Running with Company

A first for me this evening: the first time I’ve run in training with anyone else. Apart from race days, I’ve run solo up to now.

This evening my friend Emmeline, who is trying to get back into jogging after a long break, accompanied me for a round-the-harbour outing at dusk. It was good. Not sure it’ll work on a regular basis, as she’s quicker than I am, but it was nice to have the company.

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A Return to the Weekday 5K

…although it was only *just* a return to the weekday 5K, given that I only got around to it on Friday. I was going to nip along the nice, flat Portway, but a friend wanted me to pick up some pancetta for a risotto she was cooking for us, so instead I jogged up Bridge Valley Road, across the Downs and back to Clifton Village to nip into Chandos Deli.

Not much else to report, really. Except that the risotto was ace, and that on the way up Bridge Valley Road, I saw this piece of stereotypically-Clifton litter 😀

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Back to the Portway

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Since my fastest ever half marathon, I’ve not done any jogging.

Partly this is the usual break I take after every big long race. Partly it’s because I’ve been very busy. I took on a four-week contract at my old workplace at the same time I was still working on the Android version of Get Running, at the same time as I was having a new kitchen fitted and then decorating it. As you might expect, that didn’t leave me with much time or energy for jogging.

On the plus side, I did cycle to work and back pretty much every day of the four week contract, which was good exercise, and seems to have kept any weight gain at bay, at least.

And now the contact’s over, the kitchen’s finished, and I’m back on the road. I nipped out for a little 3K jog down the Portway yesterday to start getting myself back in the habit — I find it’s best to lower your resistance to getting back into running by going out for laughably short distances to start with.

Speaking of the Bristol Half Marathon — thanks to everyone who chipped in to raise £110 for Children’s Hospice South West. It’s a great cause, and knowing that there were donations depending on my running helped me to get out there to train, and to keep going all the way around the course 😀

Bristol Half Marathon 2012

It’s been a while, hasn’t it? A few weeks ago, I went out for another long training run, and it was horrible. I was hoping to head somewhere near a half-marathon distance. Instead I did a horrible, slogging, slow 10K, and hated every minute of it.

I’m not entirely sure why — I may have been over-training, as I’d done quite a few longer-distance runs in the previous couple of weeks. And it was the evening, and maybe I was tired.

And, possibly, I might have been injured, as well. Because the Monday after that run, I could barely walk. I think I might have trapped a nerve, or something; certainly I was in a pretty poor way. Luckily that extreme didn’t last for long, with the pain gradually fading over the next couple of weeks.

But it wasn’t conducive to getting out and training. So I didn’t. I didn’t run at all, in fact, until yesterday’s Bristol Half Marathon, though I did cycle a fair bit, just geting around town.

So. I was pretty worried that I’d have another experience like my horrible Bath Half in March.

Luckily, that turned out not to be the case. I got a good night’s sleep on Saturday, after having some lovely lasagne cooked for me by my friend Emmeline. Sunday’s weather was great for running — cool and overcast, but dry — and I was feeling fairly optimistic by the time I got to the start line, even though I’d started the day with a bit of a headache. It helped that this was my fifth half-marathon, so I’m starting to feel a bit more blasé about them now.

And, to cut a long, 13-mile story short, I had a good run. As usual, I enjoyed most of the sights and sounds. Special mention to the guy who overtook me in the Portway tunnel whilst juggling three batons (that must take some practice!), and to the person in the ten-foot tall nurse outfit bouncing happily along…

I didn’t enjoy all the sounds, mind. As an introvert with a headache, I could certainly have done without the guy who dogged my heels from around the turnabout point on the Portway all the way to the finish, alternating inane, repetitive encouragement at the top of his hoarse, drunken-tramp voice with blasts on his air-horn, for example. He gets my prize for “most annoying co-runner of any race I’ve ever been in.”

But it didn’t seem to do my race any harm. I went happily through the 10K mark (where I pretty much ran into a wall on the Bath Half) and carried on jogging fine until the last two or three. At that point my legs started feeling a lot heavier, and I had to rely more on will-power and encouragement from the crowd to pull me round. But I carried on plodding, albeit rather less steadily if the RunKeeper track and stats are anything to go by, and crossed the finish line without ever dropping back to a walk.

Emmeline met me and accompanied me slowly up Park Street for my traditional post-race Rocotillos milkshake (strawberry, this time 🙂 ), and then I headed very, very slowly home for a very, very long bath. Hurrah!

The best news of all, apart from the fact I actually survived, was my official time: 2:47:33, which is my fastest half marathon time ever, beating last year’s Bristol half by about a minute and a quarter. Considering how worried I was about my training, I’m extremely pleased with that result…

All that, and I’ve raised a bit of money for Children’s Hospice South West, too. It’s not too late to bump up my total, if you’re inclined. My Just Giving page is here. Thanks!

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Steamy Day

I was due for my midweek run yesterday, but I got a call from some friends who were going to go ride on a steam train with their two boys — would I like to join them?

It turned out that the steam train was on the Avon Valley line, starting from Bitton, which is, handily, on the Bristol and Bath Railway cycle path. Trying not to think about how far along the path Bitton is — since I started getting on my bike again recently, I’ve probably not done more than five miles in the course of a single day — I got on my bike and set off.

I did pretty well on the way there, though Bitton was further along the 13-mile path than I remembered, definitely closer to Bath than Bristol. Then I had fun on trains. Here’s me taking a photo of little Zach taking a photo of the Polish steam engine that was running the show yesterday:

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We had lunch in a good old-fashioned compartment as we rode along the little railway line, then had a cup of tea at Bitton.

And then I rode back, which was less fun that the ride out. My knees, especially my right knee, clearly don’t like long cycle rides without much practice.

At least the last stretch of the path back to Bristol is gently downhill. Once back in town, I headed for the Workhouse Cafe and a melon and apple smoothie for recovery purposes 🙂

Overall, I did about 35km cycling yesterday, about 22 miles (I stopped the clock at the cafe, but I cycled home from there, too.) It was a lovely sunny day to be cycling down the path, with the added bonus for my poor knees that I didn’t have to go all the way to Bath, at least 😀

I’ll leave you with a picture of some of the “lineside equipment” at Bitton station…

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Mixing Jogging with Duty

I don’t usually mix jogging with anything else. I go out jogging, I come back home. This Sunday, though, I had a favour to do for a friend that dovetailed nicely with the jogging. So, I jogged out to Easton, fed my friend Emmeline’s cat, and jogged back again.

This was good motivation, got me a nice halfway break where I could pet a cat and fill up a water bottle, and took me around some bits of Bristol my jogging doesn’t normally go.

Here’s a few pictures from the jog. On the way out, I passed a huge group of cheery cyclists heading out down the A4, snapped the blue sky over the Suspension Bridge, and took care not to get run over by a steam train. And then, of course, there was Me Me, at the halfway point, who’s very affectionate, especially when you’ve got a tin of food in your hand…

In the end, it was a 9K jog. It would’ve been 10K, but I stopped in a supermarket near home on the way back, so I walked the last kilometre weighed down with shopping 🙂

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Eight, ten… Thirteen?

I was only going to go out for a 10K last night, but it was a lovely evening, I was feeling fairly awake, and the towpath, though pretty muddy in places, gets even prettier past my normal turnoff.

I usually just use the towpath for a quick shady jog out and back a few kilometres, or to get to the far entrance to Leigh Woods for a circular route that comes back across the Suspension Bridge. But the towpath extends beyond there all the way to Pill, and gets increasingly countryside‑y as it goes along.

So, instead of turning around at the 5K point, I headed further out, almost to Pill, and hit the 7.5K mark before turning around. I did a nice, easy pace. It was warm, and this was the longest jog I was going to do since the Bath Half in March. Plus I stopped to take photos every now and again. Shame I didn’t take a real camera out with me, but I did my best with the camera on my old 3GS and Instagram…

I was further slowed by stepping out of the way for the occasional cycling groups and sometimes other joggers; the path between the end of Leigh Woods and Pill is very narrow indeed. All things considered, I’m happy enough with 1 hour 53 minutes for the 13+ kilometres I managed.

Here’s my snaps 🙂

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Getting Longer

Carrying on with the training regime for the Bristol Half, I nipped out this morning for my first 10K jog for a while.

Apart from the humidity and the occasional overly-muddy section of towpath (yes, surprisingly, it’s been raining in England again recently…) it went well.

I was taking it easy. I stopped for a breather halfway up the hill, and to snap a couple of photos, including one of a bloody great yacht about to sail through Junction Lock at high tide, so I’m not too unhappy with an hour and a half.

I’ll leave you with a snap of Hotwells from my warm-up walk 🙂

Zigsandzags