I’ve not blogged for the last couple of days. To be honest with life moving at such a slow pace at the moment has meant there hasn’t been a huge amount going on.

And rest!

After my long run on Friday, I decided to have a couple of days of resting over the weekend. With the Coronavirus pandemic still in the  “exponential phase” i.e. infection rates are increasing rapidly keeping out of the way is a good tactic to try to avoid getting infected – although any interaction at any point has a non-zero risk attached. And doing too much exercise can impact one’s own immune system, so recovery days are even more important than they are in any normal training plan.

Instead of running, the most-avoided task of getting the ironing done came to fruition. Basically I’d run out of hoodies and after a decent week it had gone cold. The time therefore came to dig out the ironing board and some catch-up TV to accompany the task to make it slightly less unpalatable. And to be honest, by the time I’d moved the non-iron stuff out of the way it didn’t actually take too many hours (even if it felt like it did).

And then came another delve into the seemingly infinite number of drawers of stuff in this place. It’s been a slow process, mostly due to there being so much stuff, but gradually each location has been emptied out, thinned out and then put back together. Copies of Windows XP and earlier disposed of plus other discs reviewed and either filed or binned.

Back on tarmac (briefly)

After having loved getting back on to the trails, things have become more complicated with so many people being on them, making it less enjoyable to run as for each step taken decisions have to be made to try and avoid people. I know I really should just swap to night running and that would avoid all of this. However I’m also trying to keep some form of order in my days whilst there isn’t otherwise any structure as work is non-existent at the moment.

I must add that for me, the need to get out and run is predominantly for my mental health. Obviously getting out and training means I can build on my running fitness with a hope that I’ll manage to get a race in 2020 at some point. But the endorphins fix is much more of an immediate matter.

Norbury loop

Yesterday’s run was an old favourite. A 10km road loop via Higher Poynton and Norbury Hollow. And whilst I wasn’t planning on hitting it hard, I actually got into quite a good rhythm. That was until I got stuck at the level crossing for 5 minutes. Not that I was particularly worried. The novelty of Strava segments has largely gone for me now. Indeed when I locked my account down (it was previously open access) I chose to come off all the various lists and segment leader-boards. I just find it can lead you to be in a permanent quest for fast segment times when in fact it’s safer to do a lot more of the training at a lower pace. Anyway, this is what it looked like:

Hazel Grove loop

Today’s trip out was based upon my historic 5 mile loop in the village. A couple of years ago I found a way of augmenting it to 10km. And today I completely missed the footpath turning I needed to take and so it was another variation on a theme!

It was another loop with negligible elevation, but I need to go a little further afield to get my fill of hills. I decided, at least for now, to keep the runs shorter. Hopefully I’ll get another longer one in soon and escape from the flat “wasteland” (aka a missed opportunity for hills) that is the Cheshire plain!