Another Frustrating Run

Today we head off to do the Alsager 5 mile race. L remembers that the last time we did it in 2013, I asked her to check the ditches for me in case I'd collapsed. So I must have been injured that year as well. I think perhaps she best do the same again this time.

We've been posted numbers but we have to collect our timing chips on the day, which seems a bit of a waste of postage but there you go. They also hand out the race t-shirt before we start, which is helpful if you don’t reach the finish because you’re in a ditch.

The race is full and there’s nearly 900 here, an impressive turn out. Conditions are cold and I wrap up warm, with running tights in case I have to crawl out of the aforementioned ditch and walk back.

I recall that in 2013 I had to overtake L because she had started up front with the elites. I think this was because the race set off in the opposite direction to what we were expecting. We don’t make the same mistake today.

 

It starts ok and I do the first mile in 07:52, not blinding by any means but adequate. Then the tight calves kick in and I have to stop every half a mile to stretch them out. Oddly my finishing time of 43:25 is three whole minutes quicker than in 2013. I must have been really badly injured that year.

More worryingly is that I bounced back from that poor time in 2013 and ran 38:02 for five miles only a fortnight later. That’s not going to happen this time.

We head home and later spend the evening in my new favourite pub, the Crafty Crow where we also have their sharing platter between us.

 (Sunday 1^st February)

I’m Free This Evening

There’s not much snow in Nottingham, sadly, and nothing at all in Derby. Yet still the bus is late and then the traffic is horrific. Takes in all, door to door, 110 minutes to get to work. Great.

At least one step in the right direction is that Derby bus station does now have live times on the Trent Bus signs. Oooh technology. Same they’re showing everything as running late.

‘This Girl Can’, so they say. It’s a new promotion.

Will it get more people into the gym? Certainly anywhere with a lass pouring with sweat at she pounds away at the equipment would get the male vote, whether it works for other women I’m not sure.

Although it’s a case of preaching to the already converted, the advert has worked it’s magic on L who has booked her first spin class in absolutely ages. I’ve also booked us both in the Alsager 5 race next weekend.

Along with the ‘this girl can’ video there’s several for a couples workout. 

I tell L I’m free this evening.

(Wednesday 21^st January)

Total Bedlam

All these people should not be allowed holiday at the same time, they should have to submit a detailed plan of what they intend to do on their Christmas break first and then get it approved by the rest of us before they are allowed to have extended time off.

I say this because as I head to Sainsbury’s, as I do every Monday lunchtime, it’s still total bedlam on the retail park. I’m sure people are just driving round aimlessly because they are bored. The two shops I go in, Sainsbury’s and Homebase, are both no more busy than usual yet the car parks and roads are chocka. Perhaps they’ve been stuck there since Friday, who knows. Please everyone, just hurry up and s*d off back to work so that we can get back to normal.

My diary for the months ahead looks very bleak. I intend taking the majority, if not all, of January off running so there are no runs in my diary but also no dog shows, no gigs, no sportives, not even an open water swim just a few football matches. L says look on the bright side as this leaves more time to practice my swimming. Oh the joy. Although that is actually how I spend half an hour this evening, in the pool.

 

I do tentatively pencil in the Alsager 5 in my diary on Sunday 2nd February as an appropriate place to make my running comeback. L describes it as 'that desolate thing we did last year with the crap t-shirt' but this is how low I have sunk. 

(Monday 30^th December)