Watching The London Marathon - Not Jealous At All, Honestly Not Jealous At All

It has been good to watch it so far in between making a fantastic Lemongrass, Coconut, and Sweet Potato Soup by The Happy Pear.

The record for the Men's London Marathon was smashed and was just 8 seconds off the world record, and the female winner her race despite a fall which resulted in a bang to her head - impressive.

Dame Kelly Holmes completed in 3hrs 11mins, and interviewed directly after was buzzing - classic post race euphoria but if you train well then (note to self....ahem) then you will do well.


I've seen runners dressed as a roman centurion, bagpuss!, four people as a cool runnings Jamaican bobsleigh,

Tim Peake, the British Astronaut ran a marathon on the space station in 3hrs 35mins - he had to be chained to the running machine due to the weightlessness - his bodyweight was 70% of normal as a result, so a bit easier than an earth-based marathon but no doubt he had other complications.

82 year old man is running his 35th consecutive London Marathon.

Someone will be the millionth people to complete the London Marathon as well.

The oldest runner is an 88 year old woman.

Chilly 6am 4mile Run

After failing three days in a row to get up early enough to go for a run, each time walking up too tired, this morning I beat the alarm and was wide awake - four miles done, all road, at 6am, it was chilly, mainly dry with a little little rain - a comfortable run.

My view leaving the house.

Field of rape seed with a sun breaking through some of the cloud cover.

Southwood Hall

Downpour in the distance.

Run-down building

Freethorpe Church.

Freethorpe Manor

Freethorpe Village Hall with flag up for St.Georges Day.

The Morning After The Dinner Ball

So on Saturday, I was unable to do a run as I had my "annual day-off", also known as Salute at ExCel in London - yes I am a wargamer - think like Warhammer but I'm interested more in historical wargaming.

Anyhow I worked out I did about 2.5miles of walking at Salute and then had to get back to Norwich early to go to a Dinner Ball.

Didn't do any dancing myself as I am never comfortable dancing anyhow but also I was tired from a long day.

We were staying at the in-laws, so when I got up I went for a run out around countryside near Hempnall.

It was only a three mile run as I needed to get back to take my daughter to a Wind Band event but at least I got some mileage in.

The public footpath take you down a loke but I couldn't work out which bits were public footpath and which were not.

When I got to here where brambles and branches had been laid down on the "path" I turned back and came out back at the sign.

Running down a road, the dip was flooded across the road with the "grups" as they are known being full of water.

Just beyond here was the Hempnall Common but it was sodden wet and given I was short of time, I turned back and went back to the in-laws.

Muddy Run

Apologies, I meant to post this a week ago but I saved it as a draft and forgot to come back and post it.

I did a run across a number of fields towards Halvergate and the took a different route, mainly on road, back home - total of 6 miles done.

With the recent rain, the ground was soft and muddy but not waterlogged.

A view of Wickhampton Church

The only waterlogged section of my run - interestingly the width of the route is half what it was last year, so whilst still a permissive route it has been reduced, and quite a bit in some places.

One of windmills in the distances on the marshes.

A mystery route from the field that takes you to......

A small water/sewerage plant but a dead end as there is no gate, so I went back.

A crossing from one field to the next.

Houses in Halvergate.

The Red Lion in Halvergate.

Chapel in Halvergate, for sale.

Halvergate Hall.

Halvergate Playing field.

Technically not meant to run here but it was only a short section.

Although I think I paid the price for it......

First "long" run of April

I did a 6 mile run this morning but I managed to add extra pressure because I did not get up to go out until 8am when my plan was for 7am - this did leave me short of time on my return home to get organised before we all headed to the in-laws for a very nice dinner of roast pork with plenty of veg.
The time to do it was unimportant especially as I was taking some photos along the way.

I took this photo because the farmer has ploughed over the permissive pathways that been in place for a few years and last year the grassed pathways of this field was a central point to my trail running.
I suspect that DEFRA has cut back on funding for these to continue as the funding is typically for 10yrs - the reason I suspect this is because as a crude guess I reckon locally three of the six fields that had permissive pathways, no longer do so.

Cantley Sugar Factory in the distance.

Private sign on this field - to be honest I was never sure it was a permissive pathway last year so I haven't calculated it as one of the six fields.

Another field with a "conservation" sign - effectively keep out to general public.

A derelict church in Southwood being maintained by Blofield & District Conservation Group,

There is a public footpath behind it that crosses two fields.

Wanna go fishing?  This is Limpenhoe.

Limpenhoe Church

Nice Limpenhoe sign.

Round and square bales are on the same field - never understood what the benefit of both shapes for bales but it's rare to see both on the field as farmers tend to prefer one over the other.

April Forward Planning to be ready for my first race of 2016

My first race will be late June when I will walk all of two minutes to turn up at the Humpty Dumpty 10k - always good to have one race that you do not need to travel for.

Now it is my intent to not only run that 10k but also get a big improvement on my 10k PB which is 59 minutes something from about three years ago.  My target will be 55 minutes or less.

My plan for April is to not focus on times but get the base mileage in, particularly on Sundays when I do my longer runs.
The aim is for all the April long-runs to range from 6 miles to 10 miles, most likely 6, 8, 10, and 8.
Mid-week runs (hopefully at least two per week) will ideally be 2 to 4 miles each depending on available time.

Now more importantly I will be upping my game in respect of eating better, especially as I have just purchased myself a spiralizer machine which I hope will result in more veg being eaten not just by me but the rest of the family - I have always eaten a decent amount of fruit on a daily basis but veg outside of roasts or having it with a pie has been more tricky.
I am meat-eater and will remain to be one but I would like to eat more veg irrespective of whether a meal with veg ends up being vegan, vegetarian, or carnivore.

You Are Not Prepared!

Recently a woman had to rescued from Ben Nevis having decided on the spur of the moment to climb it in her summer clothes and a selfie stick (http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/mar/31/woman-sorry-ben-nevis-rescue-selfie-stick) - given it was late March, it is not surprisingly for the weather to be very cold and indeed a blizzard struck on her ill-thought out journey.

Anyhow, on a much more manageable scale I was also ill-prepared this morning when at 6.45am I discovered my planned run would be in sub-zero temperatures and I was not wearing a thermal top, a hat or gloves - see the frost on my car below.

As I was only running 3 miles, my thumbs in particular got very cold and I never really warmed up but it was a good run.

I should also mention that it was my third run in the last seven days.

It was also very foggy as you can see.

Nice shot of the sun burning up the fog with a church in the background.