Something Approaching Concrete Consistency

On Monday evening I visit my Dad and end up in the pub, of course. If I ever wondered where I got my alcoholism from, now I know. He looks well on it though. I hope I’m still propping up the bar when I’m his age. 

I work at home until Wednesday when I bike into work which is great as it’s nice weather and, due to the school holidays, there is no traffic. I even go to the gym in my lunch hour.

L meanwhile grudgingly has the WFH baton which she glowingly describes as ‘Ok I suppose. If you like that sort of thing’.

The weather is still really hot. It’s too hot for the Lad in the garden, it’s too hot for L’s Mum to go into town and it’s certainly too hot for my tennis opponent who cancels our match.

It’s not so hot by Saturday when we parkrun at Clifton. This is the almost all off-road one that I’ve always hated but with the ground sun-baked to something approaching concrete consistency it’s not too bad. In the afternoon there’s a match and Derby beat Barnsley 2-1.

On Sunday L, Daughter and I all do the Burton 10k. This is one of a dying breed - a local no frills race put on by a local running club in this case Hatton Darts. 

 

It’s not entirely no frills I suppose. There’s no medal (yay!) and you get a buff instead if you want one. I didn’t as it wasn’t my colour. You also get to finish with a lap of the athletics track, if you like that sort of thing but if you don't like that sort of thing you still have to do it. It's also a challenging course being basically uphill for the first 5k, including a really steep hill right at the start, and then largely downhill for the second 5k.

I did this in 47 minutes back in 2019. Following the great decline, I do it in just under 56 minutes this year.

(Sunday 14^th August)