When the BBC weather forecast has pictures of clouds with little yellow zig-zags coming out of them and the words “thundery showers” you know it’s not going to be the ideal running day. What this kind of forecast means is that one moment everything can be dry and clear, the next, rain comes down so intensively that there might not even be gaps between the drops because it feels like solid water.
Now I know we macho runners are supposed to not be concerned in the least about a bit of rain, protesting that our skins are waterproof and that it can actually be quite enjoyable to run in the rain. While this is true, I have never known of someone who waits until it starts raining before going out!
I’ve done running in the rain to death over the last few weeks so my plan today was to go out in the early morning when the forecast was dry and let nature do its worse for the rest of the day. The result was that I had a great dry run at 5 AM, legs a bit sluggish after yesterday’s jaunt around St Aidan’s but at least another 10K is done.
Later in the week it’s supposed to be getting warmer and warmer so that will present a whole different set of problems.
“When the people saw the thunder and lightning and heard the trumpet and saw the mountain in smoke, they trembled with fear. They stayed at a distance”
Richard is running 10K every day during June, to raise money for a public access defibrillator to be situated at Rothwell Baptist Church. To sponsor him and make a donation, please visit his Just Giving Page.
When it comes to find an amazing place to run, it doesn’t come much better than St Aidan’s RSPB Nature Park. It was originally a massive open-cast coal mine that got ruined in a big flood in the 1980s. Over the following decades the area has been reconstructed as a massive and beautiful wetland nature reserve. The reserve has an extensive network of public footpaths and the paths are flat and wide. Dominating the RSPB visitors centre is a reminder of the park’s heritage, an enormous crane, a dragline known as as Oddball, which is so large it was simply left in place when decommissioned. It is now a listed building and a visitor attraction in it’s own right (open to the public about 4 times per year).
As someone who is supposed to have an exemplary heathy lifestyle, my love of cake is something that surprises and sometimes infuriates people. When I am seen eating cake some think that I can eat as much as I like, willy-nilly, and still end up as thin as a rake. This is not true. A work colleague of mine regards refined sugar as an addictive toxin and he’s probably right but I take the line that what really counts is a diet that consists of a range of different foods in balance (this is not rocket science, my grandmother told me that).
Marathon Mann 