Today didn't get off to the best of starts - whilst enjoying my early morning "wake-me-up-please" shower, the power suddenly went off... As everything else electrical in the house seemed fine, I guessed it was probably a blown fuse. It was, but unfortunately the reason the fuse had gone wasn't that it had simply tripped out, but that the plastic around it had melted away - and when I examined more closely, it looked like a nasty electrical fire had been narrowly averted!
There was no time to worry about the close shave with the fuse box though - as at 8:30am it was time for the first run of the day - with my next door neighbour, Andy. A keen cyclist, Andy has recently started running with me, as it's easier to fit it in around his many other commitments. For me it's great to have a running partner, literally next door, but as he hadn't done much exercise since before Christmas and was feeling sluggish, we planned a short, gentle run.
As usual, we ended up going further than planned (just over 4 miles) and faster than planned too (just over 8:30 per mile), despite it being a pretty hilly route, as most are around here. Here's our route: http://runkeeper.com/user/MikeW30/activity/64635887
As usual, we ended up going further than planned (just over 4 miles) and faster than planned too (just over 8:30 per mile), despite it being a pretty hilly route, as most are around here. Here's our route: http://runkeeper.com/user/MikeW30/activity/64635887
Andy found it pretty tough, but did really well considering how long he'd not run for, and had enough energy left after the run to take a look at the fusebox with me - his verdict "not great, but not in need of emergency replacement, yet".
No sooner than I'd got home, it was time to go out again - this time with the boys, for a special "last day of holidays" run with my regular training partners, Ellie & Stuart. Before heading out the door, I did a quick change of running clothes - and that's when gadget disaster struck... for some reason I decided changing my base layer top, while walking out of the bathroom was a good idea, and I whacked my wrist against the door frame. The impact could have been really painful, except I had something to cushion the blow - my very new, very cool, MotoActv GPS running watch, which shattered into many expensive pieces on the floor :( :(. I'm pretty sure I've killed my shiny new toy, it's certainly beyond my very limited fixing skills, but I'm hoping a friend at work who's unnaturally talented at repairing gadgets, will be able to somehow miraculously fix it!
There was no time to grumble about my clumsy, expensive mistake though, as we were already overdue at Ellie & Stuart's - a couple of miles away, where we jumped in their car, along with Kaiser, their faithful Weimeraner and hit the road.
We headed up the M1, through Chesterfield and eventually arrived at Stanage Edge near Hathersage - the weather was great and the scenery even better. Here we are, near the start of the run...
The first part of our "run", was literally straight up a cliff - more rock climbing than running, but once we got up there the views were worth it.
The rest of the route was very windy, and boggy in places, but generally good for running - Stuart had done a great job of mapping the route for us, and we took it fairly steady, stopping regularly to admire the amazing views. Unfortunately I can't be sure of the exact route or timings, as after killing one GPS device (my MotoActv) in the morning, my other GPS route-logger (my phone), also refused stubbornly to work during almost the whole run. It's been playing up a lot recently with battery issues, but today it was dead far more than it was alive, and didn't really serve any useful purpose during the run (the photos above are Stuart's), I'm really hoping that I can get it fixed (another job for my friend at work), as mapping routes manually is a pain!
The (very approximate) route is here: http://runkeeper.com/user/MikeW30/activity/64635923 - it doesn't in anyway show how steep the hills were - though this picture does a better job - that's the rock face we went up at the start...
It was a lovely way to spend the last day of the Christmas holidays, and I need to say a big thanks to Ellie & Stu for ferrying us around and making it such a fun day for the boys and I.
I'm back at work after almost 10 days off tomorrow, which is going to make running a bit trickier, and I'm not sure exactly how I'm going to fit blogging in too! If I am to carry on running and blogging every day (as required by the crazy "Janathon" challenge that I'm doing), then the blog posts are definitely going to have to be much shorter - which I'm sure will please many readers even more than this author!
I'm back at work after almost 10 days off tomorrow, which is going to make running a bit trickier, and I'm not sure exactly how I'm going to fit blogging in too! If I am to carry on running and blogging every day (as required by the crazy "Janathon" challenge that I'm doing), then the blog posts are definitely going to have to be much shorter - which I'm sure will please many readers even more than this author!
The first day of the working year also means that it's my first weigh-in of the year too - and after the massive amounts of bad food I've been consuming during the Christmas break, I'm dreading it - I really want to stay as close to 10st 10lbs (150lbs / 68kg) as I can and I'm pretty sure I'm going to need to work back down to that "fighting weight" for a few weeks. I'll also get a body fat % reading from my scales, but I'm not sure if including that info in this blog (or my weight stats) would be "over-sharing" - any thoughts on that welcomed...
Right, better get this posted, thanks again to everyone for their kind words about my musings so far - I'm going to try to keep them up as long as people keep enjoying reading them...
Mike
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