On Wheels

IMG_0678 2.JPGMy 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…

A New Path to Ashton Court

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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 🙂

Quick Weekend Jaunt

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 🙂

‘Orrible.

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…

Half Marathon Countdown

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!

Back From Holiday

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!

One Year Ago Today

Sea Wall III

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…

Sore Feet

My feet seem to be a bit achey after running recently. It suddenly occurred to me that, even though it only seems like a few weeks ago that I bought a new pair of shoes, it might actually have been rather longer.

And that’s where a blog comes in handy. I first bought proper running shoes on 29 August last year. They seemed to do me okay until I started getting an achey hip and some other aches and pains in February this year. So, that’d be about five months.

It took me a while to figure out it was the shoes that were the problem, so I didn’t buy a new pair of Mizunos until the beginning of March. Which would have been, erm, about five months ago.

So, I’m thinking that maybe these are early warning signs that I’ve nearly worn out another pair of shoes. Especially as I’ve probably run more in the last five months than I did in the five months before, because I wasn’t doing that much long-distance stuff back then.

Hmm. Five months doesn’t seem long for a pair of shoes to last, but I’ve heard people say they replace their running shoes every six months. And I am heavier than your average runner. It may be time to treat myself again…