Behind the times

I apologise that once again, I'm playing catch-up with events. Be not afeared, I haven't quit yet. I blame it on, you know, this blog being quite light-hearted in tone, and yet my sentiments not being that light-hearted as I'm carrying the sorrow of my friend dying, and all that surrounds that. Or, I'm just lazy. Either way.

So the pinnacle of Week 2 was undoubtedly the Sunday, which was running 19 miles. Let me tell you, nineteen miles is a long way. I speak from personal experience. I was a bit afraid, when I saw my splits (wanna see my splits? Go ahead. you can... Garmin link) that Sal would think I had been trying to be clever, and doing a negative split. This is where you deliberately try to run the first half of the run slower than the second half (or to put that another way, speed up during the second half). If you can achieve this, it basically shows that you balanced out your energy well during the race, and didn't tire yourself out too hard in the first half. For a fine example of this, just see my Great Eastern Run 2011 time, which was text book (tip - the splits are right at the end). Anyway, the point was that looking at my splits on the garmin, it appeared to me that I'd been going slower initially than later. This was entirely spurious. The fact of the matter was, I'd been listening to the Archers for the first hour and some. (Note to self: do not listen to the Archers when they are talking about Down's Syndrome babies: OK, I was listening to the Archers and crying). After it finished, I switched to music, and sped up.

Oh, and this guy on a bike high-fived me! That was probably the highlight of the run, actually. It was funny, one of those moments of understanding that he wanted to high-five me (why??) and the thud of his hand against mine (harder than I thought it would be), and then... just disappearing. That, and seeing running Dave going the other way when I was half way round Ferry Meadows. I shouted "At 14 miles", and he shouted back that he was also doing 14 miles. This prompted me to shout "No, I've DONE 14 miles", and I think he shouted, "Looking good" but it was hard to know for sure.

Week 2

Well, week 2 was scary, but not too bad. I think I found the sudden intensity of Sal-training quite a shock. I mean, yes, I have been running more than ever before (bar the pre-half marathon, when, er, Sal was training me) - but only in a leisurely way. I embraced the different exercises as a challenge, first up was some interval work, the instruction was "warm up ten mins easy then run 6 x 4 at TH with 2-3 mins recovs. Jog to finish." "TH" is Threshold. Threshold isn't flat-out, but it's faster than "steady". The instructions said, if I tried to speak, I'd only be able to say a few words. Now, all I can say is, thank the lord Moustachioed Chris was around this week. What I have discovered about myself, and part of the reason that I wanted Sal's help, is that I'm basically pretty lazy. I'd first of all have to overcome the "I don't really want to leave the sofa", and secondly overcome my brain, which basically looked at that instruction and laughed. The thing is, I knew I could do it, because I'd already done a similar thing with Dave and Jon. Would I have done it on my own? I'd have tried, sure, because otherwise I'd have had to tell Sal I hadn't. But having Chris there was genius. He is really, so encouraging. Who would have known that Sal could project herself on to a funny guy with a curly mustache? He really tried hard to distract me from my pain, when - brokenly - (I was only following instructions) I'd pant out something that sounded, indistinctly like "Got to - stop - the - pain... how much.... longer??" and Chris would chirp, "Oh, we're over half-way" (-my brain saying, "of the first one") as he'd continue "and isn't it a lovely day? I must say, we are lucky with this weather. Really beautiful..." which indicated to me that he was in no way running anywhere near HIS threshold pace.

Anyway, we finished my exercise, with my final interval Chris saying "come on, there's some weird old bloke with a mustache running along next to you - better speed up!" - and I was immensely proud of myself.

On Thursday we had an hour's jog, which Chris also accompanied me for, as handily, we were both going to see John Heggly that night at the Key, so it made a good filler in between work and the show. We saw a young woman jogging ahead of us, and I rashly said "That looks like Summer, but it can't be, she's running too fast", only to meet up with Summer later and have her airily say "I went for a jog around the rowing lake earlier...." Oops.

Also, among Chris's other idiosyncrasies, I happen to know that he plays a ukelele. So when John Heggley joked "some of you may be wondering what this instrument is called... well, it's called Steve", I felt that Chris would be in his element, but when I mentioned it the next day, I discovered new things about musical instruments that I didn't know (although in fairness, what I don't know about musical instruments is a fairly wide arena) - apparently John H wasn't playing a uke, it was a mandolin. I do a good line in not looking too surprised (I've found it covers up how incredibly ignorant I am) but Chris was good enough to expand on his subject without encouragement. "Ukeleles don't have that many strings" he explained, "so although it is an unusual shape for a mandolin, that's what it was". So. There you have it.

On Friday, I had some more track work, although as Sal had warned last time I opted to run round the rowing lake, she would be giving me different distances to run. This time i had to face my demons, and go to the track. I'll give it this... it's pretty boring. I was a little concerned about being thrown off, but the two blokes walking round with some surveying equipment didn't seem to mind. I saw a very heavily myxied rabbit on the track, who I was able to overtake successfully (several times). I didn't have any means of dispatching it, so I had to let it be. I wasn't sure about the exercise and whether I was doing it properly; and didn't have time to do the swim afterwards. I asked Sal if I should do it the next day, but she said no, it was better to have the rest day resting. Which made sense.

I don't mind admitting that my legs were starting to ache a little bit. I was hoping that at some point, they'd get used to, and accept, the fact that they had a fair way to go yet.

The day I broke Sal

I'd been planning on running with Sally at the weekend, but I'd been in touch with her about stuff. My world turning upside down, a bit unexpectedly. She had a good expression... she said, "Sorry. are you feeling a bit iffy?". Yep, that says it.

I wasn't sure if some people would want to get together in the afternoon, so I pushed Sal into an earlier run. Unfortunately, what with my not being that good at getting up (well, in my defence, we'd only got back from the Shakespeare-athon at 1:45 in the morning, so I did want a bit of a lie-in), and forgetting that it does take me more than half an hour to cycle to Stilton,  I didn't get to Sal's till after midday. We were planning on 12 miles, and it was pretty hot, especially for September. It sort of felt like summer had arrived actually. Only mad dogs and Emmas run out in the midday sun. Scout definitely qualifies as a mad dog, so he came. It turns out that Sals don't run that well in midday suns.

It was a lovely run. I picked up pretty early that Sal was struggling, because she paused half way up a hill, apologetically. It was a lovely day though, and we certainly picked up. One thing I learned is that Sal has a built-in garmin. I mean, I guessed she had a built-in GPS (although it did have to do some recalculations of the route a couple of times) because she's a cartographer, so when she said, what have we done, just over 4 miles? and I looked at the Garmin, and it said we'd done 4.1 miles, I wasn't too surprised. Also, I mean, she probably knows the routes, right? I can tell you how long each of my regular routes are. So, you know, not TOO impressive. But a couple of times she said, how fast are we running now, 10 minute miles? (only she varied it, depending, you know, on how fast we were going), and she was spot on, now, THAT was impressive. I often think I'm going really fast, and I'm not, or vice versa (ok, less often on that one). So that got me.

We were nearing 9 miles, and running through some fields, when she said she was seriously thinking of setting me on my way. I managed to totally embarrass her by reminding her of her own words of wisdom about not walking, but over-riding your brain's control-centre, and keep going (in fairness, this advice was for during a race), which made her cry out "Oh, I'm such a bad example!". Still, we got back into Stilton, and I thought she'd make it, although we did pause at one of her friend's houses and refill our empty water-bottles, which was a blessing, because I was really thirsty. However, we were only at 10 miles. We got onto the main road, at which point Sal said "run that way. For about a mile. Then come back". So off I went. I kind of thought she'd go home, but when I got back, she was waiting for me. In a manner of speaking. I'm sure she won't mind me using this picture, she did, after all, post it on Facebook herself.

The news was around the office before I got in on Monday. Several people asked me what I had done to Sal. It was also recommended that I just hang my shoes up now...

Catharsis [this could be quite long]

I don't know how you react when you learn someone you care about has died. I was with a couple of friends in the pub, both of whom knew of Rich, but neither knew him well. I had a phone call, it was Jan, she told me what had happened. I don't think I really reacted. I said something like "Right, I see. Thank you for telling me". There didn't seem anything else left to say. The other two were chatting away, and my brain simply wasn't engaged anymore. They noticed my silence, and asked what was wrong. I told them. I don't do "breaking news" extremely well, although it gets better after a bit of practice. It always helps if I start out with people who didn't know the deceased very well though. "Rich is dead" I told them.

I had found out just days before that Rich had cancer, that it was through his liver; my brain had instantly told me that there wasn't much hope for him. But we'd all thought that he'd have months to go, that we'd go and see him, see how he was coping. Even so, it was a fore-warning that not everyone had. I rang Jan back, and told her I'd help ring around people. I went home, and rang as many people as I could think of, holding my emotions in check, by doing this thing that I felt needed to be done. I facebooked one person, and asked if he'd ring me. We hadn't spoken in maybe a couple of years, yet as I picked up my phone, he said "It's Rich, isn't it?". Who else would I have rang about?

Rich is just one of those amazing people. It has been an absolute pleasure to know him, and now I'm selfishly devastated that I didn't get longer with him to know him better.

I first met him after a friend persuaded me to audition for Much Ado About Nothing. I think there was some workshop about it (I didn't understand workshops much at the time) but I remember Rich coming over and asking what I'd done before. I now know that his love of theatre extended to his mannerisms around the thesps... he'd deliberately drawl, enjoying the sound of rounding vowels from his lips. "Sooo... have you done much acting before?" he asked. However, he also rounded on my boyfriend. "No. I'm not acting". Matt was very clear about this. I got cast in the play as good Ursula, one of Hero's maids. By the end of the play, Matt was a key comedy role, playing the "large" in a Little-and-Large duo with Terry, that Rich had somehow incorporated. I still don't know how Rich managed to get him involved, but he had a charm of his own.

Over the 6 years I've been acting with Mask, Rich has cast me in all his plays, and I've taken minor roles with as much stoicism as I can muster. I know very well that when it comes to Shakespeare, for the ladies, there are very few principal characters, and therefore, getting through the audition says two things: Rich likes my acting, and he can work with me. Two brilliant compliments to me, from Rich. Again and again, he'd tell me how important it is to have good actors playing minor characters, because it can make or break the fluidity of the play. But really, the joy of being around Rich was reward in itself. How you'd let him tell you stories you'd heard again and again, because you liked to hear him tell them; how he could make almost any Shakespearean line into some form of innuendo; how he flirted outrageously with his entire cast; how, even when he lost his temper, he did it with such style we almost felt honoured. But when he was in the pub and he'd get a roguish expression on his face, you'd cherish the moment of sharing an outrageous tale.

On Saturday, as if the heavens had foretold it, we, the Mask, had a theatre visit planned to The Globe. There were ten or so of us going, and everyone knew already. When I saw Theatre Dave, Tom and Jonni in the station, my heart tumbled in acute and vivid memory that these were the people who'd shared time with this brilliant man who I was so proud to call my friend. I hugged them, and, seeing my tears, they grinned at me and told me there was time enough for tears later.

We had a double-bill planned, a full day of Shakespeare, the Taming of the Shrew in the afternoon, and Richard III in the evening. Taming of the Shrew was a play that Mask ourselves did last year, so it was very familiar to us all. It was a brilliant and engaging production, and although we weren't able to get tickets next to each other, furtive glances across told me that my friends enjoyed it as much as I did. We found ourselves mouthing our lines, and I had a fair few moments where I thought, yeah, OK, Royal Shakespeare Company, you ARE good - but we did that scene better. Rich did that scene better. And then I'd find my cheeks were wet, during this comedy.

Another lovely thing about the Globe is just taking in the theatre itself. You get reminded of the seventeenth century not only by the lack of back to your bench-seat, but the wooden pillars and thatched roof make you suddenly catch yourself thinking, IS IT 2012, in the centre of London? Or have we somehow time-travelled several centuries. I was on such a tangential thought when I remembered the reference to the Globe in The Tempest, when Prospero is in his "insubstantial pageant" speech. That made me remember how The Tempest was Shakespeare's last play, and it hit me for the first time that it was now Rich's last play too. And then I remembered playing Ariel, and felt a great confusion of emotions that somehow I was extra-pleased to have had that chance to play my favourite role so far, one of the best parts in the play, because it was the only chance I was going to have to do so, which then made it a really upsetting thought that I was extra pleased about.

I wandered around during the interval, not really seeking anyone out, but just enjoying being alone in a crowd, a little anonymity. As I made my way back, there seemed to be a shared emotion running between us. No one said, Rich would have liked this, but just a look, an understanding smile, a touch on the arm, passing between us, meant that we knew what was in each person's thoughts and heart. No words needed to be spoken.

In between plays, we dissolved to find sustenance in London. Summer and I, with our fancy smartphone technology (it is abysmal that Prospero gets underlined in red, and smartphone doesn't) had checked Facebook, and I found out that Glen, who I'd been particularly worried about because we hadn't been able to phone, had posted on Facebook. When I saw Summer's face, I could see she'd read his beautiful tribute. Before the next play, reconvening with a drink, I mentioned to the others that Glen had posted a fitting tribute. "What does it say then?"said Jan. I handed her my phone. "I can't see that" she said, and passed it to Jill, who shook her head, "I can't read it either, not without my glasses. What does it say?" The bastards made me read it out. My voice cracked halfway through, but I kept going, till tears were pouring down my cheeks. This is what I read, standing outside the Globe Theatre, in the evening sunshine:

Oh Richmond! What an absolute joy it has been to know this great man. My tears are a combination of joy and sadness.

Joy? Well what can you say. A great friend and director. Always going the extra mile to ensure that everyone feels comfortable knowing what their character is. For me especially. He always invited me to his house to go through an entire play, discussing in great detail, how lines affected the character, the bloody blah, blah pentameter. His stories, oh his stories, his warmth, kindness and great knowledge of the plays he directed. A dear, dear man and great friend always having confidence in my abilities as an actor, even when I didn't....

Sadness? This goes without saying. For all who knew him, a great hole will be left by his passing. The fact that we'll never see him again, that smile, knowledge and great patience, encouragement and prescence both on and off stage. One of lifes gentlemen has left us. A sad, sad day. On the flip side we all have the most wonderful memories, something we will never forget and something only the people that knew him could possibly share. My heartfelt sympathies go out especially to Betty and the boys and anyone who had any connection with him.

God bless Rich, I'm sure you'll be watching over us all 

After this, I accepted a hug from Tom, and stumbled into Richard III, who was brilliantly played by Mark Rylance, whom Mask had enjoyed so much in "Jerusalem" on a previous outing. I was really interested, because Richard III was one of the first Shakespeare plays I ever saw, and I remember my dad whispering to me what was going on all the way through, although my memories didn't recall him (Richard, that is) being quite so bad-ass. Part of me wasn't quite with it, though. I don't think it was because of the play, but rather the effect of the whole day, spent with friends, and yet, conspicuously missing one - not one that we'd been expecting to be with us, but just with an absence weighing heavily on us.

It was a very emotional day, and the more important for spending it with friends who cared so much. We helped each other just by trying to understanding our loss together. But still, the enormity of it was barely sinking in. That was most poignantly reflected by Jonni, after his first trip to the Globe, stepping off the train home, and saying, "That was the best day ever - " and then faltering, stumbling over his retraction, realisation hitting again.

Training is hard.

So, Sally got right on the case, as soon as I took her on, she emailed me my spreadsheet. It call came flooding back. The schedule; the spreadsheet; the terror.

Week one started out quite well... Monday said "can swim 30 mins or just chill". Now that was an instruction I had no problem at all in following. I went for the latter. This training thing is a lark, I thought! Tuesday, similarly, left me wondering what I'd been apprehensive about - after all, I was well on the way to a marathon here! "Easy plod, 30 minutes". Well, if there is one thing I'm good at, it's an easy plod.

Wednesday, excellently, was pilates. Over the course of the first week, I enjoyed telling people my news. Jon just kept coming over and saying "17 miles?" and then walking off again. Other people were incredulous about the whole idea of a marathon in less than 2 months. But I had faith. I had a training program, and Sally. Pilates wasn't mentioned, to be honest, I just wanted to go. I thought I'd get my training in after work, but before 7:30. Surely that was going to be fine, right?

OK, remember we had a tacit agreement, Sal and I, that I was going to get round the Marathon course, but not in a specific time? Read this. Go on, just read it. "You won't actually have a specific race pace [correct] but I'd like you to run 9 min miles when I say pace anyway, so, 9 min miles all the way. 90 minutes pace".  What?? Bear in mind that I haven't run 9 minute miles since I ran the Peterborough half marathon. 90 minutes, now my maths isn't that good, but that's 10 miles. I definitely only ran half the race at that pace, because I did a negative split (and that was my fast half). Also, I finished work at 5:30, and had to be somewhere at 7:30. With getting changed and stuff, that didn't leave a lot of 90 minutes left. I ended up running 8.8 miles, around the Millennium bridge, but try as I might, i couldn't keep up 9 minute miles. I did it for one mile, at about mile 5. I thought I might do a negative split, and maintain that pace all the way home, but this is the bad bit about the mental fight - it gives up way too easily. I was pushing hard to keep that pace, glancing at my garmin, and pushing extra. When the mile jumped, so i started a new lap, I should have been at the fastest, as I hadn't started at 9 minute miles, and it was averaging my pace over the lap. So I felt it should have gone a bit lower. I looked at the garmin, while I was pushing to keep the same pace, and it read 9:35 minute miles. I was so disheartened, I thought, fuck it, and ran back as best as I could. Then I was late as well.

When I got home, I found a note on the shared spreadsheet under Tuesday. It said "Emma, did you do this?" If there isn't a shiver down your spine, you just don't understand anything. I hadn't updated Sally's spreadsheet. I quickly filled in what I had done, and how it had felt.

Thursday said "Cross training - swim, cycle, anything you want except running". I went swimming, and updated my spreadsheet thusly: "I did 46 lengths. I swam sets of 5, and did 4 front crawl and 1 breast stroke for each set, except sometimes I deteriorated and swam breast stroke. And sometimes it was hard to know what I was swimming, it was more like drowning with style." I was rewarded with a note that said "I love your updates".

Friday was going to be hard. I knew that from the start of the week. The instructions were for track 40 minutes, and said this

"Warm up with 2 easy laps then:

4 x 1600 at the fastest you can run a 1600 and maintain an even pace. It will be uncomfortable sustainable but not a sprint - obvs!

Please reduce it to three if you feel worn out!

1 lap cool down easy

Stretch"

I opted to do this around the rowing lake, I figured that 1600m is a mile, and I could just keep an eye on it from the garmin, keep going for that distance. I wanted to do it in 8 minute miles, but managed about 8:20, which I was happy with. I did reduce it to three, partly because I had to get back to the office to some work. It was grueling, but not as hard as I expected. But even though I had spent all week knowing that Friday was going to be hard, it wasn't the training that was hard, after all.

The hard part was finding out, later that night, that Rich Unwin had died.

The thing is...

Oh, I maybe should have mentioned that we also did our own "poetry gig" at the Edinburgh Fringe, which was pretty good as well. It was brilliant. Pint of Poetry and a Dram of Drama. We even got a write-up from someone,  I think. There, and all the stuff about flyering... well, there's a lot going on.

At the back end of August, things started to get busy, even for me. I realised I hadn't been running since Edinburgh, which was getting on for over a week previously, and thought I'd better get my act together or I wasn't going to do very well in the Peterborough Great Eastern Run, rapidly approaching in mid October.  I ran four miles in Maidstone, where I had a meeting to go to. It was pretty. They have a nice river that I ran along. The run felt good to do, but it kinda hurt. I mean, it was a nice morning, and I enjoyed it, but I was running really slowly. I've also developed a habit of having slightly less time than I'd like to have for a run, which is just annoying. I'm still not good at getting up...

I might have done another run when I got back from Kent, but I don't remember it. What I do remember was having about half a day to write a poster for a conference I was heading out to the next day, in Cork. While I was at work I had an email from a guy I was at uni with, who said he now lived in Cork, and was helping with the conference. So that was nice - I had something to look forward to.

I also had meeting up with Cat and Martin to look forward to. Cat's an awesome friend who used to work with me in Peterborough, but saw the light and moved back to Ireland with her husband. I met up with them for the weekend before the conference, which was the August bank holiday. I insisted on going for a run there, which was lovely, and had peat cutting going on (naughty) - I'm not sure I've ever seen it piled up like this, although I'd seen banks that have been cut before.

I had a rare set of treats - I also was taken to visit a cave called the Pigeon Hole, a lovely disused railway line, and on Sunday, a trip including the most amazing cakes (you're allowed cakes if you run), at a cafe that caused dispute among my hosts. Martin said it was Irish for The Hungry Man, and Cat said, no, it had a falta on the e which meant it translated as "The Hungry Grass". Clearly only one of these made sense, so obviously, Cat was the one who was proved correct. Then we went for a walk at the The Burren, which has what I described on Facebook as "some not too dis-interesting grassland". This was my way of trying to wind up Richard, who is a grassland ecologist.  Unfortunately, he was in The Pantanal at the time, so didn't rise to my bait, as he was being wowed by jaguars, caiman, capybaras, and a gazillion birds. So why would he care if I'd seen some Grass of Parnassus?

 Anyway, I took leave of The Burren and Galway, and headed down to a week-long conference in Cork, on Biodiversity in Forest Ecosystems and Landscapes. It was REALLY interesting. I obviously got academia-envy, and PhD envy in a big way, but this happens pretty much every time I go to a conference. Secretly, I just want to be called Dr.

Anyway, here's someone who is, and I knew him BACK WHEN HE WAS A NOBODY. Obviously, in the eyes of most of the world, someone with a PhD in ecology pretty much is a nobody, unless they are also a TV personality or something. 

I'm NOT jealous that Mark's got a PhD, but in the spirit of anonymity, if I have any Mark-confusion, like the Daves and the Chris's, he will be dubbed Dr Mark. Tragically, though, since he lives in Cork, I fear he probably isn't going to take a lead part in my blog. He's standing in a sitka spruce plantation, here, explaining what stages of plantations are useful for hen harriers. It looked pretty cool stuff.

So, while I was in Cork, I went running a couple of times, the first time, accidentally stumbling on a sort of gypsy camp. I made a rapid assessment of the situation, and decided to leave. A lovely Irish guy I'd met at the conference looked pretty shocked when I related this adventure, and remarked "Nice to see you, so!" in a voice that clearly indicated his surprise.

The second time I went out, not really because of the gypsy thing, but more because we were both trying to prove that we were really going to go running in the morning, I went running with Keith. Yes, the bearded one. This was funny, I've never been running with him before. Anyway, I was kind of worrying about Summer, because of how tired she looked when we went for a short run in Edinburgh, and the fact that she was trying to persuade me to run a marathon (a full one) with her at the end of October. "But if I can run it, you definitely can!" was her argument. I was less than sure that she could, though, and that's what started off the conversation with Keith. "How far would you have to be running in training for a marathon, if race day was at the end of October?" I asked him. "Why, are you running one?" he (not unreasonably) asked. "NO!" I told him, and then explained. "Oh, let's see, probably about 17 miles" he told me. I made a mental note of it for later arguments.

At the end of the conference, I got to go and stay with Mark and Anneli, which was slightly unplanned, and meant that in my hasty departure I left my phone charger at my B&B, but accidentally removed their hand-towel. I made Mark promise to return the hand-towel, and if he could, retrieve my charger, but I'm not sure how that went. He did give me a huge bottle of home-made elderflower champagne, which almost tipped my luggage over its weight limit, and threatened to give me some eggs from his rather fine chickens, although I wasn't entirely sorry that I didn't have to explain them to airport security.

And when I got back, I agreed to go running again with Summer, we planned to do a half-marathon together. It emerged that one of her running party had dropped out of the race, but they had found out that you could switch the place for 10 Euros. "I know you don't want to do it" Summer said, in her beseeching voice, "but if you know of anyone...". I don't know how it happened. I found myself striking a deal. "Look, at the end of this, if I can run another four miles, I'll have done 17, and if I can do that, and I feel OK, I'll speak to Sal about it."

Sal was delighted. She said if I could do 17 miles, with appropriate training, I could expect to get round the course, although we agreed not to set a time-target.

So that's it. I seem to have agreed to run my first marathon. And it's at the end of October.

Four Weeks in Ju...

HEY, IS ANYONE OUT THERE?

OK, so basically, I'm going to have to skip some news, or "olds" as it has now become. I'll stick to the key facts.

June ended. Well, I guess you noticed. I did do the 35K every week in June, but I wasn't terribly good at it, so what it boiled down to was me doing maybe a couple of short runs during the week, and then the weekend rolling around and me figuring out that I still had a long way to run. So it came to pass that I was running about 13 miles every weekend. Cool. I was just jogging along, but I wasn't coming in much over my Great Eastern Run time. And it didn't even hurt. I might have even enjoyed it.

Yes, I'm still enjoying running. This is all getting surreal now.

July started pretty well - I was playing Ariel in The Tempest, which was feckin' awesome. Unfortunately, I managed to get some sort of a stomach bug, so I didn't do a whole lot else that week, I'm pretty sure that involved not running, apart from obviously, to one particular room in the house quite a lot. The whole Ariel costume thing was a challenge, as it was essentially a silver cat suit, so the stomach upset was a bit nerve-inducing. Ah, there are a million stories about the Tempest! My funny internet-date incident, where I went for a drink with this chap, and one of the cast accidentally crashed my date... I had to drop him less-than-subtle hints. We had an awesome cast, and it was a lot of fun. And, as you cans see from the image on the left, I was pretty spirit-like in my acting.  After I finished acting, and got better, I had a week or so off running, to get better properly, and then started up again. I can't remember anything note-worthy, apart from the awesome Sunday night I went running during some sort of footballing event, (Euros? Germany? I dunno) and actually didn't see a single person, except a fisherman.  To be honest, this might have been in June. It's all a blur now. Like me.

August.... August I can remember some of. Not much. I must have been running, though, because we went up to the Edinburgh Festival just part midway, and I took my running stuff. I only did one run, around Arthur's Seat, with Summer. It reminded me how much training I'd been doing the year before, in my lead-up to The Half Marathon. The one that was going to be The One and Only... and now isn't. I wasn't up for so long this time, though. We went to see some brilliant shows, including Clockwork Orange, which was amazing, Harry Baker, an awesome young poet, who put together a very physical piece of poetry, and moved me so much I did give his free show a good tip, and some comedians - Mark Watson, very very funny, Richard Herring, and Jim Jeffries. I have NEVER seen anyone demolish a heckler quite so effectively in my life as Jim Jeffries. This in itself was worth seeing. His humour is not to everyone's taste, although I found it pretty funny, but OUCH. We also went to see the Magnets, of course, who put together a brand-new show called Home Grown, with the best of British as its theme.

I'm getting to current days now, I might start fresh. Thanks for keeping up with me. Things are getting interesting...

Four weeks in... June (part 1)

Let me tell you how it all went. As a recap, Heather challenged me to continue the 5K every day in May, which I refused, but I did agree to do 35km every week in June.

Week one I didn't do any running. Sal's rules clearly stipulated that walking or running was OK, and actually, I walked about 60km during the week, so I think although it was cheaty, it was also "fair". Excitingly, I did this walking with my Facebook Stalker! I like calling Britta my Facebook stalker, mainly just for the reaction. However, it was something of an adventure to go on holiday with someone you've only met twice for about half an hour each time. But I felt like I know her pretty well, and she definitely likes everything I do. Well, to rephrase that, she **likes** everything I post on Facebook. So what could go wrong?

Well, on that front, nothing, fortunately. Far from going wrong, Britta turned out to actually be a sort of Germanic version of me: by which I mean, ruthlessly efficient. I know, I know, some of you are struggling with how I could still be me if I were ruthlessly efficient. But really! What fun! Anyway, the first thing that did go wrong was that Lufthansa kindly didn't bother putting Britta's pack on the plane, so before I'd actually met her, she was texting me, asking if there was any chance I could speak English to the people in Birmingham airport. Obviously, the answer to this was, no, they're from Birmingham, but I did my best, and in a confused sort of way, it worked. Although when they finally located the bag, they promised it would be delivered the following day, the courier then rang us at 11:30pm that same night to say he was nearly there. We had to give him our current address (as we'd given him Day 2's) and tell him he had a bit further to go.

We were walking along the Llyn Peninsular coast path, and everything else was straight forward. Well, we didn't have a very up-to-date map, and I explained to Britta about Open Access, so we had to kind of make up a path a few times, but you know, nothing catastrophic. And it was really pretty! Lots of flowers and cliffs and sea and cows, and you know, stuff you expect in countryside. And clouds. Stuff you expect in North Wales.

And then came some wildlife, although I use the word "life" tenuously, that we weren't necessarily expecting. Yes, this is some roadkill, which appears for all the world that a grass-snake ate a frog. And then, you know, didn't. My money is on a dog having taken the snake by the tail and shaken it against the road until it died. Although it was very reminiscent of the Helen Bannerman book, Little Black Quibba, where a nasty python ate three frogs that were trying to warn Little Black Quibba of the danger he was in. However, it was all OK as they later were freed when the python was pulled into three pieces during a fight with an elephant. Look, it was good, OK? Let's leave it there.

In order to arrive at our hotel in daylight hours, we planned to get a bus from Rhiw, which all worked, and we also boarded the bus just as the rain started, luckily. Anyway, we stayed in luxury that night, having booked into Tremfan Hall, where we celebrated Britta's birthday with some rather lovely food at their restaurant.

The next day, it was really raining. It looked horrible. We were walking from luxury Tremfan to a B&B of dubious quality in Pwllheli (we had a fair idea of this because we'd checked it out before boarding the bus in Pwllheli). The idea of just staying by the fire at Tremfan, instead of trudging with packs on backs, was very, very tempting. Luckily Plan B came to play - my mate Jim said he'd come out for a walk with us, and we opted to jump in his car and see the north coast, so we drove to Whistling Sands or Porth Oer, (which tragically don't whistle when they are damp, but Jim assures me they do at other times), and walked up to the top of the headland and back. It was very damp, but extra fun, because we didn't have our packs on. And Jim tried to persuade Britta that "Cafe - Open" was Welsh for "Sewage Works", which made us all laugh.

Before we set out from Tremfan, we had fun with "The Book of Fate" which was an impressively large tome, which you can ask questions of. A Yes/No question reveals excellent results. "Shall we go swimming?" returned "This may bring astonishing results", and later, "No, but really, shall we go swimming?" we got "Only an idiot would pursue this course of action". (This is available as an App on i-Tunes).

The Pwllheli B&B was run by normal B&B people, by which I mean they were clinically insane. But you know, in a harmless way. It appeared to be run by at least 3 generations of women. I don't know how that is genetically possible, but it worked for them. Ish. I think perhaps care-in-the-community missed something when they didn't think to just set people up with B&Bs. We set out early for Criccieth, just about failing to get rained on, and found our B&B booked there was slightly more normal, with a talkative, but friendly couple. They gave us some great advice that instead of going to Criccieth Castle, you get the same view, but for free, from the hill just behind it.

We liked our last day's walk, and it was fortunate that it was the last day, because we spent some time on a pebbly beach, and it turned out that we both kinda like rocks. So it could have gotten heavy if we'd started out on that beach. Funnily enough neither of us were particularly looking forward to that day, but it turned out to be really lovely, with a little dip away from the coast, and some lovely scenary (by which I mean trees and woods).

We tried desperately to remember the name of the pub we'd been recommended by Britta's friend Carolyn but failed... although funnily enough, we accidentally picked it anyway, and had a great last evening with some live music from a very mottley crew. Meanwhile, Britain was going mad over the Jubilee, which I followed on Facebook, via "Gin O'Clock"'s updates, which made me giggle quite a lot. I know one thing though - Jubilee weekend or not, I wouldn't have traded places.