Simple Sunday

Nice and easy today, after last weekend’s 12K effort. I was meeting friends at Bristol Zoo at 11, so I had to get up early to get running first. Which I did manage, despite the best efforts of the LUNs — my shorthand for my Loud Upstairs Neighbours — who managed to wake me up at ten to three this morning. They weren’t actually as loud as usual, so I managed to stuff some earplugs in and get back to sleep, thank goodness.

So, I got out before half past nine, and did a simple short route up the currently-closed-to-traffic Bridge Valley Road. Thanks, Bristol City Council, for the complete lack of pedestrian signage, and unsarcastic thanks to the fellow who exited the bottom of the road as I was starting up it, who let me know that I’d actually be able to get all the way to the top…

And that was my 5K. The RunKeeper log is a bit rubbish at the end, because I seemed to lose GPS signal for the last kilometre, but I’ve done the route before, and it’s definitely a smidge over 5K. My pace was about normal for a hilly route, around 8 minutes per kilometre, and it felt absolutely fine.

I finished off with a coffee-and-croissant breakfast from the ever-friendly Boston Tea Party, then came home to start my day with a shower — almost completely backwards from the normal course of events! And that was my simple start to Sunday. Another day, another 5K…

Bring me Sunshine…

IMG_0701 2.jpgYup, as you can see by the scene behind the scary, wonky-sunglassed weirdo in the picture, it was a really nice day today. And I went on a route through Leigh Woods, which was gorgeous.

Not content with doing the 8K through the woods like I did last time, going out along the towpath, up the steep climb into the woods, and back across to Clifton Village over the Suspension Bridge, I also added in a little loop of the Downs.

And therefore set a new personal distance record, with a 12K route. I decided to stop running at bang on 12K, mostly because that was the upper limit I’d set myself — I didn’t want to go beyond 20% of my previous max — and partly because that gave me a nice five-minute cool-down walk to the little viewing platform by the Suspension Bridge, where I stretched for a while with some nice scenery to look at.

My hip felt fine. Everything, in fact, still feels pretty good. And it’s very good to know that I can do 12K including about 200m of total vertical climb, because that should make running 10K on the flat a doddle in May.

About the only thing I did differently from normal today was to use a rehydrating additive thingy in my water — I guess it adds a few things that you lose in sweat that normal water doesn’t have — and I ate a pack of some kind of carbohydrate gel goo, which said “three berries” on the side and tasted mainly of chemicals, from what I remember, on the way across the Suspension Bridge.

I think these probably helped to some degree, but I think I could still have managed 12K without them. I figure I should start experimenting with these things, as if I find something that really gives me a noticeable energy boost when I’m flagging a bit, then it’ll help a lot for race day…

The Eighties Are Coming to Get Me

IMG_0687 2.JPGI think the new shoes have done the trick. Something has, anyway, as tonight’s run was lots better than my last 5K effort down the Portway.

My hip feels fine, and I didn’t feel totally knackered from the get-go like I did last time, either. Which is all good. Even better, there were actually some traces of daylight left when I set out. It can only be a few weeks until I can get off the A4 and back onto the towpath on the other side of the river, away from the traffic and all the noise and fumes that go with it.

Tonight I used a playlist generated by Tangerine. I like Tangerine- and iTunes Genius-generated lists because they uncover things I never knew were in my music library.

This evening was no exception. There were some old favourites in there — although I really should put Madness’s Driving in My Car on the “not really for jogging” blacklist — but I had no idea that I even owned Madonna’s Love Profusion, Soft Cell’s Le Grand Guignol, or Placebo’s cover of Daddy Cool.

Back to recognisable stuff, my run finished off with a nice back-to-back blast from the 1980s, with the Pet Shop Boys’ It’s a Sin and One More Chance. I love It’s a Sin, but I was probably in my teens the last time I heard One More Chance… Ah, nostalgia.

Anyway. Probably won’t run on Friday, so I guess Saturday will be my next jog; then I might try to get out on Monday and Thursday next week to get back to my more normal three-times-a-week routine. Especially if it’s nice and light!

The Joy of Shoes

IMG_0666.jpgSo, picked up my new shoes on Friday — Mizuno Wave Inspire 6es — and walked lots in them yesterday to make sure they felt all right, and that nothing was rubbing.

And they were fine, so today I went out into the gorgeous Spring sunshine and did a simple 5‑and-a-bit‑K, just around half the Downs, cutting along Ladies Mile instead of doing my normal longer loop. I didn’t want to go too far, first time out in new shoes.

The new shoes definitely feel different — but they feel different like my old shoes did the first time I put them on, six months ago. I can feel them pushing my feet out a little bit, compensating for my tendency to over-pronate by pushing me a little more onto the outside of my foot.

So, hopefully what’s happened is what I suspected, that over the last six months my running shoes have gradually lost their magic as they’ve had seventeen stone pounded into them with every step, fifteen kilometers a week, and that’s what’s caused me to start aching a bit more recently. I’ll start to see if I’m right this week, if my mid-week run doesn’t make my hip ache so much. Hopefully it’ll feel easier than last week’s effort, too…

Running for Money

Hello, lovely readers! You’re looking great today. Have you lost weight?

Yes, you can tell I’m buttering you up for something, can’t you? Turns out that it’s only a couple of months until the Bristol 10K, which is happening on 9th May. My very first race!

So, as you might expect, I’m here, cap in hand, to ask for money. I’m running for St. Peter’s Hospice, a local charity helping people with incurable illnesses.

I’ve set up a Just Giving page to accept donations, and I’d love if if you could please pop along there and sponsor me.

It’s a worthy cause, and it’d help me run, too — I want to have something more than sore feet to show for this 10K, and making a donation to the hospice would be great.

Thanks!

Oh, and by the way: I love what you’ve done with your hair!

This May Be the Beginning of a Week Off

20100228-20100228-IMG_0654 2.jpgAs you know, I’ve been having problems with my hip — well, in fact my hip and the top bit of my left-hand gluteal muscle, or “upper arse”, as I believe it’s technically known. I reckon it may be down to shoes, so yesterday I went shopping.

In Moti, the advice was basically, “well, if you’ve done fine in those shoes for the last six months, probably best just to get this year’s version of the same shoes.” Which seems sensible. Unfortunately, they didn’t have my size in stock, so they’re having them sent along from another branch, and they won’t be around until Friday.

Which I don’t think is terrible news — John Bingham’s advice is to give aches a rest before they become actual pain and debilitation, so I may simply skip my midweek run(s) this week, and go out in my nice news shoes on Saturday, assuming everything goes to plan.

As I’ve noticed that my weekend runs don’t seem to give me anything like as much gyp — probably because they’re over more varied, and sometimes softer, surfaces — I went out today for my normal weekend run, and did 7K, which at least didn’t feel like it was making me ache me any more than I already ache, and certainly felt a lot better than Wednesday’s 5K.

Today’s picture is from the work being done to fit new lock gates at the Cumberland Basin end of the Floating Harbour. This is pretty important, as if the lock gates fail, the whole floating harbour could empty pretty suddenly. With some interesting implications for Bristol, bearing in mind it’s mostly the weight of the water that holds a lot of the harbour walls up…

Hard Work

That was really hard work. All I did was my normal weekday 5K, but I just felt completely energyless. Hmph. And my hip’s aching again.

I’m starting to wonder if I might need to replace my running shoes. I bought them pretty much exactly six months ago, so they must have travelled a fair distance. And of course, they’ve had seventeen stone of Matt pounding into them for all those kilometres…

Also, looking back, I said “my left hip is sore” in my final entry of the C25K — just three days before I bought my trusty Mizunos, and I don’t remember my hip troubling me again much after that until now.

I’m sure it’s not all to do with the shoes. I’m a bit knackered anyway, I’ve not been going to bed early enough. But I think there may be some link. So, on Saturday, I think I might pop along to Moti and buy myself a pair of new running shoes…

Simple Seven

20100221-20100221-IMG_0644.jpg

I went to a cocktail party last night. Even though I don’t drink, it meant I was up until about 2am, so I didn’t drag myself out for a jog until about half past one today. Bit of a contrast from last week’s 7am enthusiasm!

Anyway, to get myself going, I downloaded Lady Gaga’s album The Fame Monster — currently on Amazon UK at the bargain price of £3 — and got out into the spring sunshine.

As I was tired and a bit headachey — must have been the guava juice — I kept it slow and steady and didn’t go too far. It felt pretty good, though, once I’d got up Bridge Valley Road and got going, and I decided to do a bit more than I’d planned, looping around Durdham Down to finish at just a smidge over 7km.

This makes up a bit for not running on Friday, I suppose. Looking at my stats over the last six months, Friday is the day of the week on which I tend to run least, coming in just below Monday. I think I should therefore be a bit more realistic about planning to run on Fridays, and maybe try heading out on Tuesday and Thursday if I want to go out twice during the week…

Anyway. Finished my 7K, went and got some lunch from Boston Tea Party, who are always lovely and friendly and do great coffee, and then wandered home along Royal York Crescent, which is today’s picture. This came straight from the iPhone, put together in camera from three shots, using Debacle Software’s Pano App.

Running off the Pancakes

I’m not entirely convinced that a mere 5K tonight balances out yesterday’s pancakes. And it’s possible that yesterday’s stodge was what made tonight’s run feel like such hard, slow work.

Still, this is the closest I’ve come to running in actual daylight on a weekday for a long time. It won’t be long before I’m not running in the dark, which will make a pleasant change. Maybe that’ll speed me up a bit. There’s a lot to be said for light and warmth when you’re outside…

Anyway. Just checking in. Will probably do another 5K on Friday, then get back out on Sunday at the weekend…

I Love the Taste of Croissant in the Morning

IMG_0609 2.jpgI don’t exercise in the morning. I’m just not a morning person. Virtually all my running is done in the evening, or, at the very earliest, lunchtime, at the weekends.

So. A bit odd, then, that this morning I woke up just before the alarm clock did that quiet little *clonk* it does when the alarm’s not actually switched on, and thought, “Hmm. I fancy a jog.”

Even more odd, I actually went and did it. None of the stats look unusual on the RunKeeper log. 7K in 56 minutes, a little under 8 minutes per kilometre — slow, but not unusual when Bridge Valley Road is involved. What’s unusual is that the run started at just past 7am on a Sunday morning.

It made a nice change, actually. I think I suffered a bit more towards the end than usual — there’s a final little incline I have to get up, and it seemed harder today. Maybe I was lacking blood sugar.

But on the whole, it was a pretty nice experience. I was out early enough to disturb some wildlife I don’t normally see — a cormorant, for example, flapping away to the other side of the river as I bounded past, and the crows, yet to be relegated to the sidelines by the Sunday football leagues, pulling their stringy breakfast from the Downs.

And I finished on an unexpected bonus, too: I’d expected a pitfall of the early start to be a lack of coffee at the finish line, but once I’d passed my three usual suspects for a post-run drink — Coffee #1, Chandos Deli, and Boston Tea Party — I stumbled across Caffe Nero, who open at 8am every Sunday. Not only were they open, they wished me a happy Valentine’s Day as soon as I walked in, which was a nice touch.

So, in the absence of any decent photos — it was a dull, grey dawn this morning — here’s some product placement. I think they deserve it 🙂

PS: I went out for a simple 5K on Wednesday, but didn’t have time to blog about it. But I’m keeping up the momentum, honest!