Blue Runnings

There’s a stretch of the C2C (Sea to Sea/Coast to Coast) cycle way which runs from Cumbria to Tyneside and passes through the Consett environs, and I headed out this morning for a there and back again along a stretch of it known as the Waskerley Way – a railway path similar to the Derwent Walk I sometimes follow. Looking it up now on a very helpful link from the Durham Council website, I can see I ran it the ‘wrong’ way. Some of the Bounders sometimes get dropped off at Park Head and run back to Consett – a 10 mile stretch in a predominantly downhill direction. Being on my own this morning, I dropped the car off in Consett and ran up to just before Waskerley picnic area before turning round and heading back again.

No wonder if felt easier heading back to the car! At least I seem to have gotten most of the uphills out the way while I still had some puff. I’ve only done a very short stretch of this path before, to not a huge amount further than across the viaduct on a Run England session, and then to be honest forgot it was there despite at the time thinking I would have to come back and explore further along. That particular stretch looked mostly flat and shaded, and like a good alternative to the Derwent Walk.

My intention this morning was to see if I could hit 10 miles again – it’s been 2 months since I last hit this distance. I was expecting to find myself pootling along in the shade with not much to see for the duration of the run, but the Waskerley Way crosses much more open country than the Derwent Walk and I could pretend I was fell running as I crossed the heathland, while still being on a flat, level-ish, good quality footpath! I think it’s probably the furthest I’ve been from towns and villages on a run that wasn’t part of a race – and to be honest I think Kielder is the only one that’s felt as remote. The morning started off sunny but was kind enough to cloud over once I left the shaded avenues and return to sunny not long before I was back among the trees! The views were fantastic, I really felt I was out in the moors and wilderness 🙂

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Another day of getting home from work starving for some reason, and there’s still quarter of a cake left…but it’s ok as I made an enormous portion of dinner and ate that instead 🙂 Day 2 done for no junk food. P’s away for a man-date weekend with a friend from uni and I always find it harder to motivate myself to cook anything when it’s just me. It’s easy to grab whatever’s handy and shove that in my face.

Tonight was a no running night as I’m hoping to have a run filled weekend and prefer not to do four consecutive days running, so tonight was a gym session I’m still working on three circuits with the 2.5kg weights, but I added a section of ‘own weight’ leg exercises to the end of each circuit which I could really feel – I normally only do this the once at the end of a full workout rather than three times in total. Hopefully I’ve not overdone it and my legs will be energised rather than wiped out and jellyesque tomorrow!

J bought me a high intensity workout book a few weeks ago, which doesn’t use equipment so suits my gym set up just fine as I only use a few small bits of kit, no big weights or machines. I haven’t had more than a flick through of it so far, but I might start perusing it to try and split my gym sessions – one weights session and one higher intensity jump around a week or something. Or as a back-up for when I inevitably get bored of my current one!

I have an important decision to make by tomorrow morning: I got some iron-on letter transfers from Mind when I was running Liverpool for them, but I kept them for putting on my Bounders vest rather than the Mind one as I wear that one more often. I always feel slightly like an imposter wearing a charity shirt when I’m not actively fundraising for them, I guess it does still increase awareness and is essentially free advertising for them, but I still feel people assume I’m raising money and currently I’m not. It was the same with my Great Run series t-shirt last year – I hardly wore it because I know how big the Great North Run is around here and that many people wearing it would be training for it and possibly assume I was. I did a few of the Great Run series last year – the Great Women’s in Glasgow and the Great North 5k and 10k, so I was definitely entitled to wear it but I still felt like a cheat…

Anyway, back to those letters! I need to decide whether I want them on the bottom of the front, bottom of the back or top of the back. They don’t fit on the top of the front without overlapping the gold (which looks silly) or overlapping the collar.

Comments welcomed but I suspect as it’s now 10pm and I’ll be ironing them on EARLY tomorrow morning (race starts at 10am and I still need to get my race number etc. before then), I’ll probably just be picking one myself!

Fingers crossed for a cool morning tomorrow 🙂

Campervan cash: £4

Well, I found a moneybox 🙂 not the one I was looking for but one none the less. I have managed to complete day 1 of my no junk food challenge. There’s still cake in the house but I have resisted so far, despite getting home super munchy.

I was toying with doing a gym session tonight and a run tomorrow night, but with the Gateshead Trail on Saturday morning I decided to swap them round and do a short run tonight around the village triangular, a route I haven’t done since April despite it being pretty much impossible for me to get much more local. I’ve set myself a new best time for this route, but didn’t really enjoy it. It was the coolest it’s been with it being later than when I normally run, but I think I need to slow my pace back down to get the distance back up for the summer. That hill at the start never seems to get any easier!

I also had some run related post today – Great Run related in fact. My GNR number has arrived! Marking the imminent arrival of an event I have some work to do before I’m ready for. Time to dig the game face out the cupboard.

Campervan Cash: £2

I wasn’t kidding about pigging out in Bruges – waffles and icecream and pizzas and more – that’s what holidays are for right?! But now I’m home, my trousers are starting to feel a bit tight and I want to shift an inch or two before the GNR, so I need to stop eating like I’m still on holiday! The monster Costco cake pictured above snuck into the trolley somehow this evening, and after having the tiniest slice I could cut – nothing like what’s missing I hasten to add – and a BBQ dinner I found myself sitting at the computer with my jeans unbuttoned so quite clearly some drastic action is needed! Just to add insult to injury the cat started kneading my stomach when I sat down <_< Her sense of timing is impeccible. There’s no way 2 people should ever be able to eat all that cake – it weighs 1.8kg!!!! So, half of it will be coming into work with me tomorrow, and I suspect the rest will be gone before I get home from work tomorrow afternoon…there may be a few crumbs left on the plate and a small smear of jammy icing.

No more chocolates, cakes and biscuits for me – and no substituting with crisps either! In an attempt to stick with this at least until the GNR (32 days away!), I’m going to find a money box (I have one somewhere but I haven’t seen it since we moved house last October, so that could be an adventure in itself), and fill it according to the following rules:

• Junk food free day: +£1
• Exercise session: +£1
• 7 consecutive junk food free days: +£3 (a total of £10 for that week)

The longer I can keep it going, the more I get to treat myself at the end of it – preferably with something that’s not junk food! Sounds like it’s going to cost me a fortune – but it’s probably still less than I’d spend on puddings and sweet snacks so I’ll be quids in and slimmer in the long run! Fingers crossed I need to do a bank run for pound coins soon…having a money box of notes that doesn’t weigh something significant and rattle just isn’t the same!

I’ll be putting a running total of my junk food savings at the bottom of each post from now until I decide I can be trusted near vending machines and in the bakery section of Morrissons where these little bad boys live…could be a while!

And now, it’s on the internet and in the public domain where my mother can see it and keep tabs on me…

Fingers crossed the next blog has some money on it!

I know, I know; “Where have you been woman?! You’re supposed to be half marathon training, not disappearing for weeks at a time!” No, this time I have not been on an exercise mope. A couple of rough days at work followed by a VERY welcome holiday break to Belgium, where I think I gained three stone just walking around the streets! Every 3rd shop was either a café or a chocolatier, and they all smelt amazing. And I know why you only seem to find UK strawberries in the UK in strawberry season – all the European ones have been shipped to Bruges to be dipped in chocolate or adorn waffles! Delicious they are too 😉

I thought about taking my running stuff, I really did, but realistically with us getting the overnight ferry there and back, there was only really one morning that it would have been an option – so I didn’t bother 🙂 It was good to have a few days recharge and do some walking and face-filling. My exercise involved lots of street-bimbling, and we climbed the Belfort – the tower in the first picture, which is if memory serves is 300+ steps high.

Last time I tried to climb a tower of this scale at York Minster, I thought I’d pass out before reaching the top – this was before I started running last year. Knowing this, I was a little nervous about how I would hold up with this one; it would be my ultimate proof of improved fitness – or lack thereof, and it was definitely warmer in Belgium in August than in York in February! I actually made it to the top in better shape than P, just concentrated on keeping my breathing even and I’d deliberately worn lightweight trousers and a vest top for maximum coolness, and overall I was fine! No stiff legs or collapsing in an elegant heat 2/3’s of the way up for me! Having a bit more brain to concentrate on the world around rather than just drowning in cramping muscles and lack of oxygen this time, I think I’ve worked out one of the reasons I found York so tough – there’s like zero air movement in those towers so the air’s warm and slightly stale – not great when exercising! The ultimate fitness prover will be to return to York…one day, one day…

I am back in the UK now and was looking forward to hitting the ground running for a long one today as I’d taken it off work to recharge and square up before going back to work, but that’s going to have to wait for Run England tomorrow. I don’t know what happened but I’ve eaten or drank something that left me feeling rather rotten from yesterday morning and through most of today so running was O.U.T., I have however managed an hour’s workout this evening and am looking forward to getting ye olde trainers on tomorrow 🙂 Rosie was a great help, rubbing her face on me and kneading my stomach when I’m trying to do floor work and stretch off. Having one’s belly kneaded when one has just got back from a cake and ice-cream filled break does not do wonders for one’s self-esteem! Might help me hit the gym and track a bit more though…

The Gateshead Trail 10k is on Saturday and I need to be up and ready to go! I was looking forward to trying to beat my time for this one, and it only occurred to me today that I haven’t actually run it yet either – I run-walked last time so I’m looking forward to also being able to feel I’ve run it by the time I’ve finished – because I will! (Watch me sprain my ankle now 😛 )

I’m not doing very well with dates this week and was determined to go out on Saturday for a longer run and finish July on a high note. Except that Saturday was the 1st of August so I’ve started this month on a good note instead…definitely in need of a holiday before any remaining brain curd leaks out my ears and away never to be seen again! This wasn’t a run that went the way I was intending it to in several ways, but I went out anyway and that’s always a positive!

I thought I’d head down to the Derwent, and instead of parking at Pow Hill as I normally do, I’d go to Milshield picnic area and run from there down to Pow Hill, do the loop around there before I was ready to pass out, and then head back – which would have the other advantage of splitting the dam-crossing legs up more. Apparently the carpark at Milshield is closed until the end of August as there’s some ITV show thing being filmed there and they don’t want Joe Bloggs bimbling in with his fishing gear and running shoes.

So, Pow Hill it was! This also meant I couldn’t do my original distance plan – going between the two picnic areas would have put me somewhere in the region of 10k, possibly a bit more with the loop around Pow Hill added on and I was hoping to hit between 10 and 12km on this run – can’t pester J about not hitting the distance for the GNR when I’m only doing 5k loops myself!

In my current ‘try different things’ vein, I also thought I’d try running with music again – I used to run with it all the time so I wouldn’t have to listen to my own depressingly raspy panting as I pootled along, but after signing on to one or two running club road races where headphones weren’t allowed, I got myself used to not taking them even on the longer ones where it was just me and listening to the wind and the birds. It helped that I got used to pacing myself on my breathing so I didn’t sound like a dying asthmatic the whole time, noone wants to listen to themselves sound like that! My headphones were charged up, but my ipod had been left on since last time it was used (however long ago that was) and was flat as a pancake. There goes that plan. Me and my ears it is then. I’d have to try and find a new distraction for crossing the dam.

It was bang on a mile – 1.6km – from the carpark to the gate at the start of the dam, and I don’t even remember it, I was sufficiently distracted by the various things to see and my own head that I was at the dam before I’d really realised it. The dam itself was less than half this distance across from gate to gate, but once again felt like twice as far. I don’t know how people do multiple loops of routes when doing races – like round and round the same athletics track, or 5 laps around Gibside for the Gibside Marathon knowing you’re going to hit the same horrible monster hills again and again and again!!! Talk about sapping! I can’t do a short, straight bridge without flagging!

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I have spent a fair amount of this month sitting around with my feet up, especially compared with how busy June was! I started the month with my first dedicated hiking holiday to the Wicklow Mountains just South-West of Dublin with a friend of mine from uni. The idea of a hiking holiday has appealed to me for a while, but it’s not something P is really interested in, he likes to base himself in one place and explore from there rather than covering a linear or big circular route over a few days. I’m sure I can find somewhere in Northumberland or the Lakes where we can base ourselves from one place and do several circular routes to explore the area though 😉 Watch this space 😛 We bought a tent last year that’s not been used yet – definitely needs a good airing 😉

Anyway, back to July – This was a really good way to see a part of Ireland I’ve not been to before, particularly as some of the places we went and things we saw you couldn’t really get to by car – it was your own feet, a bike or nothing! You can find links to my travels here and here 🙂 I only had my GPS watch on for the actual Wicklow Way stretches, so the amount of actual walking I did while over there is severely underestimated when looking at my month summary. S’s phone fitness tracker had us clocked up at more like 50km over the 2 days than the 15.7km I’ve got us ‘officially’ marked down as.

Dublin really knocked my energy levels for six, and it was 2 weeks before I did any exercise at all, and 3 weeks before I actually got my trainers on for a run. There are a multitude of broken-record excuses for this – it was so FRIKKING HOT, I had no energy, and I am a lazy bum when given the opportunity! So I sat around on my butt and ate vast quantities of cakes instead 🙂 Everyone should have a hobby 😉 My calendar page for this month has been most appropriate (it’s The Oatmeal’s wonderfully motivating calendar for 2015)

Puddings and cakes have been the very “in” thing this summer…

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I have worked out why it has rained every day since last Friday! It’s because on Friday morning I ordered some running shorts (some Ronhill trail shorts if you’re particularly interested) in a desperate attempt to find coolness (alas, trendiness will never be mine) through the summer scorchy months, and thus it will no longer be sunny or indeed quite as hot. They turned up yesterday, so it’s done pretty much nothing except rain for the last two days since they’ve dropped through the letterbox!

P’s been on day shift again today, so in the interests of not ending the month on a COMPLETE exercise flop as I have been somewhat slack this month, (machine shut tomorrow so will probably not get anything extra done and Thursday and Friday are anyone’s guess!), I went for a run before picking him up. It’s been a bit cooler anyway, and was on and off showering, so I have yet to taunt the weather with my new shorts, and so decided I would be A-OK in my capris and a t-shirt. This of course meant that I was still a little on the warm side as I hadn’t taken into account the lack of wind that there always is by the river. One day I will learn, and on that day it will be blowing a gale right down the path and I will freeze.

I mentioned last week I was getting a bit bored of doing the same old routes and wanted to shake things up a bit and roam in new exciting directions, so today I went the same place I’ve been going for over a year now…nothing like a hypocrite 😉 Last week in the interests of adding a bit of variety, instead of heading for one place I did a time-trial type thing, turning around when I hit 12 minutes and then heading back again and seeing how far I’d made it when I got back. I did the same thing today, and as usual set off at my too-fast pace which I always do for the first few minutes. This time I pushed myself to keep it up until I was feeling a bit uncomfortable and then a little further, but not to the point where I couldn’t continue jogging afterwards – I kept up this ‘run’ pace for 1.2km before dropping down a bit before dropping down to a jog, but even this felt quicker than my usual distance eating one – I kept it up knowing I wasn’t going to be going death-inducing distances.

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