My plan for this weekend was to go to Liverpool on Friday night.
One of my close friends has just moved from Brighton to Liverpool, which makes visiting a little trickier. Happily though I live very close to Southampton Airport and I found that flying to Manchester and then getting a train from there to Liverpool was the quickest way. Driving would take over 5 hours and the train was £150+.
So on Friday after work I headed to the airport (handily my parents dropped me off as they were off to do some late night shopping in West Quay nearby). I was looking forward to catching up with my friends and also squeezing in the Princes parkrun that is very close to her house.
However, after being delayed the airline then announced that the flight was cancelled. Oh. And the next flight wasn’t until 8.50pm, which I’d be lucky to get on considering the great stampede of disgruntled customers to the customer services and I wasn’t sure I’d be able to get a train from Manchester at the other side later that night. So in the end I cancelled the trip. It was really disappointing but we’re going to try again to catch up at some point. My parents were able to swing by and pick me up after their shopping, which was so handy! And I’ll apparently be refunded AND compensated for my cancelled flight, so there’s a silver lining at least.
On Saturday morning I met Kyle, his brother, his sister and his mum (who would be supporting, not running) to do parkrun at Portsmouth Lakeside instead. Because I wanted to still be cautious of my calf post-niggle, I decided to take it easier. I wasn’t in the right mindset to push the pace too much anyway so I was happy for a slightly faster than gentle amble round.
Kyle shot off and I was content to run on my own and concentrate on how my leg was feeling. Hmmm, not 100%. I tried not to let it bother me – i.e. not go into full Anna Panic Mode. It wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t feeling as good as it had during the week. Maybe because I was going faster than I’d run then? I don’t know.
Our friend Connor was also running so there were a good few people to smile and wave at as we went round. There are a few out and backs so you can see where people are through the run. Kyle was far ahead and I wondered how fast he’d do it in. He’s very much going for the shorter distances and I’m almost certain he’ll be hitting a sub-20 parkrun soon.
I finished in 22:53 which was good for an easier run. I didn’t feel like it was too much of an effort. Kyle finished first out of us, then Connor, then Zack, Kyle’s brother, then Lucy, his sister, followed by Connor’s girlfriend. Everyone but me managed a PB. I was made up for Kyle who got an incredible time of 20:31! Though I did say he looked far too comfortable and happy when I first saw him just after the first mile… 😉 He has more to give!
Kyle, his family and I then headed to Harvester for one of their epic breakfasts – the “All In”. This is basically all you can eat. You can have up to FIVE of each item – including unlimited toast and cold and hot drinks. I forwent the chips (!!) and hash browns and stuck with the modest portion (ha!) of four sausages, three bits of bacon, three eggs, two black puddings, beans, two tomatoes, two mushrooms, a slice of toast and a breakfast muffin.
The toast was done by one of those self-service conveyor oven things. I got it wrong by putting in my slice of bread twice as I wanted it a bit more toasted. Proper charred bread – which Kyle’s mum said she’d eat as she loved burnt toast. WHAT?! This blew my mind.
Afterwards I headed home and got loads of little annoying, niggling little jobs done and felt very productive. Kyle popped over later and we enjoyed a cheeky takeaway and an evening watching You, which we’re really enjoying. It’s creepy but absorbing.
The next morning Kyle and I were going to do eight miles together but after my calf felt a little niggly during parkrun I reverted back to my paranoid runner state. Instead we headed out for four miles. Kyle had just bought himself a Garmin 235. He had previously relied on his Apple Watch and using Strava and after Strava had cut off his run for some reason the day before he decided to push the boat out and treat himself. I’m still amazed by the fact that he ordered it in the afternoon and by 8pm he had it. The wonders of Amazon Prime eh!
It was so windy! Though it was lovely and sunny, that wind was both strong and very cold. I kept the route as much away from the seafront as possible to avoid too much blowing about. Though we did stop to take a photo on the small section we went along. Such a beautiful day.
My leg was feeling good so we decided to make it up to five miles. Nice and easy. I was sad not to have done eight but I’m happy that I was sensible (OK this did not come that naturally to me. It took a bit of Kyle talking to me to make me see sense…).
So not quite the weekend I had planned in any way but still a lovely one.
Have you ever had a delayed flight?
What watch do you use for running?
Does anyone else like eating burnt toast??
When we went to Disneyland Paris back in September our flight was delayed for ages. It was a bit of a faff as we ended up missing our pre#booked transfer and it took ages to organise another since it was getting quite late. Thankfully it all worked out though.
I’m a Garmin girl and currently have the 620 but it’s beginning to show signs of age so I’ll probably get something new this year. Got my eye on the 235 at the moment.
Allison recently posted…Week In Review – Brrrr!
God that sounds a nightmare. Luckily mine wasn’t nearly as stressful – more just a shame really.
The 235 has really good reviews. Kyle loves it already.
Anna, my first reaction to your photo of the full English breakfast – said out loud to an otherwise empty house – was “baked bean contamination!!!”
It’s not even something which bothers me personally but clearly I’ve been enjoying reading your blog posts and paying attention to your food preferences!
Haha yes!! Absolute bean contamination. I had to create a wall with my sausages. I appreciate your concern 🙂
That’s such a shame about the cancelled flight- it’s so annoying when things like that happen especially when getting a later flight messes things up (my trip to Berlin comes to mind most recently!). We had to threaten to take BA to small claims court before they would agree to pay our EU compensation though which was rather annoying.
I have a Garmin 235 which I’ve had for about 18 months and really like- I wear it all the time as it counts steps too, and it means I don’t have to remember to pack it / take it with me/ charge it because I will always have it on (and I’ll see when the battery is low and charge it overnight when needed).
No to burnt toast! I’m sure it’s really bad for you too, but I don’t like any burnt bits at all. That has reminded me once we were in America and at the breakfast people were turning down the speed of the toaster things and a lady kept popping out from the kitchen saying “don’t touch the toaster”- clearly they liked it on a certain setting!
We were watching You but I found it so creepy and it gave me nightmares (plus I just find everyone in it so annoying that I just don’t care what happens to any of them)- so I’ve given it up. It reminded me a bit of Search Party (although I made it to the end of that one).
Maria @ Maria Runs recently posted…East Brighton parkrun, plus pancakes and walks by the sea
Oh really? That sounds incredibly annoying about the BA flight claim. I’ll have to watch that for FlyBe. It wasn’t too bad an issue as I can see my friend another time (we have a potential spot in the diary already), but there were no other dependencies like a hotel etc. so that was lucky.
Ah yes it is very creepy. Some of the characters (the main female’s friends for example) are AWFUL I agree.
My friend had the same problem with the exact same flight. They must do it often. I once couldn’t fly due to the volcanic ash cloud. That was pretty annoying as I couldn’t fly out rather than back in.
I use my Apple Watch to record my run and then share it to Strava