or time spent running. 
Alternately, I could keep the lunch runs short, and add a 'long slow' run on the weekend.
It's just hard to pry myself off the sofa on the weekends.
Unfortunately, I cannot speed up how long it takes for me to cool off; I can shower and change faster, but I just keep 'glowing' bright red and sweating for a fixed amount of time.
Makeup is a bit of a waste of time on run days - just makes the spots worse.
There's a fun run at work for the office summer fete in mid-July: 5km run or 2.5km walk. Possibly a good date to work towards completing 5km.
abendgules: (womaninmotion)
Have felt painfully slack of late, and haven't run or walked at lunch for a couple of weeks. Especially felt it when heading out for a couple of circuits of the park today! wow. Must find a running buddy  to keep me honest.. con_girl, where are you?

Scribing up a storm right now, with visible improvements, which is encouraging. Did a couple of ID backlogs, while returning scribe Arianrhod, living in Flintheath, has made a clean sweep of almost all the rest of the unassigned ones.

Coffee definitely gives me the jitters, which affects my painting.

I now finally own a Linex line guide. It's not an intuitive item, but who knew that you could draw lines for scrolls so quickly (the most boring part of setup work)?

If you're a scribe and don't yet own one, RUN to the interwebs and find either a linex line guide or an Ames line guide. You won't regret it!

Last weekend ended up being something of a spring-clean, unintentionally. Robert successfully cleared an extremely ugly shelving unit and has stowed it in one of the cupboards - something I didn't  think would fit! - leaving our living space just a bit sparer. We both spent time weeding old DT and magazine piles, and clearing detritus from the living room. I struggle to put away my crafts materials; I have such hopes when I bring them out, such good intentions! but when I don't do the crafts, they then start to sulk and glare at me, collecting in corners, muttering amongst themselves. Sigh.

Harley puss continues to court admirers in the close; one of them followed her in the house at 2am on Mon night/Tues morning, to press his suit. I was woken by growling and hissing at the top of the stairs - fortunately not followed by indoor piddling this time. One of the toms, who we've dubbed the Singer, seems to visit just to howl a few feline showtunes, and then wander off, after marking the door. She tolerates him though - we've seen them nose-kissing in the schoolyard (useful things, kitchen windows).
abendgules: (womaninmotion)
I went for the longest run I've had in years - 41 minutes, most of the way through Victoria Park.

Over the winter I felt like I'd never run again.

A couple of months ago, I did well to manage 21 minutes, and it took all my energy to manage it.

I'm hugely pleased.

*beaming*

Profile

abendgules: (Default)
abendgules

August 2016

S M T W T F S
 123456
78910111213
14151617181920
21222324252627
28 293031   

Syndicate

RSS Atom

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Jul. 11th, 2025 06:28 am
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios