A week of frustration

Tuesday morning was the usual 5:30am route. A 5.14km route to stretch the legs and try and ready myself for what, unknown at the time, was to become a really crap day at work. I had then planned to run this (Thursday) morning too but after another truly horrible day in the office yesterday, I got home and immediately announced to LG that I was going out for a run. No words about it were exchanged as she could see how worked up I was and just said OK, see you soon. That's one of many reasons she's wonderful. She didn't ask lots of questions or ask me to do anything. She knew a run would help sort me out. And it did. I picked a route that I knew would contain lots of hills and therefore hurt more and help clear my mind.

It was along some pretty busy roads crossing once under and once over the M25 and that cheered me up a bit. At least I wasn't stuck in the long jam around Junction 9! The hills hurt and slowed my down but 8.14km was completed in 42:48 which works out at 5.15m/km. I'm pretty happy with that but generally my angry runs are faster so maybe the hills really did slow me down.

Project Yolkey, my lovely fixie bike project is coming on OK but is also causing me a headache right now. I have a wobble in the headset which I just cannot solve. The below is from an email I recently sent to eatingtrees asking for divine intervention.

'I changed the order of the pieces, switched the bearing cages (although Identical), given the cups an extra tap to make sure they're in properly, filed down a little of the paint to make sure the lower race was sitting pretty and you know what, the ONLY position that I get no wobble is by putting a washer below the top adjustable race which then means it doesn't sit properly and leaves a gap for all sorts of crap to get in and means that the top locknut sits too high. I've checked every website in the world and I'm not missing any parts and all parts seem in great working order so I just can't figure it out.'

As you can see, it's a frustration! Maybe I'll have to replace the whole lot unless anyone can think of something obvious that I might be missing?

Less than 3 weeks until the due date now. I'm now getting closer to jumping out of my skin every time the phone goes...

I don't trust joggers, they're always the one's who find the bodies

That was my thought process this morning when I wanted to do a run along the common relatively early. I can't remember whose joke it is but i didn't want to be the first one through the woods this morning just in case.

In the end, I headed out at 8am for an unknown distance and an unknown time. I knew the vague direction I was going to head in but I left the measuring until I'd finished. In the end it appears I did 9.08km in 47:56. That's 5:16 km's which is not bad going considering the undulating nature of the route. I don't actually remember running on a flat it was constantly up or down. Anyway, after Tuesday and Thursday's very early run's, it was nice to change the route up a little bit.

Now after my eggs and bacon i had for breakie, I have a day of bike tinkering and a barbeque to look forward to. The weekend's looking like it's going to be a good one! Enjoy it!

In a fix

Knowing I've been neglecting my legs recently in favour of assault courses, fixie building and I believe 'nesting' is the term, I made sure I got up and did an early loop this morning. Pretty quickly for me too completing the mandatory 5.14km in 25:27. None of the quite random aches and pains I've had for the last 2 weeks (caused by lack of use) flared up which is always good and I really enjoyed it. I should think about doing it more often!!

My current project is this little beauty you may have seen me mention a few weeks ago. I've been working to strip, file, clean, and generally abuse it and turn it into my ultimate fixie.

At the moment, after a visit to the powder coaters and awaiting delivery of numerous parts, it looks like this! Awesome I think is the word I'm looking for! Meet 'Yolkey'.

I love all the old frame detail and so I topped it off with the old school reflector off the original frame.

I'm going to have to wait until next month until I can buy the wheels and a few other little bits and pieces but I'm delighted with it so far.

Speaking of next month, only 4 weeks until due date! In theory he or she could turn up at anytime now which means I don't have long to complete 'Yolkey'. I better get ordering!!

Cranleigh 10k Race Report - Possible DNF?

Nearly double the distance of any of my Juneathon runs on an unknown course in an unknown village and a Saturday night spent doing stretches as my legs seem to have tightened up completely after 3 days of no running or cycling! Things weren't looking good were they.

I had high hopes for this race though. It gets tremendous reviews for pretty much everything and to be honest, I was impressed with the whole thing. Great marshalling, lovely course (with plenty of tree cover), 2 drink stops (yep count 'em 2, not the standard 1 you usually get) and plenty of parking and toilets.

So my race, it didn't start well with something giving me tremendous stomach cramps from about 9.45am onwards. Really painful and came about every 10 minutes. I nearly pulled out but decided to wait until the start and see how I felt. The cramps came back pretty much every 10 minutes. I went for a little jog across the field to see what that did and certainly didn't make it worse so I continued to hang around. At 2 minutes to 11am, they asked everyone to assemble in the predicted time pens so currently going through yet another pain, I hung around right at the back debating what to do. I wanted to do this race that much that in the end, I went to the start and set off hoping that it would be OK and if not, a marshall would be able to help.

Early pace was my recent 5km pace which I knew was NOT going to be kept up the whole way but the first 4km are along a dismantled railway track which is flat, tree lined and relatively cool. It was a good start. The 2 guys I'd decided to use as pacers started moving off after around 3km and I dropped back and ran on my own for a couple of km.

At around 5km with a bit of open ground and the sunshine beating down, I caught a guy and slowly passed him. He was very heavy footed so at times, all I could hear was his footsteps. However, we then proceeded to stay very close to each other for the rest of the race and neither of us getting more than 10/15m in front of the other. Perfect. I had my paceman until the end of the race. There were slight inclines plus no shade between 7 and 8.5km and I noticed that my pace had dropped so I had to mentally tell myself to push harder. In the end, this section cost me.

I came in at 51:54. 17 seconds off a PB and knowing exactly where I'd lost the time. I also can in about a yard behind my nominated paceman and as I crossed the line I thanked him for giving me the pace and therefore helping me. He turned round, and said with a sly grin, 'No problem but thank the girl up there' as he pointed ahead 'I just aimed for her'. I finished 82nd out of 196 runners and I can't wait until next year. I'll be back. This course owes me 17 seconds!