Happily Ever After

Life in The Rural Retreat with a beautiful wife, three cats, garden wildlife, a camera, a computer – and increasing amounts about running

Earlier posts can be found on Adventures of a Lone Bass Player, where this blog began life. Recent entries can be found here.

Running and ROWing

by Russell Turner - 20:56 on 08 May 2022

It seems I’ve accidentally embarked on a rival to RED January, in which participants run every day in the month. My version is ROWED May, in which I’ve so far run or walked every day – all eight of them, amassing a modest total of 25 miles in four runs and four walks, the longest of them today’s 4.6-mile forest run. I would have done more but took a wrong turn.

This is pretty feeble when compared with Matchgirl’s 16-mile trek on hilly and windy Shetland, Squirrel James’s 18-mile Dunbartonshire epic, and the Prague Marathon heroics of Ex-Triathlon Cathy (3:54) and UltraPaul (3:18 and a BQ bonus), but it’s the furthest I’ve run since London Landmarks. My feet appear to be on the verge of back-to-normal; now all I have to contend with are tight calves. There’s always something.

I’ll keep my moving streak going and maybe have a 100-mile month to celebrate for the first time since September. May might even end with a run/walk Edinburgh Marathon. If the weather’s decent and I don’t damage anything else in the meantime. At the least I should be ready to begin the 16-week London Marathon training programme.

I’m now officially part of the Breast Cancer Now team in London, fortunately with no compulsory financial target as I’m a ballot entrant. However, I’ll try to add a bit more to the £410 raised by London Landmarks.

Photo of a bad cat

Feline Update: Non-running news has been scarce for a long time, but silence must be broken to reveal Pandora’s disgrace. The Tabby Terror decided it would be a good laugh to jump on the kitchen counter and spray the boiler control unit, which burned out shortly after. So I’m now home alone with no heating (fortunately the weather’s mild) and no hot water, reliant on Lili next door for shower facilities.

The search for a replacement unit (they’re no longer made) is proving difficult, although we may have traced a couple of possibles cheaper than the £240 demanded by an Amazon stockist. Cats don’t care.

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