Matt Gets Running

I was going to get out mid-week this week and do a lit­tle run, but it rained for pretty much five days solid, and espe­cially heav­ily on Wednes­day, which was oth­er­wise my best run­ning option.

Luck­ily the weather seems to have cleared up a bit for the Bank Hol­i­day week­end, so I nipped out to Leigh Woods this morn­ing and did about 9km. Or pretty much exactly 9km, in fact; that seemed a rea­son­able enough point to stop run­ning and walk the rest of the way back to the Sus­pen­sion Bridge. Don’t want to overdo it!

Today’s photo was taken from the north­ern ridge of Leigh Woods, look­ing towards Clifton and the mod­ern spire of Clifton Cathe­dral.

Any­way. This time next Sun­day, hope­fully, I’ll have fin­ished my first half-marathon. I guess the main thing to do this week is to get lots of sleep, eat health­ily, and give my legs a bit of a rest…

Just back from a jog, for the first time since the Wednes­day before last. Giv­ing my hip a bit of a rest seems to have helped. Today I ran pretty much all the way around the entire green bit on the map — must make sure I include that last lit­tle tri­an­gle next time, just for com­plete­ness’ sake — for a total of 8.88km.

While bits of me still ache a lit­tle, I’m not feel­ing as bad as I felt last week­end. Cycling is clearly a good enough “rest” for when I’ve over­done the jog­ging or walk­ing, which is good to know.

So, two weeks to go to the half marathon, and I can def­i­nitely run almost halfway :) I think, assum­ing the weather is nei­ther blaz­ing hot sun­shine or a com­plete down­pour, that I should prob­a­bly be able to get through 21K the Sun­day after next, if I take it steady.

Which is a good oppor­tu­nity to plug my Just­Giv­ing page again, where the dona­tions to Can­cer Research cur­rently stand at £100, thanks to you, dear reader, and some of the lovely peo­ple on Twitter.

I think I can raid the gen­er­ous pock­ets of peo­ple at work with an actual paper spon­sor form as well, to help me get to my tar­get of £250 (because my com­pany will match dona­tions up to £250, it seemed like a good target.)

I think I’ll go out for a cou­ple of short runs in the next seven days, then give myself a com­plete week’s rest before the half marathon…

Cycling up Bridge Val­ley Road, to be pre­cise. Steep.

Although it’s clearly not all the same mus­cles that get used by cycling and run­ning, at least the aer­o­bic fit­ness from run­ning is trans­fer­able. I could never have cycled up Bridge Val­ley Road this time last year. Today, on a nearly 9K-cycle ride that took me up and around the Downs, I man­aged it with­out stop­ping. Albeit slowly. Maybe I’ve learned to pace myself a bit, too…

It didn’t feel like as much exer­cise as run­ning even 5K, but at least it was some exer­cise, and it doesn’t seem to be aggra­vat­ing my hip.

I’m going to give myself a cou­ple of days’ rest and prob­a­bly try a lit­tle jog at the week­end, just see how things are feeling.

My left hip’s been play­ing up a bit recently. It’s been quite achey the last cou­ple of days, pos­si­bly because of the amount of walk­ing I’ve done, head­ing to Ash­ton Court and back for var­i­ous bits of the Bal­loon Fiesta.

So, I fig­ure I need a bit of a time-out, espe­cially as I don’t want to aggra­vate it too much before the half marathon, which is three weeks today.

But, I don’t want to cut out on exer­cis­ing, so when my friend Dave returned the bike I’d lent him — to tide him over after his got nicked a cou­ple of weeks ago — it seemed like a bit of a sign. I’ve not been out on my bike for ages, at least a year, and it had just been lan­guish­ing in the back yard gath­er­ing dust. Dave returned it sparkling and shiny and, impor­tantly, hav­ing tested the brakes for me :)

Today’s Run­K­eeper log, there­fore, isn’t actu­ally a run­ning log, but a cycling log. I did 10K, but that included a few pauses here and there. Not least of which was the first, caused by Bristol’s mar­itime side — there’s not a lot you can do if they’re going to slide the road to one side to let a boat go first.

It also included a bit of walk­ing here and there — I don’t know Ash­ton Court very well, for exam­ple, so I man­aged to end up on one track that was really only pass­able by moun­tain bike; the tyres on my hybrid were just slip­ping around. Plus I took a wrong turn every now and again. Still, it’s all good exercise.

And it doesn’t seem to have aggra­vated my hip like walk­ing there yes­ter­day did.

Don’t know if I’m going to keep cycling swapped for run­ning until the half marathon, but it might be sen­si­ble. What­ever I do, I’m going to have a look through the nice book on stretch­ing my dad bought for me and see what it says about hips, because it could just be that it needs a good bit of reg­u­lar stretching…

Tonight’s run was a very inter­rupted, stop-start affair. But for good reason.

Tomor­row sees the start of the Bris­tol Inter­na­tional Bal­loon Fiesta, held at the Ash­ton Court Estate, not a mil­lion miles from my usual tow­path route. Not only that, but today some­one men­tioned the new Fes­ti­val Way cycle route, the first phase of which recently opened, and links my bit of town with Ash­ton Court. All the details, and a sped-up video of some­one rid­ing the route — a really good way of show­ing how to get places, espe­cially as the signs are a bit rub­bish at the moment — are here on Bet­ter By Bike.

So, I checked it out. It does make Ash­ton Court seem even closer to me than the pre­vi­ous pedes­trian route I’d used, over a foot­bridge by the allot­ments and down a tiny foot­path. And avoids both stairs and sting­ing net­tles, def­i­nite minuses of that way of get­ting there.

On the other hand, it’s very clearly a route that wouldn’t really exist purely for the plea­sure of an amble, hav­ing a rel­a­tively claus­tro­pho­bic and indus­trial feel, much of both sides being sealed off by fenc­ing of the cheap-and-fierce vari­ety, includ­ing sec­tions with that nasty rotat­ing blade stuff. Still, makes for an inter­est­ing silhouette.

Once that bit’s over, you emerge slightly sur­prised at a nice-looking cricket pitch, two sides of which you walk around before the cycle path finally ends. It spits you out directly oppo­site the Ken­nel Lodge Road entrance to Ash­ton Court, on the blind bend on Clan­age Road. Nasty.

Still, I took my ear­buds out, took my life in my hands, and jogged suc­cess­fully across the dan­ger zone. After that it was, really, a walk in the park, jog­ging up the hill to the man­sion house and then trot­ting around the fair­ground attrac­tions, many still being bolted together and stocked with stuffed ani­mals. Really must get up there with a proper cam­era on the same day next year — the prepa­ra­tions make for good photography.

Any­way. So, turn­ing around at the top of the bal­loon arena, and punc­tu­at­ing my run­ning with stop­ping to look at stuff, and the odd bit of iPhone pho­tog­ra­phy, I slowly made my way back home. I think I prob­a­bly did tech­ni­cally jog 5K, but not all at once… Still, it was a good way of scop­ing out this new route, which should open up Ash­ton Court for me for some longer runs, which should be a pleas­ant alter­na­tive to the Downs.

I’m tak­ing Fri­day off work to go hang out at the Bal­loon Fiesta some. I may even head up for one of the 6am launches — they’re really mag­i­cal times, when not so many peo­ple are about and the bal­loons some­times lift off the field at about the same time as the morn­ing mist. If I do, I’ll prob­a­bly throw some pho­tos on Flickr, and pop a link in here, running-related or not :)

My employer has just agreed to match any dona­tions I get from Bris­tol Half Marathon spon­sor­ship, up to £250. So any­thing you can donate at my Just­Giv­ing Page counts dou­ble! All dona­tions, big or small, grate­fully received :)

Thanks!

I was think­ing of head­ing out for quite a long run this week­end, but it didn’t really work out like that. I’ve taken on some sud­den spare-time work, and that’s eaten a lot of my week­end time. Still, I did man­age to get out for 7K out along the tow­path, up through Leigh Woods, and back to the Sus­pen­sion Bridge. No prob­lems at all, really, it felt fine, which hope­fully bodes well for the half marathon.

Today’s inter­est­ing sights were peo­ple zip-wiring across the Avon Gorge, and an urban fox. No pho­tos, sadly — I didn’t want to stop to wait for the next per­son down the zip­wire, and the fox was too fast for me!

This month, I’ll mostly be remind­ing you that you can spon­sor me to raise money for Can­cer Research UK. Hit the link in the side­bar if you’d like to contribute :)

Bleh. That was one of those runs where I just knew I didn’t want to be run­ning as soon as I started. It didn’t get much bet­ter, either, as I strug­gled fairly slowly through 5K. Still, at least I did strug­gle through. Some­times just get­ting through it is enough.

I think it’s because I’m tired. Get­ting back to work this week has been a bit of a shock to the sys­tem after my break up in Win­der­mere, plus I’m read­ing Iain Banks’s lat­est, Tran­si­tion, and it’s dif­fi­cult to put down of an evening, which isn’t helping!

Also, I’m get­ting a bit of pain from the arch of my left foot. Not sure what’s going on there. Noth­ing severe, just enough to make me worry a bit, as it’s been going on for a cou­ple of weeks now. Hmm.

Any­way. I will prob­a­bly take a break until the week­end, as there’s a Flickr meet tomor­row night and I hardly ever have the moti­va­tion to go run­ning on a Fri­day evening…

So, I reckon it’s about five weeks until the Bris­tol Half Marathon.

*Gulp*.

So, please help moti­vate me to keep on run­ning, no mat­ter what the weather (and in the UK on the 5th Sep­tem­ber, let’s face it, it could be any­thing from a heat­wave to a hail­storm) by spon­sor­ing me to run for my cho­sen char­ity, Can­cer Research UK:

All dona­tions, big or small, grate­fully appre­ci­ated. Thanks!

I’ve just been in the Lake Dis­trict for a week. I took my run­ning gear, but didn’t actu­ally get around to any run­ning. Such is the way of holidays!

Just been out for my nor­mal Sun­day out­ing, though, a sim­ple 7-ishK around the Downs. From here on in, I guess I’m train­ing for the Bris­tol Half Marathon. I reckon I’ve got five weeks to go. I’m going to train two or three times a week for the next four weeks, then have a week off before the half marathon. Should be a decent com­bi­na­tion of train­ing and rest­ing, I think.

Any­way. I’ve got lots of post-holiday stuff to do, so I’m off to sort my laun­dry before it actu­ally takes over the house. Catch you later in the week!