I sit here feeling tired, and exhausted on what feels a long weekend, doing everything in the world, but in reality haven't got much done. That all depends upon the side of the fence you sit upon though. In truth, we're trying to use any minute that is spare to finish off little and large jobs around the house that have been sat and put off for a long time now. For me, I think I managed to get a shelf put up in a new bathroom cabinet I installed last week (the whole experience of Ikea and plumbing wasn't worth writing about). Not a lot then.
The weekend did start as a really good prospect given the sun was shining, we could wear shirts outside, and fear possibly getting a sun tan. Us Brits are stereotyped as being great orators in the field of meteorology, and given the fact that it's rained since I last remember, we've all been on true form. I, for one, who claims boldly that it, "never rains in London!" was forced to take those words back on occasion. But, not until after a debate that 'spitting' does not constitute as rain in my books, nor a light five minute drizzle mean it acceptable for the whole of Oxford Street to get their umbrella's out, and poke me in the eyes.
As ever, I digressed, and as my entries are written in one sitting, that nor this, shall be edited out.
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| Four best friends, sharing lots of lovely cake |
So, the weather was nice then? Yes. Yes it was. Saturday woke us up early in the form of a little Olive, and I did my best to get those precious few minutes of sleep, but gave in. We had to get parcels from the post office, do the weeks shopping, and get ready for a joint third birthday party of two of Olive's friends; Erin and Isabella. Now Julia can drive, I took no convincing to let her buy the food while I stay at home entertaining a two year old. We then got our packages (new shoes for Olive), and headed to a great party in the sun. There was good food for the children, excellent cake, a big garden and a trampoline to keep the little ones active, as us adults basked away leaving them to their own thing.
Once partied out, we came home, put Olive to bed, I bought a nice curry for Julia and I, and then we ended up on the couch sleeping.
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| Some of the lovely cakes on show |
This morning I decided it a good idea to get out and do a 10km run to see where my fitness was at. I have just started my second bout of marathon training this week, getting prepared for Amsterdam in October. There wasn't any real preparation for this 10km, for the reasons that I didn't really know it existed until the night before (just prior to passing out on the couch), and I didn't load up on the right diet ready for having energy in the morning.
The Hillcrest 10km was the one that was selected, in the setting of a lovely Surrey village called Warlingham. While I wasn't expecting it to have too many runners, I was a little surprised to see that I had kind of gate crashed a Sunday local race meeting. My first fear was to not get left behind, my second fear was I had no idea what the course looked like, nor how far various markers were from one another. As it happened, I ran a decent first 5km, catching runners up, and using the next as a benchmark for keeping my pace going. Then the big surprise came, in the form of a 2km hill. It didn't look much, but believe me, on this off road terrain, it was nothing shy of nasty. It took all my willpower to not stop going up it, nor for the next km or so after it. Either way, I kept going, and got through the line in 46:52 officially, which I was really happy with, and a Top 20 finish in the entire race.
This all aided me in feeling a little smug. I wasn't after a personal best today, but the position I came, and the reaction of the other runners towards the course, that it is not ever a course for setting a personal best was nice. Looking at my split times, it is clear where I hit the hill, and it took nearly 40 seconds off that first km and the subsequent pace thereafter dropped to approx 1:15 - 1:30mins for the rest of the course. My personal best is 45:07, so I know I'm in good shape, and if I prepared properly for the week, I wouldn't have felt dead at the end of it.
The rest of the day was spent giving Olive my medal, then doing very little indeed.
I think I earned it.
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