The Joy of Running

That is a very disappointing shot of a spectacular full moon.
 It looks as though I have been blessed by a fairy don't you think.

The Joy of Running

Although it is fair to say that this crisis time in all of our lives is a major disaster with so many people suffering from this deadly plague that despite the claims on TV there is a possibility that the strict controls may be lifted soon. You don’t have to be too bright to see that if yesterday alone death count in the UK was 758, Seven hundred and fifty eight people in the UK have died, that is horrendous. To date the total UK deaths from the virus was 5655 and that figure comes mainly from hospitals and you know the final figure will be much worse. It sure doesn’t look like it is leveling off to me. This is not a movie, or a story that some clever clogs wrote to entertain us. This is not the time yet to relax restrictions and re-open businesses.

Our Prime Minister Boris Johnson seems to be confirming himself that things are as bad as they can get right now, since he is in intensive care at St Thomas’s Hospital just over the River Thames from the Houses of Parliament. Of course we all feel sorry for anybody who catches the virus, let alone somebody as robust as Boris Johnson falling heavily it seems. Now Mr Gove is also in isolation. My next door neighbour is still coughing in a three person household of young mother, father and an eight year old boy.

What you also have to see clearly is that most people are rising to battle and doing the very best they can in a truly grotty period of our lives. It will pass in time but it will have cast shadows. My son-in-law has kindly dropped some shopping round to us a couple of times now, since the time when we could shop on line for groceries seems to have come to a halt.

I have been trying half a dozen times a day to get onto the company we normally use, Ocado. That has been dead to all but the government’s most vulnerable list, since our last order three weeks ago. But we have been saved by St. Martin who cheerily called again today and added the he would be going again in a few days and so to send him a list of anything we are right out of. Today's delivery included some fish, since we usually eat fish at least three times a week and would definitely want fish this Good Friday, that is a tradition we have always kept.

 

Moving on to brighter things. The full moon was shining brightly when we left for our run today and it was to be a beautiful day as the lovely moon sank but not before a couple of photos that did it no justice whatsoever. The woods were desolate this morning at the very crack of dawn when we started running. Nothing as exciting as the bonny young stags we saw on Sunday came along and a lower count of seven deer altogether. Three Kites, a couple of bunnies and hundreds of more common birds and the handsome pheasants bred in their thousands just to be shot and there is nothing I can do about that. It is a fabulous estate and that is part of the estate business.

We were at our distant high point of about three miles when the sun rose from behind the next hill in sight. It astonished us both how quickly the sun came up as we ran along the ridge above the medieval village of Barpham, that was nothing but a few shapes in the ground below us but still clearly visible in my own very active imagination.

Again we had a great 10km run and I have to add again that this time has, even with the lock down restrictions, much improved our running, since we are not tired for a start and that we have been doing class after class on YouTube to keep supple and as a consequence our legs are in much better condition for all the stretching and toning work.

Once home again we launched into two sessions of the ultra relaxing Tai Chi, a good stretch session and a yoga class that I only did some of because I had other things to come like the Hula class!!! Steve asked me later how it was going and I did my private Hula dance routine for him, now complete with a few arm movements. He watched quietly while I did my Hula in the kitchen to the end of what I had learned so far and when I stopped he said “Amazing”! I don’t know if he meant amazingly awful or amazingly not bad in so short a time, I think the later.

Then Steve found me a new class that I did the first part of, without much trouble at all, just a watch and follow. That was the New York City Ballet warm up work out, think big I say. At the end, after he had watch me join in that, he said that he would try it another day but that he would stick to just the first warm up stage. He has also joined me in the Splits Challenge with support at both sides for safety. 

This is also not a very good photo of the mist over the River Arun seen from our run High point.

 

I will not be publishing videos of me doing my Hula that I only started because it seemed like good exercise for the hips. Same goes for my ballet movements since I lack a little grace these days. 

Below is an email from one of my friends that arrived just now. It gave me great pleasure.

Hi Daphne

So pleased to hear you're coping well. I’m also going out at 5.30 for a bike ride or a walk/run then home to doing my PAPERWORK !  I actually think its probably no bad thing to give the world a little rest and maybe people will settle and see what they can achieve and have the time to see what’s around them.

Will check out those links

Love Tina xxx

Normal life is disrupted

Normal life is disrupted, but we need to hold on there for a moment because normal life is not totally destroyed. Things may be different when we reach the end of this big test of our strength and endurance. I do wonder if things will ever be quite as they were again. This time, will leave deep scars, as does any battle and battle is what this is.

Some relationships will have suffered but others will have strengthened. Things have changed in our house. Our relationship has strengthened even more. It seems as though this has gone on for much longer that the five weeks since my husband decided to stay at home with me. He has other reasons why that came about, as well as his first and foremost concern, that is to protect me by not coming into contact with other people himself. Our business suffered a dead stop. Nearly all of our clients are from other parts of the globe and this monster in our midst caused everybody to, very sensibly, scuttle back home for the duration of the locust like plague we find ourselves stuck in. There to sit it out in their own homes as are we doing.

 

It praise of my husband; the fact that I am almost eleven years older than him has always been a worry, in that the last thing he wants is for me to die before him. That has been part of the reason we set about getting fit in the first place many years ago. He wants his wife to remain healthy and strong and also finds that works with the idea that quite often men die younger than women. He thinks that might even things up.

So coming back to this threatening time it is important to him that he stays home too. I am the one who is loosely in the ‘A Risk’ category due to my age being closer to 81 than anything else and that I have Asthma. He will also add that whenever I catch a cold it will quickly go to my chest. That fact has been annoying taking into consideration that I am an athlete, current World Champion in my age group. Yet. My fitness does not protect me if a catch a cold or flu. I have had Pneumonia as well on more than one occasion over the last few years, that has been a worry. My Asthma was inherited from my dear old long departed Dad.

During the time we have been staying indoors all the time apart from a pre-dawn exercise period a few times a week, we have been taking extreme precautions. Steve picks up the post wearing rubber gloves and still wipes the envelopes down before opening them very carefully, extracting the contents and deposing of the envelopes just as carefully. Then washing the rubber gloves, and then again his hands. The same sort of thing happens with any deliveries. He speaks to the delivery person from a window instructing then to put the packet/parcel down. Everything is double wiped. Everything. No chance at all is taken. This may seem silly but it is not. It is what should be the norm. If you are not as careful as this, you should start to be, even though it may even be too late already.

I have heard that many people are saying that they are bored during this time. What I can tell them is that they are boring, not bored. They are also careless with other people’s lives. Bored indeed. How dare you be. Make yourself useful. Learn something new instead of heading for the excess of panic bought food you have stored, that means that I have been unable to even book a delivery from Ocado since my last delivery on March 17^th. Thankfully we still have food in the freezer, though in our former life we only ever ate fresh food.

Keep yourself fit rather that open another beer. Do a class on You Tube rather than eat unhealthy stodgy stuff that will put on weight that will be hard to get off later.

Do some gardening, grow something. Do some woodwork, repair the broken. If nothing else Relax with a sketch book, paint. See if you can still do a cartwheel or the splits, bet very few can. Ok I can’t do the splits either but I am working towards it and I am closer than I was a month ago. If you did ballet as a child, go through your arm positions or try to remember your plié s!

Be a better person at the end of this. Be a nicer kinder person at the end of this.

All that is left for me to do today is to thank everybody who has contacted us to see if we are managing ok. My son-in- law Martin; who has popped round with a few bits from the shops that we cannot get on line. Thank you.

I miss my friends and family even though we are in touch via social media. Miss the hugs, the jokes, the kidding and even the sarcasm.

It is not the end of the world. It is just a test for us to work and do our best in.

  

A Palm Sunday Blessing.

 A Palm Sunday Blessing.

Just before we arrived in semi darkness to start our three or four times a week run’ at about 5.45am this morning, I had a bit of a panic because I realised that I had left my phone at home and on asking Steve where his phone was, it was double stupidity since he had also left his phone in the kitchen. I had just finished saying that with Murphy’s Law already in play, that it was sure to be the one morning, after fifty years of frequenting the woods in Angmering Park Estate that we would see a huge white deer caught in the headlights right in front of us. Then not one minute after my semi rant about our dopey-ness, Lo and Behold; Two young Stag’s with what looked like full twelve point antler sets, casually crossed the narrow lane, only about twenty feet in front of us. They daintily tripped down the bank from the woods on the left side skittered across right in front of us and in no particular hurry wandered into the woods on the right side of the track. So close. So delightful. No flippin’ camera!

They were grand little chaps, so stately. We felt blessed and Steve said something like that we didn’t need to see anything else because that was the best close up sighting in a long time. We felt blessed on a day which to us is an important one to us. Palm Sunday. Not that Easter we be celebrated in the usual way this year at all.

Still we were happy with the day being marked in such a pretty way. Actually the wild life count on our run today was in fact twelve deer including the young stags by the time we got back to the car. We nipped quickly to our small warehouse and picked up the post. When we get home I wipe down everything on the car Steve has touched after going into the works, then we put all our clothes in the wash as a further precaution. These are not times to be careless.

Last evening we watched ‘The Professor and the Madman’, on TV, it was an Amazon original. You may wonder how come most of the films that we watch get such good rating from me. That has something to do with the fact that I choose most of the movies. Even Steve admits that I make better selections than he does in the area.

I’m a bit picky.

Simple rule… no trash.

This film starred Mel Gibson and Sean Penn. It was an interesting historical drama about Professor James Murray compiling words for the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary in the mid 19^th century. Astonishingly, he receives 10,000 entries from a patient at Broadmoor Lunatic Asylum, Dr William Minor, who has been sent there after committing a murder directly in front of the murdered man’s widow. I will give no more away. The 2 hour 5 minute 2019 film was directed by Farhad Safinia. It flies by because it is so gripping.

It has a mainly male cast apart from Natalie Dormer who plays the widow, and Jennifer Ehle as Murray’s wife. In supporting roles, Eddie Marsan and Steve Coogan are also excellent.

There is some great entertaining stuff on TV during the plague thank goodness.

Saturday morning movie

 Between Littlehampton Beach Huts by Jacqueline Rackham Photography

Saturday morning movie

Riding our going nowhere bikes in our little box room this morning was the order of the day. We had done several harder turbo sessions during the week that had us both drenched by the end of the workout and so today was a steady spinning session. 

What we do when this is the plan of the day is watch a movie. Today’s selection was one we had missed when it first came out, Coco, Before Chanel, with Audrey Tautou in the title role.

She was the star of Amelie and was also in The Da Vinci Code.  Not only did we miss it on round one but we missed is several times more when it hit the art cinemas as well. So we ended up buying it as a DVD.

The plan with a movie morning is to split the session in two and take a tea break in the middle. This movie was 1 hour 51 minutes so it split nicely. Of course being a French film it had the added plus of not missing the odd word because of the noise of the bikes, because it had subtitles. The fact that it was a most excellent true story made up for the fact that in another world we would have been in London today with tickets we had booked six months ago in out hands to see, The Secret Garden at the Palladium staring Ramin Karimloo (Yes, my very favourite musical theatre star and most followed person on my Instagram account). There now; another secret has slipped out between the lines. We were both pretty miffed though about missing that. All the theatres are of course closed and for some time I suspect.

Before we started our bike movie session we had started the morning with Tai Chi, the funny thing is that each time we start a set of that on TV I have started the wrap up a little warmer each time. The reason is that after twenty minutes Tai Chi, I am quite cold, so as we have gone along with it I have added layers and now I am wearing jog pants, socks, soft slippers, a rash vest and a long loose cardigan and my hands are still cold at the end of it. The best thing is that I find it, a brain-wipe-out-relaxing way to start the day, so it will stay, in even if I progress into snow boots, hat, scarf and a jacket suitable for an Arctic expedition.

Onto my next projects for the time left in the day, a poem maybe or a few more threads stitched into my latest embroidery project. Some emails to friends. The poor garden seems to come last whilst the lady next door is still coughing.

I am always telling people they only they are in control of themselves, that they make their own aims, they work toward where they want to be. I see that it is a double hazarded path right now but we must all keep ourselves pushing forward to make sure that when or if we make it through this we are in a good place to move forward.  

  

Still finding something the laugh about.

 Still finding something the laugh about.

                    The highest point of our run. How lucky we are to see this Sussex countryside

What are we Brits like? Even in the midst of all this Corona Virus sickness and horrendous amounts of death in our great country, we still find something the joke about, though I have to say that the photo of the 25 stone naked man on his balcony scratching a his vast expanse of rear end with the caption; Day 1009 of CV19 was not my favourite and I hope that people are not eating their way to a heavier self at this time. WE are being much more careful that usual not to sabotage our race chances should we be able to compete again any time in the foreseeable future.

Still the jokes come, thick and fast every time I pick my phone up or look at FB there is a new joke. We may have many questionable traits but laughing at adversity is one of our more comforting ones I think. I had a song forwarded to me yesterday that was very funny and quite unrepeatable but the theme was that we were all stuck at home with not much to do and not enough discipline or imagination to keep ourselves busy.

This is not something Steve and I suffer from, and in fact we have set to using this time to great effect. We have now reached a peak where there are not enough hours in a day to complete everything we had set ourselves upon.

Today was one of our run designated days. We have three days one week and four days the next. These are alternated, as I keep banging on about, with a stay at home turbo training set. So there we were once more leaving home for our run That is coupled with checking our business premise has not suffered any problems and picking up the post just in case something nice has landed on the mat instead of all the cancellations of late.

We were impressed with ourselves for getting up before 5 am after checking in last night to watch the National Theatre recording on One Man Two Guv’nors with James Cordon in the lead that was showing for free on TV at 7 pm last night. We were in stitches most of the way through and were both surprised that it was a farce of the first order rather than and just an amusing play we had expected. By the end of the play we both thought that James Cordon gave a performance of genius level, playing his part and the audience with equal astonishing skill. Improvisation can be a risky card to play.

We carried on laughing way after it finished and doubted that we would make our planned early call to sport this morning. None the less we did get up just before the alarm went off and after quickly cleaning our teeth, brushing our hair and throwing on our run kit. A quick coffee and catch-up on the news for a few minutes and we were away. With all the stretching sessions that we have thrown ourselves into, our muscles are in much better order and not any where near as tight as they were and because of that we had as good a run as we have had for the previous three months of the year.

The sun had not quite risen above the trees by the time we had pushed 10 very good kilometres under the belt. We also had a good score on the wildlife and farmed animal count, starting with the group of sheep who were lucky to find themselves not huddled in woolly balls sheltering from the frost as they were on Wednesday, in fact it was considerably warmer this morning then there was a blackbird singing its heart out as we started off, then there were eleven deer, spotted in small groups, a pretty little Stoat, a couple of Buzzards jousting with a Red Kite and a Yellow Hammer again. The noisiest of all are the previously cage bred Pheasants that like to advertise their whereabouts to any Fox waiting for an easy breakfast. Set that all down with a really enjoyable run and not another soul in the world anywhere in sight and our spirits were lifted to new heights.

Several You Tube classes were the order of the day when we got back indoors including my second Hula class which is best kept quiet about for the time being since my stomach doesn’t come very high in the beauty stakes compared to the pretty barefoot maiden doing the demonstrations. I am not a quitter though and intend to keep trying and today I worked up quite a sweat with my hip swaying efforts.

A nice hot bath and a few jobs attended to and the clock already showed that were had eaten into the first hour of the afternoon, so I honestly wonder who the devil all these people that say they are bored are. 

The heartening news is that the New Nightingale Hospital will take its first Corona Virus victims early next week. This information below was copied from and internet site.

In nine days, the 87,328 square metres of double exhibition halls have been fitted out with the framework for more than 80 wards, each with 42 beds. Some 500 fully-equipped beds, with oxygen and ventilators, are already in place and there is space for another 3,500.
If it did reach capacity, it would be one of the largest hospitals in the world.

How was it built?

The facility, which was officially opened on Friday, was built with the help of up to 200 soldiers a day from the Royal Anglian Regiment and Royal Gurkha Rifles, working long shifts alongside NHS staff and contractors.
Steve and I have known the giant ExCel Centre as T1 and T2 for several triathlons. Turning it into a 4000 bed hospital is so short a time is a near miracle.
The second round of Applause happened last night as our neighbours and ourselves Stood at open windows or our in their driveways to thank to wonderful and selfless work of the NHS staff throughout the land. More shouting of thanks and less moaning please.

Hawaii Ironman

Ian Douglas Sweet made a film of my first Hawaii Ironman race; Hawaii five-5. It was shown on Eurosport.

Hawaii is the ultimate goal for Triathletes world wide because that is where it all began. Who is the fittest was the challenge between service men. How many big races have been taken on like that? Thousands I’m sure have agreed to enter a marathon that way and I know several who did exactly that. Stitching together three existing major events on Oahu in the Hawaii Islands was exactly how triathlon started. There was a rough water swim event, the round the island bike ride and the Honolulu Marathon to be precise. That was the plan; a few fit service people shooting theirs mouths off about how fit and strong they were. The first one to complete all three disciplines would be declared the Ironman.

As a matter of interest the Hawaii Ironman was the first triathlon that Steve and I ever heard about. It in an article read out from 220 Magazine in our kitchen by a young friend of ours, James, who could at that time thirty years ago, already swim-bike-and run, and had done well in his senior years at boarding school in swimming and running events plus the bike was his only form of transport.

This photo is me interviewing original Ironman racer John Collins for the Eurosport film Hawaii Five-5 that was such a thrill.

That is how all three of us drifted into the sport, first our young friend James Clarke, then Steve, and the next spring after only being back up, support team and photographer for both of them, for the late summer of 1989. I didn’t learn front crawl until they had both competed in several events. It took me from mid September to mid December to get my first sure and calm mile under my belt.

 From the start Hawaii was the goal. Hawaii was what it was all about, a pilgrimage from the start. The three of us started training first in the pool then increasing the bike ride distance and the run was slower to get going for Steve and I. James became an elite athlete quite quickly since he had not left school sports that far behind and with Steve’s coaching started placing in races. I began to do well in my age group since it was not known as an ageing ladies sport in those days. We all qualified for ITU World Championships in Muskoka, Canada together.

This is me here with 'The Man', Dave Scott;
a true God of the sport,
taken on the
media breakfast cruise in Kona.

 With the dedicated coaching of my husband, who doubled as training partner and we always entered the same races. It was in my second attempt at Ironman Lanzarote that I qualified for the Hawaii Ironman World Championships. I dnf’d the first race there having dehydrated.

Reaching Hawaii, we both realised that this event was everything we had hoped and expected it to be. It doesn’t look hard when you see it on TV but with a no wet suit swim, the strong and changing wind and the humidity it most certainly is a very hard race. Ian Douglas Sweet made a film about my Hawaii adventure for Eurosport that he titled Hawaii Five-5. He is such a nice man and we are still friends on social media keeping in touch regularly.

There are Dolphins who join in with the swim section and I nearly had a heart attack when upon a sudden a dolphin swam directly underneath me just after the turn around point. These fantastic creatures have appeared at a handful of races that we have competed in. 

In Clearwater Florida Steve told me afterwards that a dolphin had swum behind me playfully on the way back from the turn around. In Baja, Mexico a group of dolphins and a huge sea lion had enjoyed the fun with the swimmers and appeared to watch us go out along the sea road as they played in the harbour.

At this time Steve and I are still keeping ourselves very fit and supple with a morning routine of alternate days of a predawn run and a turbo training session indoors. Plus we have been learning other things from You Tube, daily stretching classes and Tai Chi, then alternating Yoga and Pilates. 

The two photos below were taken professionally from the roof of the King Kam Hotel in Kona that overlooked the transition area on the pier.  The second shot is a close up taken from that where you can fairly clearly make out the beautiful blond hair of Sharon Shaw, and my pink cap at a later Hawaii race, where both our men were racing on that occasion and we were just spectators. It is definitely almost as bad worrying about your family when they are racing and you are having heart attacks waiting for them to return to transition after 112 miles in the solid sun our on their bikes.

 

Steve and I here ready for the traditional Hawaiian Luau that is not to be missed.

In addition to all our other training, Steve has also been doing a short rowing set to finish, and I have been looking for a dance related class to end the morning with, so it is not at all surprising that I have found a Hawaiian Hula class to start. So far I have only tried the very basic movements but in our stock of CD’s we have several by the best known of Hawaiian singers, Isreal Kamakawiwo ' ole or IZ; the name most people may know him by. So sweet and gentle a singer, especially for somebody who was a very big man. So I have music to practice my Hula and take my mind off being stuck indoors as we are, unable to see a movie in the cinema or go out to dinner with our wonderful family and friends who I miss so much.

Making the best of things when and where you can. 

                                           Gary Avis in the recent production of Onegin

 If this were not the most terrible period of time that we have known in recent years, we might be forgiven for thinking that it is also the most marvellous time in our lives. It is certainly a time where just as happened in war time, that people and companies are raising their spirits. I notice on all the usual social media sites that celebrities from sport, TV, the theatre and the movies are all doing their best to entertain us ordinary folk by sharing their talents for no reward. Free performances everywhere you look.

At the end of our own exercise period each morning Steve and I sit down with our favourite beverage and watch something funny before we get into the next period of not just self-isolation but self amusement and self appliance. We heard on the radio today that James Mcavoy has just donated £250,000 of his own money to the NHS to help buy much needed equipment to deal with the CV19 crisis. How marvellous, how moving.  Then on the TV news; Pizza Hut have pledged 300,000 free meals for NHS staff. More of the same from other rich people would not go amiss.

James Corden has some very amusing short funny things to watch on You Tube  we have watched several of his Film Careers in a nutshell in the last few days, Tom Cruise and Arnold Schwarzenegger were both very funny, as shown on the Late, Late Show at some earlier time or other, most of them no longer than a few minutes long, so perfect for a coffee break lift.

The best show of goodwill on offer, that especially will go toward making Steve and I and other highbrow/low income people very happy for a few hours a week, comes the form of the domino effect that has started in theatre land in the UK but also world wide with the New York Met showing past productions totally free.

 Tomorrow night our own National Theatre is showing something that I would so have liked to have seen on stage when it was showing but could not make it work at the time in my life, work and sporting events. So the two of us will not have to buy expensive tickets to see James Corden in One Man, Two Guv’nors tomorrow night on our own TV. We will be sinking into own our Lazi- Boy chairs with a nice glass on wine to one side.

To help get the public through our unwelcome test of strength and endurance the Royal Opera House has brought out a scheme that I believe can be found with the link #FromOurHouseToYourHouse. If you go to the ROH website you can find out the correct details, but the programme of productions that you might normally need a bank loan to buy good seats for, started with Peter and the Wolf by Prokofiev last week. Then in the near future we have these magical events below.  

Acis and Galatea

OPERA/BALLET 3 April 2020, 7pm BST  

A collaboration between the Royal Opera and Royal Ballet companies, created by Wayne McGregor and set to music by Handel. Based on Greek mythology, it tells the story of a mortal shepherd and a goddess' doomed love.

Così fan tutte

OPERA 10 April 2020, 7pm BST

This comedy by Mozart sees two men test their girlfriends' faithfulness. Their plan - to disguise themselves in order to try and seduce the other's lover. What could possibly go wrong?

The Metamorphosis

BALLET 17 April 2020, 7pm BST

A contemporary piece by Arthur Pita, created on Royal Ballet Principal Dancer, Edward Watson. It is based on the novella by Franz Kafka, about how one family reacts when their son wakes up, transformed into a monstrous insect.

I am rubbing my hands together hoping for Coppelia after that with the wonderful Gary Avis at his colourful characterful best. I confess that I do follow Gary Avis on Instagram to my endless joy. He is senior ballet master and lead character dancer.

I was four when I took my first ballet lessons and as a child when asked what I would like to be when I grew up, always had the same response; I want to be a Ballerina. I had a poster of Moira Shearer’s legs stuck up above my bed. I don’t know how many times I have watched The Red Shoes, in the cinema and on TV. I have it on DVD too.