You know those jobs that you never get round to doing, and the longer you put them off the harder they are to do? Well, that's what it's been like trying to find time to get this blog back up to date. So I'll do it in very small chunks. Each of these would be a whole blog post on its own, but I never seem to find the time!
At the start of January we had a few days of snow. This was exciting at the time, but after February's much heavier snow it seems like nothing. Still, it was enough to cancel a Tuesday club night, apart from about 8 of us who ran a parlauff session around the cricket pitch, which was lots of fun. That was probably the first time I met our new speedy girl Rachel...
...who had won our cross-country event (when I didn't know who she was) and went on to come about 4th in the Herts XC. My thoughts on those races: our event was, as usual, very well organised*, and Santa's Grotto was especially fun. But a word of advice: if you ever have a stone in your cross-country shoes, do try to notice it before you're on the start line. I didn't have a good day at Watford at the Herts XC, although it was nice to run a course I've never seen before. But I was plodding a lot.
* Although Steve McKeown and I were trying to put up the gazebo, and had to stop when there were no plastic connectors for all the rods to fit into. They were last seen at Standalone. Does anyone know where they are? The gazebo is useless without them, obviously.
The Southern XC was quite fun too - very wet all the way round, pretty hilly, and only Lindsay and I there to represent the club. I started slowly, and sped up half way round, which felt really good, overtaking lots of people. But after looking at the results, I probably took it too easy early on. The funniest part of the race was right at the start, when the horde of a few hundred runners all set off. After a few seconds there were shouts of 'wa-hey!' from up ahead, and we soon found out what it was for as we stomped through a huge ankle-deep puddle, and splashed everyone up to their faces.
There seem to have been a lot of new people at the club recently, which is good. It could be the January "new year's resolution" effect, or the "I've got a place in the London Marathon" effect... but it also seems to be the result of some disagreements within FVS Tri. I've always thought this club was particularly friendly and welcoming, so if we gain new members because of that, then I think we deserve it.
There's been a lot of talk on the forum recently about running on treadmills. I'm not a fan, but when the streets are full of ice, as they have been for the last couple of weeks, they can prove very useful. My gym has a running club, and on Sunday morning its session was on the treadmills. We all formed into pairs, and one person ran 1k as fast as possible, while the other cycled on another machine. Then we swapped over. Half a dozen of those made for quite a fun session.
Which brings us up to date. Yesterday was the first time I've had a proper run from the club for what seems like ages (but it's only a couple of weeks). And even though there was still ice to avoid, it felt very good to be out.
No comments:
Post a Comment