Park Run number 15

Saturday morning saw me attend my 15th Park Run at Lanhydrock and I can honestly say that they don't get any easier!

On Friday night straight from work I went for a surf and spent the evening paddling around in the ocean watching glimpses of the sun setting between the grey clouds. It was a lovely evening as the weather wasn't great and this had meant that the beach was quiet and as the waves were considerably smaller than the previous few days of EPIC conditions it was ideal for a learner surfer like myself.

Once I had used up every ounce of energy it was time to leave the beach, get showered, fed and watered and off to bed ready for Park Run the following morning.

The weather forecast for this Saturday was pretty grim to say the least and although the morning was supposed to stay dry for Park Run the afternoon was sounding pretty horrific with lots of heavy rain forecast as well as thunder and lightening thrown into the mix.

When I arrived at Park Run I said hello to the familiar faces that I am beginning to see each week and with the sun just about shining through the clouds it felt a lot warmer than the previous weeks standing on the start line shivering. I decided that this was the week that I would leave my long sleeve top behind and run in just the T-shirt and hope that it doesn't rain and I was so pleasantly surprised that I wasn't cold at all and set off down hill alongside all the other runners.

I didn't feel particularly strong this week, I felt like I was already struggling and the start of the course is the easy section of down hill and flat patches but already I was getting out of breath and suffering a stitch. I continued pushing along but by the time I had reached the second of the giant hills on the Lanhydrock course I was walking. With some words of encouragement from the volunteers I had picked up the pace again and was back into a jog rather than a walk but yet again as the path got steeper I was struggling for breath and back down to a walking pace.

On the last of the 5km route at Lanhydrock the course goes downhill so with every ounce of strength I stopped the walk and started jogging to the finish really feeling the burn on this one today. Once I had had my bar code scanned in and got my breath back I headed back to the car, stretched and headed home. The sun was starting to disappear and the clouds and the rain were coming over and I felt proud that I had made it out of bed and enjoying the only good part of the day.

A few hours later my time for the course came through and I was pleasantly surprised that I had still managed to achieve a sub 30 minute 5km..... just! With a time of 29:18 it wasn't as bad as I thought even though I had walked rather more of the course than usual.

Park Run number 14

At the end of March I attended a Park Run where everything hurt. It started with a little groin niggle to a painful knee to a painful calf but the 5km course was harder and more painful then ever to get around.

With three weeks off running, lots of stretching and a trip to Brighton and Essex later I'm back in Cornwall and back to my local Park Run.

As I hadn't run for three weeks, and was worried about doing more damage to my knee I decided that I would go to Park Run but would take it easy.

I started off gentle and plodded through the down hill section of the course and so far things were good, no twinges, no pain, so I carried on. Getting to the horrible hill, anybody that has taken part in the Lanhydrock Park Run will know about the grueling last mile which is a solid up hill climb away from the river and it just gets worse every week.

Struggling to the top of the hill a fellow Newquay Road Runner was cheering me on and willing me not to stop. I did slow right down due to barely being able to catch my breath but as we raced towards the finish line I was pleased to receive a time of 30:19. Only 2 minutes off my PB and having not run for three weeks felt really pleased with my effort.

Onwards and upwards to hopefully get another PB soon.

Things to do before i'm 30!

I'm having a mid life crisis, or maybe a mini life crisis as in less than two months I will be turning 30! Thirty, the big three zero. It doesn't matter how I say it, it doesn't sound any less daunting that I'm soon to be over the hill. I've always been the younger one in my group of friends and the youngest colleague in my career but that is all changing.

I'm freaking out, there's so much i've yet to achieve in life, I don't feel like I have amounted to anything of interest in the thirty years of being on the planet. I'm not married, I don't have children, I'm certainly not a millionaire. I'm not poor but I run out of money well before pay day each month. I love dressing up in my panda onesie and adore disney movies and still feel very much like a child and not sure that i'm ready to be a thirty something!

In my panic of turning thirty i've decided that I need to achieve a few things that I keep meaning to get around to one day and have still yet to do.

SO... I want to enlist some of my lovely friends to achieve a few things on my 'Before i'm thirty bucket list' (p.s I'm not dying at thirty and I hope not to kick the bucket, but here's my list) So who is free over the next few weeks to tick these off the list?

1. Go roller skating.

2. Hire a rowing or pedalow boat at Trenance boating lake.

image from http://www.cornishhorizons.co.uk/properties/newquay/2_harvest_moon

3. Sign up to a long distance race.... (OK so the furthest I've run is 6 miles and I've only been running a few months and i'm currently injured but I want to sign up to a half marathon!!! I'm only putting 'sign up' as I won't be nearly fit enough in less than two months to physically run a long race but I will at least fill in the forms and pay my money and train before my birthday.)

4. Try paddle boarding

5. Have a sophisticated dinner party! well it probably won't be that sophisticated and will more likely be a scenario of take out food and getting drunk with friends, but with my new found love of baking I can at least make a dessert for the occasion! Or maybe I should make flan...... Old people eat flan, right?

Landslide in Newquay doesn't stop local surfers

On the 5th of February nearly two months ago there was a land slide in Newquay. The road and access to Gt Western Beach now blocked by tonnes of debris, soil, rock and brickwork.

However two months on the council have yet to visit the beach and repair the crumbling cliff and have simply blocked access from the top and bottom of the beach.

However if you are a surfer and the waves are looking good at the beach you are likely to still want to surf at this spot. Like several surfers seen in the images below, they clamber over the fences with their boards, over the pile of land slipped material and onto the beach for a surf.

The benefits of risking your life for a surf are that not everyone wants to clamber over a pile of fallen debris, so the beach is relatively quite at the moment for surfers in the water. However as the easter holidays arrive and so do the tourists It'll be interesting to see how long it takes for the council to repair the road down to the beach, especially with summer just around the corner.

The pictures above show at least four surfers in the space of three minutes all ignoring the signs and continuing past the landslide to get in the water. 

Fingers crossed the land is stable and no more debris falls whilst more and more people will ignore the warning signs and access the beach especially with the holidays starting and the arrival of the holiday makers. The longer the road is shut the more people will ignore the signs and continue to use the beach as they had done before.

Soggy sundays deserve the perfect roast dinner

What better way to spend a Soggy Sunday then making a beast of a roast dinner! Last week when I checked the weather forecast for the weekend I was a little saddened to see that the whole weekends forecast consisted of strong winds and heavy rain. Although I had taken part in the Park Run on the Saturday morning sadly I had injured myself whilst running and that meant that even if the weather was good I wouldn't be able to go surfing or cycling on a dodgy knee this weekend. 

With going out and exercising off the cards and leaving the comfort of the nice dry and warm house very doubtful I decided I would put my time to good use and make a full roast dinner for me and the man. 

I love eating roast dinner and to be honest I don't really mind making it but it's a lot of effort when there is just two of us to cook for so it's not very often that we enjoy one in our house. 

Slightly more grateful of the bad weather was my other half who got to stay indoors out of the rain, feet up on the sofa watching the formula one whilst I prepared a full pork roast dinner. 

And YES, there are Yorkshire puddings with our Pork roast dinner! So yes it is acceptable to have yorkshire pudding with ALL roast dinners.