Some Summertime Sunshine

This has been the first week since February last year that has had me feeling the joy of being back to proper triathlon training in that we are at last able to work on all three disciplines again.

Oh joy, oh rapture! Plenty of nice weather about too, and it was warm enough to get out on our bikes. The only discipline that has been a constant has been the running and in that we are blessed in that we live so close to the South Downs National Park and the Angmering Park Estate attached to the wonderful Arundel Castle. Views to die for in every direction just ten minutes away from our home.

 

 

Being able to get back in our local swimming pool, Littlehampton Wave, that was closed by Covid just one year after its original opening day, is open again now, a blessing indeed. There is a big BUT to that in that there are still restrictions for its use. Where we used to have lane swimming right across the whole width and length of the new pool, there are now double width lanes so that means four-lanes instead of eight which makes its use 50% less with maximum use of about forty people of mixed ability. The sessions are separated by a time break of 15 minutes so swimmers may only get a 45-minute swim and there are fast, medium and slow swimmers’ lanes. It is a bit of a free for all and users are so far being very calm about all the rules.

 

Swimmers must arrive with their swimsuits on under their clothes.That is not unusual except that there not any lockers or changing cubicles, before the swim.

After the swim, one can take a shower and there are only a small number of cubicles to get dressed in, so queues do form. Shoes are thankfully not allowed in the changing area at all which is a rule that I would be happy to see kept permanently. There is a one-way system which roughly works.

 

The staff have done a great job and are still cheerful even with all the difficulties and extra work involved with keep the public safe. One benefit has been that the swimmers are mainly older people who have had both jabs, and so feel a bit more safe. Downside is that there are not any club swimming sessions yet since the pool is not fully functioning.

We have not been swimming since February last year and we expected to be terribly rusty but we have taken our first few swims carefully. With that in mind we are not too unhappy with the level of swim fitness we find ourselves with. A little achy maybe but nothing lasting past getting out of the water. We did very few seas swims last summer, thinking that the restrictions would not last very long! Ha!

 

Still all in all both my coach/husband Steve and I are feeling confident about our first event which is coming up fast now. All our other training has been going well.Eton Sprints Weekend at Eton Dorney Lake, near Windsor. We are entered for an event on Sunday May 16^th. This is a qualifying event for the ITU World Triathlon Sprint Distance Championships in Bermuda the following year 2022.  

 This morning we had a lovely jog-walk in Angmering Park early this morning with a friend recovering from an injury and so slowed for a while to about our pace.

The sunshine this week has been wonderful and has lifted everybody’s spirits.

Thankfully we were out early for our run which was as well, since there was the well know local Bluebell Run taking place today and it was great to see so many people enjoying an event. The race is one of the local Raw Energy Pursuits events and was being enjoyed by all.

At home later we had lunch in the garden for the first time this year which was marvellous. Steve had set up a mouth-watering array of sauces and other additions to go with the raclette grill.

Absolutely divine.

 

I can understand that everybody so desperately wants to get back to normal, it has been a dreadfully lonely time.

I have found it almost unbearable without my family and friends.

 

 

  

Belties Eagle-Watch-Walk

 

My husband Stephen and I had been thinking along similar lines it seemed when it came to going out for a walk this morning.

The line of thought that we were sharing was something like this.

 

 

 

I am a White-Tailed-Eagle, we having been transported a great distance and released on the Isle of Wight, off the south coast of England along with two other breading pairs, by people who have experience in these matters and should know what they are doing. My wife and I should give a little time considering this new, carefully selected location. Having explored the island a little while, my love and I had flown to West Sussex, not very far away in search of somewhere else to set up home. Then following our inbred instinct’s, we flew away gliding on the prevalent south westerly wind soaring high above the pretty land and sea below, gliding in huge graceful circles taking in all that was going on far below us not missing a thing with our ‘Eagle- eyes’. Mmm River Arun…. Arundel Castle has a large estate of park, farmlands, wetlands and woodland with some pretty villages. The river Arun runs through it all and snakes through the South Downs.

 

 

Stephen and I have been obsessively striking out on Eagle-Watch-Walks since we first spotted the newest visitors to the area. We have got to know quite the land well in thirty years of running as training for our sport of triathlon and doing our best to avoid road running that neither of us is fond of. We saw the eagles first time completely by accident on the return leg of one of our exercise jog-run rambles. We do love the countryside and a bit of bird spotting goes down well, so it was very exciting to see these huge beautiful strangers soaring above us.

 

Today we were both on a bit of a mission and the training idea was less important that the Eagle spotting. We had both been searching our minds for where we might settle for as a home if we were a breading pair of Eagles thrown into a new landscape. We have seen them a fair number of times now on these rambles and thought we would stretch it out to search out toward the South Downs Way a little north on Burpham where we had seen them circling and also perched in a tree.  Maybe it was again simply a stroke of luck or if our own instinct had been correct, Lord only knows, but a little short of the old Roman, quite direct trail along the South Downs, there above us riding the air streams were the two vast birds that we were searching for. We stood transfixed long enough for five mountain bikers to climb up the very steep path behind us and in fact only one of these sturdy looking blokes actually made it anywhere near the top. We shouted encouragement at the first one to appear and he did manage to get to the top where it took him a few moments until he could breathe soundly enough to tell us about the groups trek from Portsmouth with an overnight stay on the downs before getting into our area. The other four all got off their bikes before they even came into sight around the bend in the stiff climb. We made then feel bad by telling them all as they arrived that only one of them made it. They all felt better when we pointed out that the old maxim, ‘The harder the climb the sweeter the prize’ was only too true by pointing to the pair of eagles above them. 

 

The circling spectacle over our head started to move back toward the River and Burpham where they have been hanging out of late. We managed to get a couple more good sightings before we finally picked up the van in the car park by The George Pub at our start point. As we stood there gazing around, I was so happy to see my first swallow this year. I turned to Steve and quoted

‘One Swallow doesn’t make a summer’, but did not get past that before another one darted by to make it official. Summer my friends is upon us.

 

Shortly after we got home there were the two White-Tailed-Eagles circling overhead above our home in Littlehampton, just two miles south of Arundel. I hope they are not going to return to the Isle of White which at their height in the sky, they can clearly see from that position.

 

Another of our funny little habits is to take a quick sweep around Arundel before driving home and I have to say that far from continuing to be half sensible, the world has gone quite mad and people a swarming everywhere shoulder to shoulder as if the pandemic was already over. Not in my book it isn’t. I can see that it has been a horrible time and nobody wants to go through anything like the last year and a quarter again but I do think that with arms all around each other, hugging and kissing all your mates and behaving in nothing short of festival mode is a little bit premature or to put it another way immature.

 

I contrast to this freedom hysteria, the behaviour of the Queen and her family at the very formal but perfect funeral of the Duke of Edinburgh, was far more sensible and in keeping with the official advice that still stands. 

 

 

 

 

 

The Ups and Downs Strike Again,

 

                                                                   White-Tailed-Eagle

I have got to the point where I am wondering, if the latest round of aches and pains threatening my training programme, are more a simple case of the underpinning getting weak, after so much stress and strain under the Covid cloud. Don’t bother to remind me that I am a little long in the tooth anyway and I cannot expect anything else. Well, I do expect better of myself actually because for the most part, I do really put my money where my mouth is.

 

Over the years Stephen and I have always advised triathletes to allow injuries the rest time and treatment they need to recover. My current naughty back problem, feels like life itself has been a factor and not a question of working injured muscles to see if they are better, because they won’t be, if you keep on testing them with a ten-mile run. The comeback should be little steps and time is the best healer.

 

 

As well as resting off running this week, I have invested in a smart new heated jacket that once tried, Steve and I have been fighting over whose turn it is. I have put the warm heated blanket, that is disguised as a sort of gillet, on each time I have sat down to work on my computer which is perfect for a fidget like me; two birds-one stone.

 

So, my Duo-lingo Italian work practice is a heated affair, and because I find the course completely absorbing, I am not trying to stand up and get untangled from the jacket wiring system or trip over and break my neck trying to answer the front door during that time. Then part of my therapy is a rest and a learning project.  

 My other therapy is that I have been back at the Qigong sessions on YouTube. I did a double session of that this morning that ate into an hour and a half, after which I had gently loosened up my limbs without overdoing any stretching. In fact, the class has the student doing gentle swinging around the body during which I close my eyes to do it, because I know it well and hearing the tutor speak, I know when it changes to something else. There is also some whole body shaking to loosen out stress and some tapping and slapping all of which work well for me.

 

 

The other area of useful movement that we have both very much enjoyed over the last couple of weeks, has been Eagle Spotting Walks! These have been taken a little outside Arundel, here in West Sussex, which is only a 5-10-minute drive from home to the start point on any of several walks. There the big birds; White-Tailed Eagles, have been seen by local people recently. We saw them the first time, by pure accident, we stopped walking, as our jaws dropped to our chests when we were thunderstruck by spotting them, soaring just a little way above us. The birds are so large that they made the local resident buzzards and a Hen Harrier look like sparrows in comparison.

 

Yesterday having thought that it was a no-show day from the big birds, we wandered on from where we had seen them a couple of times before. We wandered along past a big farm in Burpham and then down to the wetlands closer to the River Arun. We took a photo here and there with Steve getting to grips with the new baby zoom attachment for his phone. Since we are not proper photographers but still get some nice shots simply using our mobile phones that are thankfully far more sophisticated than our olds ones, years ago.

 

Having turned back along another path, we were alongside a smaller inlet from the river itself. As we strode along, chattering away as usual, Stephen suddenly threw an arm out to stop me moving, as he said quietly, “Oh my God, is that it”?

 I followed his gaze to a tree just the other side of the inlet and there sitting sunning itself on a big branch, midway up the tree, was indeed an Eagle. It looked huge even with its wings folded neatly down, but unlike other smaller birds it appeared to have shoulders like a night club bouncer and a wicked looking hooked beak and a stare that made Paddington Bear’s fictional hard stare look pretty mild.

 

Steve tried to hurriedly to get his phone out of one pocket and then the little mobile zoom out of another. As it happened, he had no need to hurry at all because the big bird was taking a break it seemed.

 

It sat and looked this way and that and even saw us when it turned around but seemed to be unimpressed, even though I had a bright green jacket on and we were standing in the open. We stood in that spot for almost an hour waiting for the impressive creature to take flight but that did not happen,  

the most he did was preen now and again and change position slightly. We thought that he or she must have a meeting arranged with the partner later, for the pair.

Steve must have taken a hundred shots of the Eagle on the grounds of that way we must get one good one. It was still a good way off from us and since we did both have other things to be doing after all, we had to give up bird watching for the morning. We were however, seriously happy with our encounter with one of the new visitors to the area. Eagle watch walks will continue hopefully. Having goggled the birds, it does seems like a good location for them with the river, the wetlands and the surrounding hills and woodland.