May 18th 2010

New toy

Today, delivered all the way from China despite the best efforts of the ash cloud, my new toy arrived. In a few days, the marathon will be over, and it will be a reward for myself for the culmination of hard work training and running, not to mention studying and completing my degree course. And it will lessen the pain of being another year older very soon!

The brand should give you a pretty good clue as to what this is. And I’ve had it out of the box and powered on long enough to figure out how to import pictures, set up wireless connections, and post to photo blogs.

To those of you that know me it will be no surprise that I have gone for the purple option …

May 8th 2010

Greenfinch

Dreary day today, pouring with rain. Sadly I have to get out for a ten mile run later otherwise it would definitely be a day to stay indoors. Thank you to this great colourful greenfinch who posed outside the window for some photos for me.

May 3rd 2010

Getting there …

So why, apart from the obvious reason (it’s 10pm and I hadn’t got a photo for the day yet) have I taken a photo of my running shoes?

Mainly because after my long run last Sunday, and on several previous Sundays, my long run has been a disappointment. Last Sunday I even took a photo of the same shoes posed in the bin, a not so subtle expression of how my marathon training had been going up to that point. Thankfully, and rightly, I was talked out of this.

Today these shoes did me proud for the first time in a long time. I completed 18 miles, with all bar a mile or so running. Not perfect, as I should be managing 20 miles with confidence. But confidence is the key word at the moment, and it’s the lack of it that has hampered so many longer runs in the past. I can look at my shoes without wanting to consign them to history. Suddenly the Edinburgh Marathon doesn’t seem so scary, and confidence is on the way back …

April 4th 2010

Barrow

Today I set out for my twenty mile run. It went OK, but between fifteen and sixteen miles, the tank started to splutter, I ran out of gas and I slowed to a walk. I completed the full distance but was disappointed, the “wall” of 15-16 miles has hit me once again.

This afternoon I went back out with my camera, ostensibly to take a photo in Barrow that marked where my run stopped. But I don’t want to dwell on the failure – my run was excellent and still a major achievement. I’ll just have to make sure next time I’m running through that I continue effortlessly on my way without stopping.

Instead, I spied a public footpath from the village up to a large grassy mound, presumably an old burial mound, the barrow that the village is named after. A short walk up there on a sunny Easter Day, to unstiffen my aching joints, was just what I needed, and this is one of the many photos I took of panoramic views of the valleys around. The view is of Chosen Hill, off to the south towards Gloucester.

Happy Easter everyone!