Cabin Fever

 This morning I have been out in our little van that we call Violetta, with Steve. The only reason I went with him today was only for a change of scene. He had one delivery close to Heathrow airport and knowing that I have been suffering from a mild case of Cabin Fever, due to the fact that I am missing my friends and family so badly. As of tomorrow, it will be nine whole calendar months since we have been to the local pool Littlehampton Wave for swim training. It’s not as if we only went there once in a while to train with and chatter with, so many or our fellow triathletes and swimmers, we were there for at least and hour and a half, four or five times every week and on many of those occasions we would go for a run or a bike ride straight after the swim session, or dinner sometimes on a Saturday night.

 

As with most things in this life the population has been split in opinion as to how best to survive the plague season. Many, have totally ignored all the official advice. Being over eighty years old myself, and taking in the advice, I have not met any groups of people, athletes or not, healthy and fit or not. Its been hard but Steve and I have stuck to our guns and done our training on our own and worked very hard at maintaining our own fitness level.

 

Recently our area has found itself in the top end of tier 2 as placed by the government. With a higher rise in cases and deaths, than there was in early summer, so it would seem to me that now is not a time to be blasé.

 

So, Steve and I will not be going madly out Christmas shopping and partying. I am not convinced that Covid is anything like improving yet. Unless a vaccine that works is perfected soon. I see this going into its second year, a bit like the Black Death in the middle ages. Of course, is of no help at all that I do not cope well with the darkest couple of months of the year.

My outing this morning was simply a drive in the van and on arrival at the delivery point, Steve simply opened the back doors of the van and the crate was taken out on a fork lift. We used the drive time to listen to another few hours of the book we are listening to on Audible right now. Column of Fire by Ken Follett, the last in the Kingsbridge Trilogy that has helped us stay sane and sharing this most educational set of books.

 

On TV right now we are working our way through another very different series on Amazon Prime, Ride Upon the Storm, that again is most thought provoking. It is a Danish production with subtitles. I am happy with Subtitles since I have a bit of a hearing problem and it save me saying “What did he say”, to Steve every two minutes.

 

Never ending Sunday runs

 

After a whole day off any form of exercise yesterday, the alarm went off at a little before 6am this morning. One of my downfalls according to some people’s standards is that I am not physically or mentally able to hear the alarms, leap out of bed4, throw on my running kit and be out of the door before you can say knife.

I like to ease into my day carefully and thank God and all the angels my husband has never ever complained about this. On the rare occasion when speed is important for the get awa, he will have mentioned it a few days ahead, like when we are to embark upon a long driving work day or the start of a holiday journey when we like to get a good early start rather than a late finish.

Today, all he had warned me of was that I had an eight-mile hilly run to get through. Over the years with the aid of various measuring devises, we know exactly where and what all the mile markers are; A finger post, a gate, a big tree with a wide V in the branches and even one particular puddle, that in summer is just a dip in the track.

My husband/coach, drove me to my start point for today and as I got out, he, in his best German, gave me the, ready, steady, go, as he started the Garmin forerunner. He then planned to wait for our regular run friend and set her off behind me by just five minutes. She usually has more of a wait than that when we are only doing 10km but for an eight-mile run she seems to run out of steam just a bit at the end even though she is 14 years younger than me her exercise programme is very different to mine that has more run miles I believe. We like to plan it so that she can catch and pass me somewhere along the route. A ten-minute start for 10km works well but eight miles is an unknown because she has always run with us to give that a try. I am the opposite and get more in my comfort zone as I go along being more comfortable on the last few miles than at the start. We are all different.

 

 When I started out it was just about light and I walked briskly up the first gentle slope, passing the new grain store farm building where the big long plain green wall is supposed to hide the huge building and in the fullness of time, the tiny twigs that have been planted directly in front to the wall will provide a lovely hedge with various plants suitable to the area.

 

Meanwhile. This year and possible next year, it is giving the passing population of walkers, hours of fun using the copious amounts of the rough chalk that covers the whole of the South Downs National Park. This week, amongst the newest blessings written there, mostly peoples names; Scarlet, Ellie, Jake, to name but a few, I noticed that somebody had noted in medium size letters that ‘Aden Crittley is a Hunk’. I may have mis-remembered that surname, but I wondered if the young lady had mis-spelt Aiden. Friday however, I noticed that a new announcement had been placed; ‘Aden Crittley is a Stud Muffin’.  No further development had been added this morning and I walked on.

A man who walks his dog at that same early hour who asked me as I approached and passed

I passed him, where my Mister was? I gave him a brief run down on Steve injury.

 

My route today was to run four mile of our usual Sunday 10km route but to turn at the animal water trough is the four-mile marker half way down the side of the gallops and I was to turn there and return the way I came which meant I would be going back up hill again. Less than a quarter of a mile up the hill, I passed my friend running down-hill. She checked briefly that the water trough was the turn around and that it would be on her right not too far ahead.

 When I got to the top of that hill I turned and saw her at the gate about to start up. After that there are a couple of turns where I would be out of sight to her but I though she would catch and pass me somewhere. When I got to the puddle marker, I turned but she had not reached the top gate. I was at the highest point of the run but she was still not in sight and I started to descent to the next gate.  I continued on to the ridge path that overlooks Lower Barpham. I continued on there and still thought she would catch me but it was very muddy and I had to slow or walk bits that were very boggy. When I got to the six-mile marker that is now easier to tell people about because it is the new and quite lover long stack of maturing trees for the timber business.

 

From there the way is much easier and I was able to run non stop all the way back to the start point looking over my shoulder every now and again to see if she had me in to pull up on or not but she was nowhere to be seen. What I decided that I had not kept in mind about her was that where there is just grass and she take her trainers off and runs barefoot winter and summer.  In addition to that although she is actually a slightly faster runner and I, she does tend to fade a bit on a run longer than 10km. In the end, even though she had gained on me during the first half, she was still five minutes behind at the finish. Still; it was my second best 8 miler this year, only 19 seconds off my best.

 

Other notes: there was a fabulous sunrise with fast moving clouds. Also I counted eight big birds mostly Red Kites but all in different places and always just one bird flying solo. Toward the end of the run there were simply hordes of walkers with dogs and or children. There were loads of cars parked. Many more than normal. Lockdown didn’t work this time that is for sure. 

 

 

 

Biathlon’s New Bright Star

                                     Sturla Holm Laegried 23, Norway top of the podium today

 

My husband/coach deemed today to be a lazy day since I had been working quite hard with my training. I have been doing all of my running on my own as well as quite a bit of my other training of all sorts; Turbo session, Ballet, and Qigong.

 

Steve has now been out of run training for nearly seven weeks after suffering a nasty slide in a muddy section of woodland. For several weeks he thought he had pulled a hamstring but even after resting it nicely, and doing all the exercises that had been recommended, the injury had not improved. At that point he rang the Osteopath he had been going to off and on for about forty years who he had rock solid faith in Ann Coxhead. The only reason he had not been to her in some time was that he had been in pretty good shape but also that the traffic situation between us and Rottingdean where he practice is situated has been horrendous. But anyway, he had not suffered much more than mild over work tiredness. 

 

The result of that visit showed other injuries entirely, and in truth I didn’t quite understand since it is rather complicated. So now he is resting more and only walking, while I run at the same time and even then, he is walking slower than he has been since he always complains that he can’t keep up with me at my walk speed normally, let alone injured.

 

He has been working on the breathing exercises he has been given, since some of the damage is with muscles in his stomach and hip attachment system from what I understand. This sounds sensible to me, since about a month ago, in the same very muddy time frame, I had a headlong slide, body surfing through a very wet area and covering myself in mud from chest to feet and after that although I could still run ok and completed my run feeling fine. However, for a couple of weeks I had to hold back on my Abs floor work, and also found press-ups and sit-ups (not of those that I do many of those), difficult. That fall had left me with a tender tummy, lower abs. but I have fully recovered from that.

 

My running if fine right now, much better than the last few years and less of an effort having taken a few pounds off my weight, in fact the improvement may be totally due to the weight loss. The fact that swimming has been almost put on hold this year due to Covid, and with swimming pools closed, my only swims were in the sea during the summer months and not very many of those either, since it is such an upheaval to put a traipse down to the beach and take a de-salting bath after, hair drying etc. into the training programme to fit with everything else.

 

Being a world class pain in the butt like me, a massive fidget and handiwork freak into the bargain, time has to be handled well. Brain wise, I need take extra time for my writing, whether I share it or not. Then I must have some handiwork going on. This morning I have finished a shirt for myself that I have been only allowing 30 minutes a day on. It looks like shop bought though, pretty neat though I say so myself.

                                      Johannes Thingnes Boe Norway 2nd today

 

Today, was a happy day for both of us since we are both big winter sports fans. This morning on Eurosport there was Biathlon to watch from Kontiolahti in Finland. It was a great opening for our winter watching. We have been to a few events live but Steve worries about me getting very cold standing around for hours watching the athletes get very hot and breathless.

French superstar Martin Fourcade who retired from the sport after the season last year.

We are both big fans of the Boe brothers of Norway who are sort of the Brownlee’s of Biathlon as it were and Johannes Thingnes Boe was indeed in first position when he crossed the line in the men’s 20km race which was a time trial event. However, a new young star Sturla Holm Laegried at 23 years old, who has only had a place in World class events a handful of times, managed to finish about 19.4 seconds ahead of J.T. Boe giving Norway the top two places on the podium.