momentum | Matt Gets Running

One Year Ago Today

Today’s jog took me out along the Portway, mostly because the weather has been so utterly crazy in Bristol today that I figured I’d stick to a route where there were likely no puddles and I was fairly unlikely to be struck by lightning. We had the most enormous thunderclap I’ve heard in my life earlier on in the day, which broke windows in some of the buildings on Victoria Street. And it stood alone, like a concentrated dose of thunderstorm. Odd.

The picture above, taken on today’s jog, is some of the later fallout from the heavy weather, clouds so low they’re striking the cliffs of the Avon Gorge at Sea Wall and bouncing up into the air. I’ve been jogging along this route for a year and never seen anything like this.

Which brings me to my other point today: it’s exactly a year I’ve been jogging down the Avon Gorge, because I first took up jogging on July 22nd, 2009.

So, this is my… joggerversary? Runnerversary? Hmm. Think I’d best stick with “anniversary”, hadn’t I? Yes, this is the first anniversary of my being a jogger!

I think I should find some way of celebrating this over the next couple of days. It may well involve cake…

Getting Out There

I’m going to try to get out twice on weekdays this week, because it’s been ages since I’ve done that. I seem to have degenerated into a one-midweek, once-at-the-weekend pattern, mostly since the Bristol 10K. I think I need to start building the average miles up a bit again, and get out when I can.

Today’s jog was very much the same as the last, just 5K out along the towpath and back. It wasn’t a brilliant experience. It was muggy and I was tired, and I just got out there, did it and came back, stopping only to play with my new camera a bit.

New camera? Yes! To mark my first stone of weight loss since I took up jogging, I bought myself a better pocketable camera, this time going for the Sony Cybershot DSC-TX1, which is a nifty little thing, and may turn out to be better than my late, lamented Panasonic Lumix FP8. Only time and a few pictures in better light and better weather than we had tonight will tell.

It’s certainly better than the Lumix FP3 that I used as an intermediate replacement. I quickly learned to dislike the FP3, with its annoyingly useless touchscreen and rubbish, noisy image quality. What’s the point of 14 million pixels if six million of them are displaying sensor noise? Grr.

So, I think this is a good purchase, and a nice reward for losing 16lbs so far. Maybe if I lose another stone, I’ll get myself an iPad…

Skipping A Beat

Well, I’ve been a bit rubbish this week. No mid-week run. Mostly that was because I was busy doing strange things like filming advice on how to take photos of lightning with a BBC weatherman. That, and the serious weather we have in fact had this week, albeit sadly lacking the lightning, meant I didn’t get out jogging when I should have done.

I made a bit of an effort today, at least — it’s lovely jogging weather out there at the moment, bright but not too hot — and did a simple 5K out along the towpath. My jogging seems to be getting slower and slower recently, but I think that’s mostly because there’s lots of nice scenery, so I keep getting distracted and stopping to take photos. I don’t actually think I’m running more slowly; I’m just stopping more…

Anyway. Hopefully next week I’ll get back into things properly. Looks like I can head out on a couple of evenings, weather permitting. See you then!

Woodland Jog

It was, again, really very sunny and warm today. I didn’t get up early enough to avoid it, so instead of heading for the Downs like usual, I went for a little jog around Leigh Woods, which has a lot more shade, instead.

I didn’t take it too seriously, stopping off in a few different places to take photos. Just a nice gentle jog in the sunshine, really, about 7.5K, all told. It feels like enough, on a day like today 🙂

Back Out There

I’m still not feeling 100%. This morning, though, I was struck by a blinding flash of the obvious: if I’m not feeling 100%, I don’t have to run 100%!

So, figuring that building back up momentum is more important than sticking to my usual 5K minimum, I went out for a nice little 3K jog in the evening sunshine.

And it was nice to be out, and I feel far less guilty now.

On Sunday at the latest I’ll be out for a full 5K, as I’m signed up for Pants in the Park, a fun run for Prostate UK.

If you’d like to sponsor me for that, all proceeds will go straight to Prostate UK, plus extra from the taxman if you’re in the UK. You can donate on my Just Giving page right here.

My company is donating £50 just because I’ve agreed to run, which is lovely of them, and a very good start 🙂

Busy busy busy

I’m crazy busy this week, so this is going to be a quick post in between me coming home from my run and stretching 🙂

I just got out for 5K, for the first time since last week, and it was okay. I wasn’t really feeling like running — I think I might be coming down with something, I’ve been feeling a bit off the last couple of days. But: I’d had crisps at lunchtime along with my sandwich, in anticipation of burning off some calories this evening. So, the guilt kicked in and I got out of the door.

I tried my new Iron Man hydration pack thingy that I bought. It took lots of fiddling with the straps as I was running to get it comfy and stable, but I got there in the end. I’m finding that I have to suck pretty damn hard to get water out of the thing, which is annoying, and feels a lot more restrictive than the water bottle. Maybe I’m doing it wrong, or the couple of crimps in the tubing are slowing things down. I’ll have to experiment.

Anyway. Yes, the momentum might be building back up a bit now, I’ll definitely head out for a longer run this weekend, and I’ll catch you after that. Time to stretch!

Sometimes, Life Gets In the Way

In a fairly rare move for me, I didn’t get out for a run this weekend. Or this evening.

I’m trying to give myself a break about this. This weekend I was out of town visiting friends, and I’m still playing catchup on the thousand things I should have done at the weekend if I’d been home. So I think I should probably cut myself some slack. Sometimes, you just have to accept that you have to skip some things in order to do others, and you can’t always play catchup.

One thing I can think about at moments like this is how far I’ve already run. Last time I looked at my RunKeeper profile I had a bit of a surprise: since I started using RunKeeper, back in September, I’ve run 506.72 kilometres. That’s more than 300 miles. And, apparently, more than 56,000 calories. Pretty cool.

Plus, I’ve got one guaranteed weekend run coming up in the shape of Pants in the Park, a 5K run for Prostate UK, on 27th June. I’ve been to a couple before, but only as official photographer, not actually to run. This time I’m running it instead 🙂 My race number should be nice and easy to remember, too, as you can see from the pic 🙂 As my friend Kavey said, “Aww! Three little ducks…”

So, I think I’m just going to accept the fact that I can’t do everything at once, and resolve to get out for my normal midweek run tomorrow or Thursday — probably depending on when there’s a gap in this week’s rain!

Then, though, I must start deliberately setting aside some time for some longer weekend runs, because I want to head up towards half-marathon distances again. I’ve only got until September 5th…

Quickie

Just a quick blog today. I got out for a simple 5K out along the towpath. No RunKeeper log to show for it today, as the GPS just didn’t want to lock. So I ran for about eighteen minutes, then turned around and ran back, on the ground that that would be at least five kilometers.

Not sure what’s going on with the GPS thingy; I tried turning it on and off again, and it wasn’t having any of it. It normally works. Today it was in an armband, though, although (a) I’m sure it’s worked fine in there before, and (b) it’s normally in a pocket of my shorts, which you’d think would be worse. Ho hum.

Anyway. Just making sure I keep up the momentum, with both jogging and blogging.

Today’s photo shows bits of Clifton and Hotwells, and the muddy banks of the river.

Back on the Road Again

This month has been pretty slack for me, running-wise. But that’s a fairly conscious choice. I didn’t want to too much the week before the 10K, and I felt like resting on my laurels a bit after it. Plus I normally take it easy after any long jog, and 10K definitely counts!

But today I got back on the road again, out for a normal Sunday jog. A lot quieter than last week’s, and sans cheering crowds, but still nice. Bridge Valley Road remains closed to traffic, which means you get to jog right up the middle of it rather than being relegated to the narrow strip of pavement up that runs up the one side, plus it was mostly sunny.

So, I guess today marks the end of my training for the 10K. And the start of my training for the Bristol Half Marathon, which is on 5th September. Which feels both a long way off and scarily close at the same time, bearing in mind I’ve never done a run longer than three quarters of that distance…

Before I go, I’d like to thank everyone who sponsored me on my Just Giving page, and elsewhere. If I figure in the Gift Aid for the UK donations, and the £250 my company are going to donate, I reckon I raised a total of £709.08 for St. Peter’s Hospice, which is fantastic! Thanks all!

Quickie

IMG_0909 2.JPG Just a very quick update tonight. I took last week off after my 15K effort last Sunday, but I got back on the road again tonight. It was a nice easy 5K out along the Portway.

I had intended to go down the towpath on the other side of the river, but I was confounded by the tide — at the moment, the lock gate replacement work on the harbour means that they’re just opening both the lock gates at high tide and letting through a backlog of shipping traffic — and if there’s anything tall, then the flyover has to move out of the way, too.

As you can just about see in the picture, that means there’s no way to the south side of the river while it’s happening! So, as I was in a hurry to get through my jog and head up to meet my friend Nicki at the Thali Cafe, I just headed out along the main road instead.

I’ll finish with a very quick restaurant review of the Thali Cafe in Clifton Village: three stars, would’ve been four if there’d actually been any lamb to speak of in the spiced lamb “special”. As it was, there was a small, solitary chunk of lamb hiding among a mound of chick peas… Ho hum.