A Girl Who’s Capable

I wonder if we will be in a Thunder Run team this morning?

L assumes not and is a bit gutted really. She says she always like a target and she has nothing. Excuse me... I thought her target was a Nottingham Half/Leicester Half double header and the Nottingham Grand Prix plus I though we were looking for European half marathons to do. That cheered her up a touch.

Later in the day our team captain posts that team entries are full so she has entered L and I as a pair while everyone else are soloists. Then she tenders her resignation. I suspect she’s finally lost it but I’m deliriously excited to be in a pair, it it's true and if I can find a girl who’s capable.

When L translates PMSL it becomes clear that she’s joking and it seems we are in a five again. If that’s not enough laps for me then L has offered to wrestle me in the mud for one of hers. Jolly good, now just to get the rain ordered.

I’m on the bike today and it’s an eventful ride home. First I stop to help a broken down car off the road in Risley and then I find Derby Road blocked with police cars everywhere as they arrest somebody. 

(Tuesday 10^th October)

The Red Mist Masks All

L tells me that yesterday was allegedly National Workaholics Day but she was too busy working to tell me. No idea if that’s true but it’s a good pun. Today, also allegedly, is National Kissing Day. Which I think ought to be celebrated.

I'm in the car again as it’s the final round of the GP series tonight at Colwick Racecourse. For the first time ever the race starts and finishes on the Racecourse itself before doing its usual multiple loops around Colwick Park. L isn't running the race but not to be outdone she runs there, well run-walks as she builds her fitness back up.

This has always been my least favourite of the GP races and I’m really not sure what my tired legs are going to make of it. L assures me that the red mist will mask everything.

The route is a loop of the smaller lake followed by a loop of the whole park, five miles in all, which seems a very long way and it shouldn’t as I’m supposed to be marathon training but then again I was probably going for it a tad too much. I don’t quite recreate the heroics of Tuesday but 36:14 isn’t too bad.

There’s a post-race bar but not one that offers any decent beers, so I pick up my series t-shirt even though I’ve only done half a series and we head to The Dispensary instead. 

(Thursday 6^th July)

Alphabetti Spaghetti

Doggo seems to be eating breakfast at the moment, largely because he seems to like the new food I have got him. The thing is it’s his usual stuff just in a different, more interesting shape. Like alphabetti spaghetti rather than plain ordinary spaghetti. Do they still make that? anyhow, I’m sure he’ll get bored of it soon.

Today I’m in the car and doing the shopping, just like a Monday.

The evening isn’t like a typical Monday though as we head to the Victoria Embankment for the third round of the GP series which is a 5k. I have of course missed the first two rounds due to being in London but I’m quite pleased with how this one goes.

It’s a rather dull flat route on the tarmac paths on the river side of the Embankment that takes us up to Trent Bridge from the centre of the Embankment, then up to the Toll Bridge, then back to Trent Bridge again before finishing back in the centre. 20:44. I haven’t ran that fast in years.

Something that never happens has happened. Sky have just announced the first batch of TV games and Derby’s game with Hull has been moved to the Friday. I was going to miss that one as we’re off to the Great North Run but now I can go!

(Tuesday 4^th July)

Dangerous Territory

With me doubled up sneezing with hay fever while even indoors, L takes on the job of cutting the hedge. Then afterwards she crashes, post-shower, on the bed. Dangerous territory.

Later we go over the Leamington to visit Son. Which enables me to pick up my belated birthday present. I will point him towards mail order next time.

Our regular haunt and the only non-Wetherspoons pub where you can get food on a Sunday evening is fully booked due to it being Father’s Day. So we have booked into the Five Rivers Indian again. Ironically beforehand we pop into one of the ‘Wetherspoons’ which is now no longer a Wetherspoons but still looks and acts like one. Decent pint of Plum Porter though.

Back home afterwards, I enter the Nottingham Grand Prix. My marathon training will start there with some short snappy distances. I note that Wollaton Park is no longer one of the races, the 5K is now being held on the Embankment.

(Sunday 18^th June)

Macabre Fascination

L is working from home again as the seamless changeover of the phone line at work hasn’t happened yet. The dogs are coping in their own separate ways. One is sprawled across the bed, the other is sulking by the door waiting for someone to chuck his ball.

If my knee ever stops hurting I will consider entering this year’s Nottingham Grand Prix series of races. Oddly it does have some sort of macabre fascination for me this year because they’ve changed the order, the 10k is now last and also because two of them aren’t at Rushcliffe.

(Thursday 5^th June)

Another Likely Cause

The other week I blamed shards of glass on the A52 for my puncture and have avoided the road ever since, probably to L’s delight. Today as I park my bike up at work I realise that here is another likely cause. Numerous thorn bushes are now multiplying in our car park. Once upon a time the management company that runs Pride Park used to do regular gardening duties. These days, now that they have everyone's money, they don’t bother and haven’t done for years.

Tonight the Nottingham Grand Prix round 3, which looks a bit like round 2 as we’re back at Rushcliffe Country Park again and the weather is the same again, damp and miserable. Sometimes it’s better to simply support, as the dogs and I do tonight.

(Tuesday 2^nd July)

With Suspicion...

I didn’t think I had any saddle soreness from Sunday until I got on the bike this morning. Nothing too bad though. L asks how does it feel to be wearing a helmet. A bit strange...

Tonight it’s the first of the four races that make up the Nottingham Grand Prix series which L has entered, ‘to try and get me back into running on a regular basis...’ even though she hates running at Holme Pierrepont which is where we head for race one tonight. 

I eye the lake with suspicion... this will be the venue for the Half Outlaw swim should I participate. It’s also the venue for the ‘Big Swim’ which L is selling to me as good practice, should I enter. 

It’s also only 10 days or so away, should I enter...

Also today, Daughter turns 20. Scary.

(Tuesday 25^th June)

In Need Of Freshening Up

L debates with herself what is the best approach to getting herself run fit. She stops dithering on the Nottingham Grand Prix series and enters it. Although at £28.50, it’s nowhere near as cheap as it was. Although for that you get four races, largely boring ones but its still four races. I have done the series four times, I’m sure L has done it even more times and it no longer excites me. It seriously needs freshening up. This year two of the four races are at Rushcliffe Country Park, which is my least favourite place to run in Nottingham, so I shall spectate.

Tonight Friday Part Two: The Next Generation. We stay in.

(Friday 7^th June)

Uncharacteristically Tidy

At home the walls are strangely bare. Daughter has taken all her revision notes down, which is uncharacteristically tidy of her. It’s probably just to stop me blogging about any more of them.

The annual Nottingham Grand Prix starts tonight. That’s four running races in ten days. Part one is, as ever, 10k around Holme Pierrepont Water Sports Centre, meaning we return to the scene of the crime that was the 10 miler a month or so ago.

L is so stressed that she threatens to be eating chocolate as she runs round the many loops of the rowing strip at Holme Pierrepont. I think this is work-related stress rather than race-related. That said, it’s an interesting strategy and if it works she’ll have to do it at every race. I also hope she sticks to one lap. It is only one lap tonight isn't it?

In the end she just downs a sports bar, well that’s all she admits to and then apparently regrets it, feeling full all the way around. That is all the way around in over three minutes quicker than last year. Clearly something worked. Meanwhile I plod round two minutes slower than last year. So our times are converging, at five minutes a year she’ll soon be in front of me.

I suffer badly from stitch from 3km to around 8.5km, not pleasant. I blame my pre-race snack of a flapjack, which I had at 3.30, four hours before the start. So it shouldn’t have been a problem.

Oh well, things can only get better. Ah, no they can’t, its Rushcliffe next. I hate running around Rushcliffe and they’re making us do it twice in five days this years, thanks to Batman.

(Tuesday 28th June)

I’m Getting My Own Drinks

I drop the car off at my parents’ place and run in to work. 5.2 miles. It was good. I’ve no idea why. I even felt quite fit. Again, I’ve no idea why. Seeing as I couldn’t break 43 minutes on Saturday.

Oh great. I’ve just heard that the Wollaton Park leg of the Nottingham Grand Prix, which is four races in nine days, has had to be moved because Wollaton Park is unavailable due to some filming taking place. Intriguing, I wonder what they’re filming. Instead they’re the run to Rushcliffe Country Park, which the organisers claim ‘is always a popular venue’. Not with me! It’s so dull. We now have races two and three both at Rushcliffe Country Park. Purgatory.

L’s self inflicted challenge for the day is to try to get Son to put dinner on by nipping to the shop, buying a whole chicken and popping it in the oven. Doesn’t happen. So, toast all round at home tonight then. Thankfully I’m dining out at my mothers'. I run back there after work, another 5.2 miles.

It’s Derby v Leeds tonight. My squash opponent is a Leeds fan and is predicting a Derby win. I can’t see it myself. He’s so confident that Leeds will lose he’s declined to attend the game, although the £33 ticket price may well have been a factor, and he’s offered to buy multiple rounds if Leeds win. In that case, I may well be supporting Leeds, as its doubtful Derby need the points anyway.

It’s not a bad game and a good performance from Derby, although it’s still 0-0 at half time. During the break ex-Derby favourite Seth Johnson is introduced to the crowd, which went down well in the away end. Not. Super Seth was sold to Leeds during their mad phase when they spent money like water, quickly went bankrupt and got relegated. They paid us a very generous £7M for Seth and he spent most of his time there injured. Then he returned to Derby for nothing, played for practically beer money for a year and got us promoted. Well the getting promoted was a bad idea but he’s still a cult hero around these parts.

Second half, and here we go again, as Leeds score against the run of play. The expected collapse doesn’t happen though and Derby hit back almost immediately with two goals in quick succession. 2-1 and that’s how it finishes. Apparently I’m getting my own drinks.

(Tuesday 12th April)