I can assure you that this post has nothing to do with children’s nursery rhymes or Neil from the young ones (remember them?). It’s partly about my now defunct size 12 Nike Max Air running shoes.
From the rather undistinguished picture above, you might be able to see the nice little split – kindly provided by the shells on Swansea Bay – in the cushioned heel air pockets. Consequently they don’t provide much of an cushion from any impact – not good given my rather large (often cumbersome) frame and body mass.
As you can imagine it wasn’t the sort of outcome I was looking for after a 24 minute run along the beach – although I did get to have a real close up view of the jetty (it was an extremely low tide). Interesting stuff – especially the 3 different types of shopping trolley I clocked!
My 14 mile drizzly cycling jaunt down to Gowerton and back today was made all the more interesting due to a man v dog race along the way.
The bulldog – very similar to the one above but a bit more brown in colour – had taken absence of his owner’s lead and had decided to give me a run for my money over a 30 metre stretch. After the initial momentum being with the bulldog (please note I was in shock) I gradually used all my leg power and experience to pull away in the last 2 metres and leave my challenger in a static panting state.
Whilst I can jest about the above now, it did remind me of a not-so-pleasant experience I had at the mouth of an alsation dog – whom decided to take a mouthful of my calf – when I was a rather naive 10 year old. In fact, to this day I remain wary of man’s best friend.
With it being a day of rest for me today – from training – I decided to search out a cycling/running event in order for me to focus on something, rather than wait until July’s Gower Bike Ride.
A quick search on Runners World UK came up trumps as it alerted me to the Llanelli Waterside 10k in June – well June 24th to be precise. So I quickly parted with my £12 and entered the race online. My main aim of entering the 10K is to (a) focus my training and align it with a specific date/event in mind and (b) try and break my 10k personal best of 50:03 (yeah, slow I know!).
I find it extremely odd that the personal best was set during my first ever 10k race – the Aberystwyth 10k – in December 2001. I guess that just goes to show how much training I didn’t do for all of the others I’ve done (all 3 of them!!!!). Still onwards and upwards here’s hoping I do it and actually make it to the Llanelli 10k this time around – unlike last year.
With Britain apparenlt being a nation of curry loving individuals, the house of DDWT added its name to the list tonight with a home made beef dopiaza – courteousy of Mrs DDWT. It was bloody lovely and not overly spicey – a small point which my bowels are eternally grateful for. Nice. Anyway, if you’re the type who likes to dabble in the kitchen, you can check out good old Delia Smith’s recipe for some tips on how to make it. Who needs Homepride eh *wink*
Having been almost religious about keeping my blog up to date on a daily basis, I must confess to having slacked of late. It isn’t helped by my abusing of the ‘Save As Draft’ option in blogger mind you, as I find the time to use this feature – with bullet points in my posts – but not the time to fully elaborate on them. The result is I have 30 odd of these ‘drafts’ which I aim to catch up on eventually. Kind of defeats the purpose those doesn’t it *sigh*
Time, no wonder it’s such a precious thing.
After missing out on any two-wheeled travel in over a week, it was nice to get back out and about (and in the sunshine) today for a 14 mile ride down to Gowerton. Although it isn’t that far, anyone who has ridden the Cycle Path to Gowerton will tell you of the rather anonymous (by looks anyhow) incline up the Clyne valley – which gets a nice little burn going in your legs. Or maybe that’s just me being unfit!
With the deluge of rain today and over the past week for that matter, I’ve been wondering if the months of April and May have swapped places this year. I mean let’s face it, the weather is more akin to April at the moment what with all of the showers, and vice-versa the soaring temparatures and sun drenched days of April belonged in May. Is it global warming or is that just as common an excuse as the doctor describing every ailment nowadays as a ‘virus’.
There’s is one, well two good things actually about all this rain. The first being that I don’t have to water the garden (and pay Welsh Water for the priviledge) and the second being that I can go out running and thoroughly enjoy myself (as I have a liking for running in the rain – fully clothed I hasten to add!). So in an attempt to shake off the lethargy of last week (and some pounds in light of this morning’s 16st 11lb reading), I went for a 33 minute run covering approximately 4 miles odd. Thankfully the picturesque surroundings of the Swansea Valley canal were more than enough of a distraction from my sweaty huffing and puffing – not that anyone else was mad enough to be out in the bucketing down rain mind you.
Still I felt good afterwards and tucked into our alternative Sunday lunch of fajitas with some gusto.
From the rather undistinguished picture above, you might be able to see the nice little split – kindly provided by the shells on Swansea Bay – in the cushioned heel air pockets. Consequently they don’t provide much of an cushion from any impact – not good given my rather large (often cumbersome) frame and body mass.