There's a me shaped indent in the beach...

The nightrunner series on the face of it is a little bit mad....

Take a trail or fell run... Take some runners... Make sure they have headtorches... wait until after dark... and let them go!

The most local one of these to me was yesterday on Formby beach, part of the Sefton dune system.  During the day I'd be (in warmer weather) looking out for Natterjack toads, a local speciality and a national rare species.

In February, any self-respecting toad is going to be hibernating and the local wildlife was best described as human (probably) and gobby (definitely) AKA scallies... Their dulcet tones greeted us during one stage of the run.

There were three distinct types of terrain I either ran on, jog/stumbled on or walked through slowly... That'll be trails, the beach and sand, deep sand!  On the trails I was keeping up with the group of friendly runners I'd started with at the back of the pack, on the beach I was doing fine until I went flying... Splat... I tripped over a washed up brick... Dusting (sanding?) myself off and plodding along was the order of the day, until the next brick... Ho Hum!

The soft sand was a nightmare, I sank in it... often up to my ankles, adding to the fun, honest;-)

My vague target was something around 65 min - I was allowing 10min for the terrain and for the night running thing... 67:50 was the final scores on the Garmin's doors, so I'll live with that:-)


The cold and lurgy finally seem to have shifted, my evidence is my appetite is not longer on hyper-drive and I'm irritated that because tomorrow is complicated I won't be getting to the gym first thing!  Hey ho, such is life...

TTFN

Paul

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Something a little bit political...

Well the legs still don't want to run, walk and climb is fine, run makes them feel a bit leary ... Probably the two most contentious words in the congenital heart world (UK branch) are "safe and sustainable", a quick trawl of the support websites or facebook will show many a group being set up to save a hospital or a ward. I won't be joining any of them. Not because I don't care, but because I care too much. The origins of Safe and Sustainable go back to the Bristol Hospital Enquiry, and quite simply this is designed to ensure that the surgery that heart kids get is the the most appropriate, done by well trained and supported surgeons who are used to doing the operations and are in a surgical setting which are designed around the needs of the child going through the surgery and their family. Is that too much to ask? I don't think so. I want every heart kid to get the best surgery available to them, I want their parents to be given the best advice, support...
Read more

12% of a plan…

  It’s been a month.     A month since the new heart valve was inserted… the chaffing has died down, I’ve been sensible and built my walking up, restarted my apple fitness plus bits and bobs (boy has it been a long time since I bent like that, or cycled/spun like that) and I’ve been for two runs – a gentle 3k which worked as a prelude to my return to my local parkrun… I finished, my tally went up 1, and I remembered just how tough it is to run the first mile on so soft, dry sand… In hindsight I would’ve been better to walk the first third and conserve my energy (and pool of fitness) to the prom and the grass thirds…   Relive 'Return to Parkrun!' Yes, it does look the first bit is out to sea…  Monday was a random day off work to get out and do something, so with a bit of head scratch and some nifty plotting on the OS Mapping app I wandered along the canal, and then down the Transpennine Trail & “loop line”… Almost pancake flat, I know...
Read more

It’s a kind of magic (the science kind)…

  Well, operation done – I have a funky new valve and a bit of a sore groin.     I was in hospital for 28, sleepless, hot, hours and unconscious for about 4 of them.     While the insertion points for the three catheters I had in me in at the same time heal it’s a case of taking it easy, let my body get over the various manipulations (sore throat, the impact of the still there frozen shoulder) and the simple lack of sleep from stress and some noisy neighbours on the day ward I was on.  There’s really not a lot else to say… I went in, did the usual pre-op checks, had a chat with the interventionist, had a chat with the anaesthetist, signed the all-important consent forms (kids – that’s when you know you’re an adult; parents, that’s when you know your kid is in charge), was wheeled across to a hybrid cath lab… laid down, bit of banter with the team and the next thing I knew I was waking up, sore and not actually knowing whether the funky valve had fitted me…...
Read more