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Looks like it could be a bit of a lay-off.........
Oh well, training was going almost too well. Plus there are no races to miss. Maybe now is not such a bad time to be crocked.
WtnMel, I pressed the prtsc button in the relevant Strava screen, and then ctrl v on the email. Nothing appeared but I sent it anyway to see what happens. Perhaps I should have used a capital V.
Good that the weather was ok for your walk round the gardens at Upton House, and stopped for a coffee.
I bet the Prosecco went down well with the meal.
Not sure what the problem is with your foot, mine has never got swollen.
I must go for another haircut too, I don't suppose we need to make appointments now.
Aquarius, I certainly agree that Garmin readings should be a guide and not taken as gospel.
There have been Blackberry pickers round my way. Hope you enjoyed the Blackberry pudding!
I think it is landing heavier on one foot causing the aches.
I've followed WtnMel's advice and sent the email, but don't think ctrl v pasted it.
JB thanks, I was quite pleased with my time. I believe the courses at the revised venue were hillier than those at New Camp, the usual venue.
Well done for your 10k, still sub 50 minutes.
I hope your Achilles soon recovers a few rest days should help.
I ran an easy pace 5 miles on roads this morning and got soaked during the first mile. the sun then came out. This afternoon, it came over dark and the heavens opened. There was one extremely loud clap of thunder, and then the rain stopped. Very weird weather these days.
Apologies if this is a bit disjointed, it's always tricky when posts are on two pages.
JB, Sorry to hear of your injuries. Is it the same leg for both knee and achilles. Not that you have much choice other than a period of rest, but I always lose most of my training gains if I stop training/running for more than a couple of weeks (probably down to 48 years of smoking).
Aquarius, Hope your injuries start to abate too, unless it is actually a record attempt on your part, in which case I think you can stop now; that must be a winning number of ailments
WtnMel, Have you tried witch hazel gel (witch doctor, I think it's called, although Boots own brand is just as good and half the price). I find it is really effective at bringing out the soreness of any bruised or jarred bones.
JB - sorry to hear your knee has come out in sympathy with your achilles .. welcome to the 'forced lay-off' club.
HS - strange that pressing 'prt sc' and then 'ctrl-v' didn't paste the screen image into your email .. lower-case v or upper-case V shouldn't have made any difference. I've actually made a jpeg image of your run - if you wanted to send me a message on here (click on my icon and then click 'Message') and send me your email address, I could email the image to you to forward on to the race organisers. The other thought I had was whether they just need the link to your run on Strava? If so, I've copied that from the address bar - https://www.strava.com/activities/4091420397
so maybe you could send them that?
Aquarius - I'm not sniggering at the back of the class .. and am always happy to try and help with IT issues. However, as I don't have any experience of iphones, I'm a bit limited with my advice so can't suggest anything else to do other than what I'd already found. Sorry to hear about the lopsided hair courtesy of Salon Steve and needing get your highlights done. Margaret has found a mobile hairdresser to cut her hair and had it done on Wed and it only took 30 mins .. so much easier than the 2-3 hrs she used to spend having to go to town. She also decided to 'embrace the grey' early in the lockdown and stop colouring it. Funnily enough, our cleaner Rosie was saying last week she's going to stop colouring her hair as well - seems to be due to a combination of being fed up with the constant maintenance and as her husband recently walked out, wanting to please herself for a change. Hope the chiropractor session went okay and it helped with your various physical problems.
Redmist - I'm the same when I get injured. I lose my fitness fairly quickly and have to start again if its for more than a couple of weeks. I have some witch hazel but hadn't thought to use it on my foot - doh!
When we went to head off to Upton House the sat-nav started playing up and the screen display went haywire before going blank. Luckily I have an app called 'Waze' on my phone which works like a sat-nav but has the advantage that you and other 'wazers' can report accidents/traffic queues etc. and everyone using Waze in the vicinity is notified of the problem. However, as Margaret doesn't have Waze on her phone (and doesn't want it either) she's ordered a new sat-nav which arrived a short while ago. I bet I know who will get 'volunteered' to get it set up
My foot is better today - not as swollen and I'm able to put more weight on it. Still not 100% but definitely getting there and I'll continue taking some ibuprofen for the swelling and apply the cold gel pack. Might even put some witch hazel on as per Redmist's advice
My new shoes arrived yesterday. Once I feel ready to run I'll start using them in case the foot problem was due to the old ones not giving enough cushioning.
Will keep in touch if sporadically.
Happy running and take care.
WtnMel: I was just joking, I know you wouldn't really snigger at anyone.
On the subject of hair colouring, I'm quite tempted to let my highlights grow out completely. Like Margaret my hairdresser is a long drive away, which is a nuisance, and she's also very expensive. While this virus is around I'm unlikely to be going anywhere special, and certainly not on holiday, so I may just revert to my natural colour.
I'm glad to read that your foot is getting better. I've never thought about applying witch hazel to injuries, but I'll keep it in mind for future use. (Thanks Redmist for that tip).
Sorry to hear about your Satnav letting you down, it's such a handy tool, I don't know what we would do without it if ours broke down. I shudder at the thought of going back to map reading, it always made me get car sickness, and usually ended badly when I lost my place on the map at a critical point. Actually thinking back to those days it didn't just end badly, it usually started badly as I could only map read if I could turn the map so the road we were following was pointing ahead, which used to annoy Steve for some reason, but made perfect sense to me. If you are moving forward then the road you are following on the map needs to point forward too, it's obvious.
Redmist: don't get me started on my ailments.....
I went to the park this morning for my hill repeats session and managed quite well, despite the wind. There's very little in it, but my times today were slightly better than the last couple of weeks so I'm happy with that. We have our flu jabs tomorrow so I'm glad it's also a rest day.
I sent a private message to HS earlier on and have heard back from him to say emailing the race organisers with that Strava link seemed to do the trick. While I was in my inbox I sent a quick message to Molly (who was a regular poster on here in the past) to say we sometimes wonder how she is and to give her our regards.
Aquarius - I knew you were joking re the sniggering
I've got a lot of catching up again to do. Thankfully, with WtnMel's help, I have finally managed to email my virtual half marathon details to the organisers. Hopefully, I will now be able to keep up with the posts.
Aquarius, the weather has been bad, but today has been sunny, but very windy around 11.00. You will see from above that I have now successfully e mailed my virtual half marathon results to the organisers!
I hope your chiropractor session yesterday went well? We do seem to be accumulating a collection of injuries between us all.
On the subject of map reading, I was an auditor for a couple of years back in the eighties, when I was living in Liverpool. I had to drive all over the country without the aid of a satnav. I planned out my routes with the help of a road atlas, and wrote bullet points on a clip board, which I had to keep referring to. That was stressful, to say the least, before starting work.😓
Well done for the hill reps, and good to hear that your times are improving. I've got my flu jab tomorrow so won't run. It's a drive through which is unfortunate for me, as I'm only about a 5 minute walk away.
Redmist, I've found that as I've got older, I lose my fitness quicker; and consequently take longer to recover it.
WtnMel, thanks again for all your help which has enabled me to finally submit my virtual race details to the organisers!
Sorry to hear about your problems with your satnav, but lucky you had "Waze" on your phone. I've never heard of it. I know a lot of people use their phones, rather than a satnav. I've often wondered whether that uses a lot of data, which could mean exceeding the allowance.
Glad to hear that your foot is better today. I've heard of witch hazel, I seem to remember my mother mentioning it. Hope your new trainers help your foot when you start running again.
JB, hope you don't have to take too many rest days, and lose some of the fitness you have built up. It was probably running a fast half marathon, without the usual mileage build up that has caused the problems.
WtnMel again, I see that the new satnav has arrived, and as expected, you have the job of registering and setting it up. I've been doing a lot of map reading to help with Mondays Hardley-a-Road, as we hope to find a shorter route and get a better time than the last attempt. It's more difficult plotting off road than on.
Went to the dentist this morning to have a filling. £96, you would think that it was made of gold for that money.
HS - on long journeys I used to write the bullet points on a post-it which was stuck on the sun-visor for easy reference while driving along. I'd not heard of Waze either until my cousin's daughter aka. a 'young person'
Right - enough RW'ing .. there's a car to be washed
WtnMel, that was a good idea using post its for your bullet points. I've had a look at the comments on Waze, and almost without exception, they are very critical, saying that the screen frequently blanks out, and they are often diverted round back streets when there are no hazards etc. Losing connections with GPS is another criticism. It's interesting that you are updating the satnav. Mine came with the car, A Golf Up, and just fits onto the top of the dashboard. I'm not very impressed with it. I often ignore some of the directions when I know a better way, and after a while a voice comes out "Warning there are no official directions from here." Eventually it recognises where I am, and continues with directions. I've saved the manual on my favourites and there are about 150 pages. It mentions a web site www.garmin.com.pid for updates etc. Have you plugged the satnav into your laptop, or the mains to update? My mobile only has 1Gb of data also.
Jane mapped a route for the Hardley-a-Road, on her garmin and phone, which we used for our first attempt. It was useless, and if you remember, we ran 17 miles without visiting all the check points. She has revised her map, but I think the Sarah's and I will query it as we have run it since without her. We will, of course, stay together all the way.
The flu jab went ok and my arm doesn't ache at the moment. It was drive through, and I just had to lower the window and stick my arm out. It was well marshalled, and I was in and out quite quickly.
WtnMel - I hadn't heard of Waze either. Like HS our satnav systems came with the cars, so I expect if they ever break down they will cost an arm and a leg to fix. Our iPhones often provide, unprompted, an alternative route when we are setting off in the car, so I think it must be linked somehow to the calendars on our phones. For instance if we're going to the coast for my physio appointment the phone will beep and show a message along the lines of "Physio appointment at 11.00 am, take the A1, traffic is light, 40 minutes to destination". As this is often a different route to that shown on the satnav I'm assuming the phone takes current traffic information (queues, road works etc) into account, (but then I thought the car's satnav did that also.) Another clever thing the phone does is to "guess" at where we are going, so when we get into the car it might beep to tell us it is only 10 minutes to Genesis Way (where our supermarket is) and traffic is light. Talk about Big Brother is watching you....
HS - £96 for a filling?? Good grief.
Flu jabs this morning for us too. I was surprised at how well it was organised this year - a half hour time slot, socially distanced queuing outside that moved really quickly, then a walk through the one way system that had been set up through reception to the consultation/treatment rooms, quickly funnelled into the next available room, name and address taken, arm jabbed, back out on to the one way system which took us out of the back of the building. Pity its not like that every year. My arm is just starting to ache a bit, I hope you are still ache-free.
If I can get an early start tomorrow morning I'll do my 6 mile run again, but if the weather is anything like today I'll need to dig out my winter running gear. It feels cold enough for snow.
HS - I'm surprised at the critical comments about Waze as I've always found it very good, with no blank screens, only very temporary loss of gps and no experience of being diverted around back streets. And the fact it works real-time by sharing reports of errors posted by other Waze users seems to be a plus point as far as I'm concerned. I had my satnav plugged in to my laptop to do the updates via a piece of software called Garmin Express (which I also use to update my Forerunner and eTrex devices). The new satnav has wifi built-in but doing it via the laptop on a network connection is much faster. Glad to hear your arm isn't aching after your flu jab (yet?).
Aquarius - yes, it sounds like Google or something is set up to automatically help you with the route to wherever you are going which is stored in a calendar. The new satnav will only have traffic info if I link it to an app on my phone - I may check on Waze instead .. we'll see.
The updates for the new satnav finished soon after my earlier post - they seem to be working faster than they used to in the past. Interestingly, we got the new satnav because the screen seemed to be buggered (technical term) on the old one. But I was able to apply updates to the old one too and the screen behaved perfectly all the time. But I think there may be an issue with the charging cable for the old one though so will have to check it out in the car and see whether/if I can get it working again.
Managed to wash both cars this morning - didn't notice my left foot too much while doing that which must be a good sign.
Had to fix the washing machine earlier. Margaret decided it would be a good idea to add the small cleaning cloth from her glasses case to the towels she was washing. The machine stopped after a while and showed an error regarding a filter being blocked. I spent a while draining the machine and then removed the filter cover to find - yes, the small glasses cleaning cloth blocking the filter. We've run the machine again since I re-assembled it and everything seems to be back to normal.
However, I was very pleased to be able to better last weeks time by 36 seconds (1:27:24), which has boosted my enthusiasm for future runs. More incredible was my 10K Thursday evening treadmill session, for which I registered almost a three minute improvement on my best post heart event time. Could be a number of reasons for the sudden improvement, including my new running shoes, a drop in temperature, a settled training regime and a new approach to my running. The latter is down to something I saw on You Tube the other week, which stated that to improve times one should concentrate on leg speed rather than stride length. Since then (three runs) I've shortened my stride and speeded it up a little. The result is that I am breathing more easily and I feel like I have more energy for longer; obviously , in my case, a longer stride was draining my reserves much quicker. Anyway, whatever the reason, it's very encouraging and enjoyable.
Onwards and upwards.
WtnMel, I have Garmin Express on my laptop, so might try plugging my Volkswagen satnav in and see what happens.
Thankfully, my arm hasn't bothered me at all, so I must be lucky. Good that your foot doesn't seem to be causing you any problems now.
Well done for sorting out the washing machine. I'm afraid that I'm not very good at do it yourself😒
Aquarius, I haven't actually had time to try plugging the satnav into the laptop, but hopefully, will do so tomorrow. Mine actually fits onto the facia, and I remove it when not necessary.
You seem to be unlucky with dog walkers and their dogs. Two weeks ago whilst doing the 5k with Sarah and Mike, a white poodle ran up to us and began circling. I nearly trod on it because it was only a toy poodle and I almost didn't see it.
Sorry to hear that your arm was still hurting, but as I said above, mine has been ok. Well done with your run, you are getting rather speedy, and the pilates and yoga have probably helped. Also hill work is supposed to be good for improving pace.
Redmist, I have also found that running a route in the opposite direction is beneficial, as it seems so different from the original way.
I agree about shortening the stride length and increasing the cadence. I've found this beneficial in my weekly 5k challenges. It's good to hear that you have benefited by adopting this change to your running.
I ran 5 miles on roads this morning which was intended to be an easy pace run. However in the last 2 miles I encountered the Southampton Tri race, and cheekily joined in with the runners. I overtook one and was overtaken by two others. My racing head "had kicked in!" and I continued at race pace.
The Hardley-a-Round run went really well this morning and we managed to reduce the mileage to 12.9 miles. Moving time was 2.28 so we are pleased with that. I ran with the two Sarah's, Jane and Tracy. I stung the fingers on my right hand on some stinging nettles as we were crawling under a fence. They are still tingling now☹
Very happy to report that (drum roll ..) I beat Alan at golf today by 4 strokes ⛳🥇
A quick mention re built-in sat-navs .. I was curious as I didn't know if they were removable. One I came across wasn't removable but it had an SD storage card which you removed, plugged in to your laptop to update, then slotted back in to the satnav unit in the car afterwards.
WtnMel - that’s interesting to know about built in satnavs, thanks for that information.
WtnMel, hope you and Margaret enjoy todays tour of Highgrove Gardens, and Bonnie Prince Charlie appears with champagne for Margaret's treat🍾
Well done for beating Alan by 4 strokes, this will give you confidence for further matches!
Aquarius, my nettle stings are nearly better this morning, but still a slight tingle. The stings came out as red blotches which was a bit worrying, but I applied Germolene which eased the stinging, and hopefully has sped up the healing process.
Thanks, we were all very pleased with our Hardley-a-Round achievements, and will probably do it again to see if we can improve even more. I couldn't resist joining in with the Southampton Tri Runners on Sunday, as my racing head kicked in.
Sounds like you had a good day yesterday, blackberrying, going for a lovely walk, and visiting a garden centre for winter flowering plants.
I hope the rain holds off so that you can do the gardening this afternoon after your pilates session.
Today is a rest day apart from the usual Tuesday morning shopping carrying 4 heavy bags. That reminds me, I haven't done the front plank or press ups yet, so will do them now.
HS - how did you get on updating your satnav? I'm chuckling at your competitive instincts kicking in when you encountered those triathletes. Glad to hear the Hardley-a-Round went well and you managed a shorter route - hope your fingers have stopped tingling from those nettles. I did offer to get some champagne today - but we 'made do' with an Americano instead
Aquarius - I expect with your phone, there's a setting been switched on somewhere to track your location (I seem to get a monthly report from Google telling me everywhere I've been!) I only managed to sort out the washing machine because it had been well-designed with access to the filter bottom-right at the front. The only 'problem' was some water leaking out after I'd drained the machine but an old towel quickly sorted that out. Bit of a so-and-so to have that dog wrapped around your leg on your run a couple of days ago. But that was a good pace you managed. Sadly, Charles was nowhere to be seen during our tour this morning (for all I know, he was at one of his 'other' houses). I see you went blackberrying again and had a nice walk along the country lanes.
Redmist - I see you ran 9mls. I wish I could manage a bit more than my 'usual' 5 miles (though any distance run would be welcome at the moment). And a good idea to swap the direction of that route to give you some variety. I might try that technique you mentioned to see if it improves my pace at all.
We enjoyed our trip to tour the gardens at Highgrove this morning. After being checked-in at the gate by an armed policeman it was all pretty low-key after that in comparison with the weapon of choice of everyone else being a clipboard. The gardens themselves were interesting - lots of topiary and sculptures and they just go to show what's possible with unlimited time and resources
After yesterday's golf and today's 90 minute garden tour, my foot is sore again. So still no running for me
WtnMel, I still haven't tried connecting my satnav to Garmin Express, but did connect my Garmin 645 music to it for any updates. I was going to connect the satnav this afternoon, but it is in the boot of the car which is in the garage. It's pouring with rain, so I don't fancy going out to get it. It's also a bit tricky opening the boot so that that it doesn't make contact with the garage top. It springs open quite fast!
Glad that you enjoyed your walk round the gardens yesterday, but a shame that Charles, if he was in residence, didn't come out to welcome you! Sounds good having lunch outside on the terrace.
Sorry to hear that your foot is still problematic. I can't think what might be causing it. I believe that you said that you have run in your new trainers, but I think the foot had swollen up before then.
Thanks for the update on Molly. I remember from her last post that she was worried about the situation in the States. She must be even more worried now, after watching the shambolic head to head with the two 70+ year olds slagging each other off. What about Boris and one of his MP's not understanding the covid restrictive rules. He hasn't got a clue and the back benchers are rebelling.
A rest day yesterday, and this morning ran 10k in the forest with Sarah H and Mike. This included 10 hill reps with 30 metres flat out sprints on the flat gravel trail at the top. Thankfully we completed the run before the rain.
HS - I don't blame you not heading out to the garage in the rain .. I'm sure the satnav can wait and sounds like it will be safer to wait until the car is outside before opening the boot. I did keep my eyes open in case Charles or Camilla put in an appearance (assume it must happen from time to time). I can't think what the foot problem is either - I've not run in the new trainers but said when I do run again, I will use the new shoes rather than the old ones. Yes, from her message it was clear Molly is worried about what's going on in the USA at present. I think our only hope is that Boris puts his foot in it so much the MP's realise their jobs could be on the line at the next election and decide to hold a vote of confidence in him and throw him out. Mind you, who would replace him given the stellar array of incompetent idiots in the party at the moment? Well done re today's run and managing to dodge the rain.
WtnMel, I can't envisage Boris serving the full term. He's clearly out of his depth, with a "wooden Cabinet " who are next to useless. Public opinion has it that Sir Keir would be a better PM!
HS - nice photos .. I can see you were enjoying yourselves. Have we scared everyone else away??
Quick update re my left foot. It felt better this morning walking downstairs as I was able to put my full weight on it and it even felt like I had a 'spring in my step' walking around the house. Interestingly, I wore the old running shoes I have been using for gardening to collect the bins and almost immediately, my foot began to hurt again. My conclusion is the cushioning and support in those old 'gardening' (ex-running) shoes has broken down completely so they've been thrown in the bin. However, I did keep the nice purple (club colours) laces for use in another pair.
*waves* to anyone else who pops in here 👋