Category: Weeknotes

I had a friend’s son doing work experience with me this week, which meant not only that I had to try to keep him occupied and not bored out of his mind, but also that I had to go into the office on all five days like it was 2019 or something. And get there before 9am to boot. I think it went OK though, or else he was too polite to say otherwise.

Friday was Neil the Vicar’s birthday, and a break in the Friday 5s, so a few of celebrated by running (slowly) round the route of the Ipswich race that used to be in the series but stopped just before my time. Then on to ’Spoons, naturally.

Kesgrave parkrun again this week, for what could theoretically be the last time, with Ipswich having announced a long-awaited return next Saturday, with a new name and permanent venue and starting again from event one. We used to use Christchurch Park before the pandemic for a few months every winter to let Chantry recover, but it remains to be seen how well a popular town centre park copes with hundreds of runners in the summer months, particularly as the new course has reversed direction and features a headlong dash down the big hill through the middle of the park.

We did another social run round the old Chantry course on Sunday (no reports this week of anyone being told they shouldn’t be there because “parkrun was banned”, but that might just be because Neil wasn’t there to aggressively wish people good morning!). I’ve been neglecting long runs since the marathon, so forced myself to run there instead of cycling, and joined Holly for a few extra miles before coming home. Thanks to our amazing navigation skills and sense of direction, we managed to accidentally add nearly a mile by looping back on ourselves and suddenly realising that the path we’d emerged on looked very familiar!

On Monday we had the “A14 Track Challenge” at Northgate. This is an inter-club 5k challenge which formerly included Ipswich Jaffa, Stowmarket Striders and Bury Pacers, and was extended to include Felixstowe Road Runners this year (the name derives from the fact that those four places are all on the path of the A14). I was in the middle (17–22 minute) race, with tired legs from the Framlingham Friday 5, and managed 21:10. Then Dave, Robin, Neil and I decamped to the Cricketers for a few beers, as is traditional.

On Wednesday I arrived at work in plenty of time for my 9am call, then the following thoughts went through my mind:

• Oh, I’ve brought the wrong keys again.
• I’ll just wrap the lock round the top tube so it looks locked.
• Wait, that means I don’t have my locker key either, and my jeans are in there.
• I guess I can just wear my bike shorts all day.
• Oh no, my laptop’s in there too.
• Looks like I’m cycling home again.

Sudbury Friday 5 this week – 45s quicker than Fram, but half a minute slower than Kirton.

On Sunday I went out on my own for a bit of trail running, and I thought I’d check the condition of some of the paths from last year’s horrendous nettle run. The first bit wasn’t too bad, then heading over to the bit that had been on the return journey that day (I didn’t cross the A14 this time) I bumped into a man out walking, who told me it was completely overgrown. He wasn’t wrong, but I managed to bash my way through with a stick, then hop a fence and follow the field edge again. Emerging at the other end I met him again, and he was impressed that I’d found a way through!

On Sunday Dave and Sally invited a few of us round for dinner, which made a nice change and was a lovely evening.

A quiet week, so not sure why I’m posting so late.

Second Friday 5, this one on a warm evening in Framlingham, where I was about a minute slower than at Kirton last week. Then an easy parkrun, and on Sunday another of Robin’s freedom runs on the old Chantry Park parkrun course (also taken nice and slow). This one was notable for a mad dog walker telling Neil that we shouldn’t be running in the park because apparently “parkrun was banned”!

I’m sure something else must have happened, but it’s slipped my mind.

First Bangla curry night for a while on Wednesday. No Robin or Dave this time, so I escaped a potential post-meal mid-week Wetherspoons session.

The Friday 5 series started again on … er … Friday, with our club’s home fixture at Kirton. I helped hand out numbers beforehand, and the new system of having a bunch of us standing outside the hall with an envelope full of bibs each and a phone to allocate them as people arrived worked far better than the long queues of old. In retrospect we should have worn hi-vis so we didn’t just look like random people accosting runners, but that’s a minor tweak! There was a minute’s applause on the start line in memory of Collette, who died on Sunday, and we formed a guard of honour at the finish for her husband Mike, who still ran in the race. It was a similar story on Saturday, when lots of people ran her home parkrun in club colours, or just red in general.

A mildly frustrating couple of days at work, accruing what may actually be close to the original definition of technical debt (as opposed to just “crap code” or “stuff we’d like to refactor”). I won’t bore you with details, but because of previous decisions adding something the customer needed fairly quickly entailed a fair amount of shotgun surgery and semi-duplication. We’re planning some changes to make the same kind of thing cleaner and faster to do in the future, but those changes were never going to be implemented in time for this specific set of features, so I had to bite the bullet and temporarily add to the mess.

I finally finished playing Batman Arkham City on my Steam Deck. Well I say finished, but after end credits that seemed to go on for about three weeks it dumped me back in the game, but with the main story complete. I carried on for a while, then decided to abandon it and give Arkham Knight a go.

Yet another bank holiday weekend, with appropriate cloudy weather and scattered showers. I haven’t done a lot with it so far, but am looking forward to a bonus day off tomorrow.

I accidentally watched the F1 for the first time in years (and the second time in about twice as many years), after switching the TV on to watch something on catch-up and seeing that Channel 4 were about to show their delayed coverage of the Monaco GP. Reassuring to see that it’s still just as much of a pointless procession round a circuit where passing is virtually impossible, and that they’re still messing around with novelty features – this time two mandatory pit stops – in an attempt to liven it up. Truly bizarre to see cars pitting in the first and last laps for no mechanical reason. It also didn’t help that I’d only really heard of two or three of the drivers, and I didn’t even realise that the orange cars were McLarens for an embarrassingly long time (everyone knows McLaren are red and white, right?)

Late again, and I don’t remember much of interest happening during the week.

On Saturday a group of us went for a ride to mark two years since Ben was killed by a car while out cycling. We stopped at the crash site to pay our respects, but it was mainly about having a nice day out with friends, covering 40-odd miles in the sunshine and stopping at a couple of pubs. Then in the evening it was back on the bike to head to Nicola’s birthday party, where it was still (just) warm enough to hang around outside in shirtsleeves.

None of that was particularly good preparation for the Woodbridge 10k on Sunday, and predictably I was slower than last year. Always a great event though, with lots of support from the locals. Then sadly we learned that we’d lost another clubmate, this time to cancer and also far too young.

Wait, another four-day week? Not much accomplished on Monday, although I did give the the kitchen floor a very long overdue scrubbing. I’ve also made a tiny amount of progress on digging the hole ready to lay slabs to put the greenhouse on, and am continuing to slowly eat away at the huge pile of cut-down laurel branches, two brown bins at a time. I treated myself to a pair of electric secateurs, which at least makes the process of removing and cutting up the smaller pieces a lot easier.

Another month must have gone by, because Wednesday was Current and Former Colleagues Sharing Some As-Yet Undefined Characteristic Fat Cat Meet Up night. Uncharacteristically for them, they somehow managed to turn my order of a pint and a half of one beer and a half of another into a pint and a half of a third, unrelated beer, plus a pint of what should have been a half. Obviously I didn’t say anything.

While doing my shopping in Waitrose shortly before closing time, I was accosted by a member of staff from the bakery, offering me a couple of free cakes/pastries. This turned out not to be a trick question, although they weren’t something I’d have normally bought, and were a minor struggle to finish (not both on the same day). Who’d have thought out-of-date baked goods might be slightly stale?

After watching the first episode, I’d forgotten that the new series of Doctor Who had started. When I finally remembered, and headed to iPlayer to watch the next one, I discovered that a new series of Man like Mobeen was also available, which was a nice bonus. I’ve also nearly finished working through all of Peep Show, which I’d previously only seen odd episodes of. And Taskmaster’s back on again, which is always good thing.

I entered the Stephen Williams 10k in a last minute fit of fomo. As usual the weather was unseasonably hot, and it felt like hard going, but at least it went a bit better than last year when I’d accidentally entered it before realising it was the morning after the Twilight 5k.

No running for a few days at the beginning of the week, and some degree of discomfort whenever I was forced to descend any stairs. I still cycled to work on Tuesday, then also cycled to Felixstowe for the club training session, although with no intention of actually running – it was basically a chance for those who’d run London or Manchester to show off our medals then nip into the Fludyers for a couple of pints and watch the rest of them run up and down the prom.

By Thursday I decided my legs were up to a gentle return to duty, so joined the morning Run for Coffee before work. Then in the evening we had a work meal at Mister Wing’s, where I ate far too much Chinese food.

The next test for my legs came in the shape of the Twilight (actually mid-afternoon) 5k, which I hadn’t quite thought through when I entered it some time ago. I was in the 17–21 minute wave, and just managed to scrape inside the high end of that range (and not come last!). Then we watched the speedy people in the final wave before heading to the pub for some refreshment and a bit of food. I even managed a slow 11 miles of trails with Holly on Sunday, although that compounded with my usual laziness to stop me achieving anything useful for the rest of the day. Still, it’s another long weekend, so maybe I’ll manage to knuckle down to something tomorrow.

Another four day week! And another very late set of weeknotes. As far as I can remember I didn’t do anything of any consequence on the bank holiday Monday. I did nip to the supermarket though, then while I was putting everything away the fridge door shelf that I’d fixed a few weeks ago decided to unfix itself under the weight of several pints of milk. It then crashed to the floor, taking out the shelf below it on its way down, and hurling half a dozen eggs to the floor. Now I need to consider the options of spending the £100 or so Siemens want to charge for replacements, for a 15-year-old fridge freezer, or putting up with reduced usable space until such time as I end up replacing the whole thing.

I took the day off on Wednesday (so three day week, I guess) to head down to the London Marathon expo to pick up my number. I rode down to the station, remembering my bike lock at the last minute and nipping back into the house to get it. Then I got to the station, put the lock on the bike, reached into my pocket and … hmm … no keys. Cycled home again to find them, as expected, in the back door.

On the plus side, it’s a good job that (a) the bike lock needs a key to lock it, otherwise I’d be walking home later, and (b) the ticket I bought wasn’t restricted to a specific train. Anyway, once I got there I picked up my number with no queue, had a brief wander round, then got the train home. All very efficient, apart from the bit where I was forced to make a special trip to London. Unbeknownst to me at the time I’d made another minor error, but more on that later.

The fox, who I hadn’t seen for a while, made another appearance, and Ninja cat insisted on trying to stop him getting to the food I put out.

On Sunday I was up at (well, before) the crack of dawn to get the club coach back down to that London. It was still slightly chilly when we arrived, but very quickly warmed up once the sun broke through the mist. I set off a fraction faster than my target pace, on the basis that the first few miles were mostly downhill, and the first ten miles or so felt reasonably comfortable. By Tower Bridge (nearly halfway) I was starting to feel the miles in my legs a bit, and in all the cacophony I also completely failed to spot the FRR support crew, only realising I’d passed them slightly too late when my brain finally registered the extra noise I’d just run past. By 15 or 16 miles it started getting really tough (Garmin’s stamina graph shows it having run out by around that point), and the rest of it was a struggle not to drop too much pace. By the time we hit the Embankment my right hip was starting to make me limp a bit, but I still managed a vague attempt at a sprint finish in the last few yards.
After picking up my bag I felt slightly light-headed, so had a quick sit-down on the grass while I made sure Strava had synced and I’d renamed the run, then hobbled over to Trafalgar Square, where Nicola was waiting with beer (and Dave was already one bottle ahead of me). This was also the point where I confirmed what I’d been suspecting was my other mistake, in that I’d failed to pick up my T-shirt at the expo (it’s supposed to be a finisher’s shirt, after all!). Fortunately when Rachel turned up to meet us she’d seen on a facebook group thread that they had shirts at the information point on Horseguards’ Parade, so I got another chance to stretch my legs by walking down to pick one up.
Anyway, that’s the marathon I was never going to do done. Not sure about the idea of doing any more! My time of 3:42:22 may not have quite hit my (optimistic) target of 3:30, but almost everyone suffered a bit in the heat, and I did at least achieve one PB – the longest time between pre- and post-race wees, at around 12 hours!

Four day week! And not only that, but a four day weekend too.

On Friday I headed to Sudbury for the “fun run”, which despite the name is very much a proper road race. It also has the distinction of being the only race I know of that includes a road crossing on a zebra crossing, which the motorists must love! Only 15s slower than two years ago (last year’s time looks much quicker, but the course was short thanks to some unexpected emergency roadworks that caused a last-minute change of finish line location). Sudbury always seems to take ages to get to, despite not being far away, but Google Maps managed to make it take even longer on the way back, taking us a very odd route. Still, it was through pretty countryside, and it was warm enough to open the sunroof for the first time this year (28 days earlier than last year!), so I’m not complaining.

When I did eventually get home I had to figure out what I could make for lunch with the fairly meagre contents of the fridge and no bread, and settled on pancakes – just two days before we’re supposed to start eating them again! I assume that’s how Lent works, anyway.

After 12 weeks at Kesgrave parkrun, I tagged along with Holly, Maria and Gary who felt like a change of scenery and headed to Framlingham (actually Thomas Mills) instead. Still no word on a return for the Ipswich event – a man walking his dog even stopped while I was waiting to be picked up (and wearing my parkrun shirt) to ask me if there was any news. I’d not done the Framlingham event before, and it’s not massively exciting – basically two laps of a mixture of school playing fields and farmer’s field edges – but pleasant enough. Afterwards we headed into the town for some breakfast at the Two Magpies bakery. The name of the place made for a couple of odd-sounding items on the menu, like “Two Magpies sourdough toast & butter”, only saved by capital letters and the absence of a comma. We all ended up opting for the full English, which was particularly greedy on my part, being the only one who’d already had one breakfast before setting out.

In the afternoon I made my traditional hot, cross buns (with a comma this time). I realise that traditionally they’re for Good Friday, but never mind. I didn’t even leave them overnight after their first proving so they could rise again on Easter Sunday (I’m here all week).

On Sunday Robin organised another “freedom parkrun” at Chantry Park. I thought I had plenty of time to get there, but decided my bike tyres were a bit soft and needed some air, and when I took the dust cap off the rear wheel the valve (and all the air) came with it. I screwed it back in and pumped the tyre up again, but could hear a hiss and didn’t fancy its chances of staying up for 15 minutes. I grabbed my old mountain bike (which only comes into play in this kind of scenario), found that had a completely flat back tyre, pumped it up and hoped for the best. It did indeed stay inflated and got me there, but only barely in time for the start. Not sure whether it was the lack of a breather after riding up the hill, or delayed tiredness from Friday, but despite plodding round really slowly I felt awful, struggling not to give up and walk. Still, a week of very little running now, before the big one next Sunday.

Weirdly, given that the tyre had only gone slightly soft since I last rode it on Thursday, the hiss turned out to be a puncture. All fixed now, and will hopefully stay that way.

Another month must have elapsed, because Wednesday was time for another meet-up with Rupert, Mel and Joe in the Fat Cat. Always good to catch up.

I’ve now received my number (50267) for the London Marathon, which makes it start to feel alarmingly real. That’s just the information of the number of course, not the physical bib number – I have to make an otherwise unnecessary extra trip to London in the few days before the event to collect that at the Expo, because capitalism.

I had a more welcome trip to London on Saturday, to see Jim Bob’s 40 years and 40 songs show at the Shepherds Bush Empire. I had been planning to get the train down, but replacement buses would have made that unpleasant. Fortunately some friends who were also going had decided not to stay overnight after all, and they gave me a lift to Stratford from where we got the tube in. Instead of a support act, the gig started with an hour of Mister Spoons playing DJ and strutting around with a variety of props to match the songs (the highlight was him waving an apricot parkrun shirt around and having the crowd enthusiastically yelling “parkrun” at the appropriate points in Parklife). Then a solid nearly three hours of songs from the pre-Carter, Carter and post-Carter years, beginning solo, then bringing on Chris TT on piano, then the full Hood Rats band, and brief appearances from an additional horn section and – much to everyone’s excitement – Fruitbat. As expected, the mosh pit got quite wild, but fortunately for us aging fans there were plenty of slower songs to calm people down between the madness.

Once again, that didn’t exactly make for perfect preparation for a Sunday race, although at least this time it was only 10k (at Little Bromley) instead of 20 miles. I still managed a vaguely respectable time considering, then went home to keep an eye on WhatsApp updates from Cromer letting us know how the friends who were running the Norfolk Marathon were doing.