How’s lockdown been treating you? For me, it’s a funny one.
While my daily life is quite easy and, dare I say, somewhat relaxed, there are other parts which are uncomfortably hard and frustrating.
So the easy stuff is that I have my job with my full salary and I’m working from home. Working from home is admittedly quite nice. I don’t get up stupidly early for the gym anymore, so I get more sleep. I can go for a nice leisurely walk in the sunshine before work or during my lunchbreak and listen to a podcast. I can be in the comfort of my own home with zero commute stress.
I can wear leggings all day every day. I can wash my hair less and NO ONE CARES. Granted, it’s likely no one cared previously but Zoom calls are very forgiving so I feel more comfortable letting my hair get just that bit more greasy than I ordinarily would.
On this side note, by washing my hair less it appears to now needs to be washed less – if that makes sense? I’ve done a bit of reading on this front and apparently after an initial period, your hair adjusts to the change of hair washing and becomes greasy less quickly than before. Something about washing stripping your hair of its natural oils I believe. Where I would wash my hair every other day pre-lockdown, I can now get away with washing it every four days. It’s incredibly freeing. Washing and blow-drying my hair is such a chore.
Anyway, WFH isn’t bad at all. I have a solid routine, I can get my work done easily and it feels incredible to switch the laptop off and be like “OK now I can chill” IMMEDIATELY. My dad is at home as well so it’s not like I have no company. And Alfie of course.
(By the way, how much are dogs just LOVING this period? It’s like happiness 24/7 for them now).
The hard part is not seeing Kyle. I won’t harp on with all the reasons why as it’s fairly obvious, but it’s tough. And it’s tougher when you see people who aren’t following the rules and the temptation to be the same and have the same “who cares” mentality. But we know this won’t last forever and when people are literally dying and key workers are doing so much in such tough conditions it feels like a finger up to them by taking the situation so flippantly. We can look back at this time and know we did our part to help “flatten the curve”.
But we did decide to just slightly push the boundaries and meet-up…
We planned to run to a half-way location between us both so we could stand 2 metres away from each other and chat face-to-face IN PERSON. FaceTime, Zoom and phone calls are all well and good, but seeing someone in the flesh is irreplaceable.
So we both left our respective houses as the same time on Saturday morning and ran to each other, about eight miles for us both. It’s funny because our half-way spot is actually work, but we chose a nearby layby – classy eh!
My run was good. I listened to a podcast and just gently made my way there.
We arrived pretty much around the same time and then sat on some grass (slightly hidden it must be said) two metres from each other and just chatted about fluff and nonsense, but both enjoying it immensely.
Then Kyle’s mum picked him up. This was also nice as I got to speak to her as well – I miss Kyle’s whole family, they’re just such lovely people.
Then I turned and headed back the way I came. I felt lighter but heavier all at once.
I decided to stop about just less than a mile from my house to walk back as I was quite happy with 15 miles for the day rather than 16. My legs were tired and there’s no real need for me to be pushing the distances right now. I don’t want to get injured during this time! Running is a vital part of my sanity and happiness right now. A stable in all the change.
How is lockdown treating you?
Are you separated from someone significant?
I had every ambition of taking parkrun easy. My mistake was wedging myself forward in the start line-up because as we got going I found myself getting carried away with the people around me and running 7 min/miles pace. Slow. Down. Anna. Unfortunately the brain didn’t quite compute that and I continued on. My calf felt even less niggly than previous runs… if it had gotten worse I would have slowed down (I mean, in retrospect, you can really say anything can’t you? I hope I would have slowed down). I saw some familiar faces as I ran and we exchanged cheers and hellos. parkrun is always so friendly and of course this is quite a local one so you see lots of the same people about.
From the Facebook page
From the Facebook page
We all had a great run. Trystan was pleased with his first parkrun and seemed keen to do another (yessssss parkrun convertee).
It’s just so nice to have a beautiful morning and a great run with lovely people. Can’t beat that on a Saturday morning! I also got to catch up with the ever friendly Paul (check out his parkrun-full blog 
It was very sunny and the trails around QECP are quite hilly. But it was a good walk nonetheless. A refuel was definitely needed afterwards. That came in the shape of a lamb and feta burger (done on the BBQ) with some very crispy chips at the Hampshire Hog nearby.
The brownie was SO good. It was so gooey, warm and fudgie. It rocked my world.
I did pick up some cool High 5 freebies though. I love their electrolyte tablets and gels so I made sure to grab some of those to keep stocked up. They’ve rebranded so the designs are all different which is cool. They had a tent set up with all their products set up and water dispenser thing with cups so we could try the electrolyte flavours. Also very handy for after the run and ride!
Photo stolen from friend, Kyle
Kyle did a good job of taking lots of photos. A fellow fan of the on run selfie. He’s gotten quite good at it. So basically all the photos are from Kyle.
As we got into our stride a few of us stretched out ahead a bit which was nice and meant I got more of a negative split on my run. I got a bit further than 5k as I would run back for the last guys as well, so I was happy!
Actually towards the end it was Kyle, Gavin and me seeming to run off quite fast. I think it was a case that none of us wanted to be the slow one and that just caused us to get faster and faster. It was a nice leg stretcher at the end but it did poop me out considering I was just after an easy run! I ran back to run with the others and Kyle caught some cool end photos.
Ah such good fun with a nice group of people 🙂
It was a great Friday because I was also off to Nando’s and the cinema with my friend Mike that evening as well. So I got to leave work early and meet up with him without rushing. I did have a quick shower at work though! Mike is a running friend so he’s seen me sweaty and a mess before but still 😉
We had a nice catch up and chicken (obviously) and then headed to watch Han Solo. Asides from Mike accidentally (though hilariously) throwing popcorn all over me, it was a brilliant movie. Quite funny and good characters. I like a film where a female character’s strengths aren’t her boobs. I think that’s why I love the new Star Wars films so much (and the old ones I guess), strong female characters. We need more of them!
The next morning I headed to Lee-On-Solent parkrun. I did my usual 1.5 mile warm-up jog and decided the legs weren’t up for a speedy run. I felt sluggish and tired. I got to parkrun just in time for a quick chat with the lovely Rebecca. She was having a rather stressful morning as run director with lots of different things going wrong. But from the outside, it all seemed like a normal and well-run parkrun! 
I had originally geared myself up to try going for it again as Lee is such a flat course, but in reality it wasn’t meant to be. Obviously though my brain forgot this realisation as we set off… I started running, getting carried away. It felt tough though. I hit the first mile in 6.36 and as we turned around and felt the wind against me (not massively, but enough) I knew I was on a downward decline to a rather miserable parkrun.
Photo Credit: Peter Stoddard (for the next two too)
As I clawed back to the finish, all the time wondering how I managed to get 19:40 the last time I was there. Mental.
I finished with a time of 21:15 which really felt like such hard work. I sat on the wall after finishing and chatted to some other parkrunners. I mean, it does make sense that my body is feeling tired. Getting used to speedwork, running five times a week rather than my previously usual four. It all adds up. I’m happy where I’m at though. Uninjured and running consistently. I can’t argue with that! I don’t want to focus on times and try and beat my parkrun time every parkrun as that would suck the fun out for me. I think I lost sight of that a bit on Saturday. It’s easy to get a bit carried away with getting fast times and wanting to see them more. But that won’t happen every week. That would probably get me injured! It’s just such a contrast to how good my Wiggle run felt compared to this run. Like the Wiggle run was so chilled and relaxed, whereas this parkrun wasn’t. I should have just chilled and Lee and enjoyed the run at a gentler pace. The brain is funny thing though, eh!
Yummy Crunchie chocolate cake from the ever lovely Penguin Cafe. Delicious.
I was sent a pair of 
What do I think? I really like them. They fit SO well in my ears (they also come with different size ear bits if you struggle). They slot in and stay put, when I run and when I’m at the gym. The sound quality is great – I can hear my music so well (even over the music at the gym). And the adjustable cable at the back is perfect and doesn’t bug me.
What I will say though is since I’ve been using Aftershokz it is a bit of a shock to suddenly go into an immersive sound experience while running. What I mean by that is that I can only hear my music and nothing else. This is fantastic in the gym scenario when I literally want to shut out the sounds around me. It’s also great if you’re on the train. Absolutely ideal. However when I run I do want to be able to hear the outdoors a bit more. This is for safety reasons mainly (because remember, I’m essentially an idiot) but also in a race scenario I’d like to be able to hear marshals, the crowd and feel the atmosphere.
That said, I do love these earphones. They’re my solid choice for train use and for the gym. I love them. I will use them for running as well, but probably just when I’m running on my own in familiar areas that aren’t too much near the road.
So on Tuesday evening I jogged over (literally 5 minutes from my house) and we went for a lovely 7 mile run together. We were roughly the same pace so could chat easily while neither of us felt like we were dying or running too slowly. It was such a lovely run. But it is funny, how do you start a conversation with someone you haven’t seen since school? We covered a lot of topics I can tell you! Hopefully we’ll continue to run the odd run together when our schedules allow (I say “our”, she has a baby so she’s far more busy than me!).
Basically they were selling the stuff that couldn’t be sold commercially. So tops were £3, shorts and leggings £4 etc. Well it was madness I tell you. 
Everyone went mental over it. A huge queue formed to get into the meeting room and then when we got int there it was like Primark on Boxing Day. Absolutely mental.
One happy customer! In the end around £2,300 was raised and will all be going to charity. How good is that?
There’s always the danger to forget something really… but socks! Ehhh, such a pain. I decided to risk it because I was pretty much ready to go (well, sans socks and trainers) and I couldn’t be bothered to go running after work. Thankfully I didn’t get any blisters, despite it being very warm outside, but it was a close call. What an idiot, eh.
So after a morning of rushing to get everything done that I needed to, at 2.30pm we congregated in the canteen before the run/cycle. Gore had also brought along Fabian Cancellara, their ambassador athlete. I won’t lie, I didn’t really know who he was (after a quick Google…he’s a four time world time trial champion and won countless of other cool races, like the Tour de France – I’m no cyclist so this is not really my area of knowledge!)
It did make me laugh though as he took the phone off the girl who was going to take it and said “I can do this, I know the best angle”. No rookie selfie-taker clearly! Ha. He was super friendly though. He did seem confused by what I was wearing though asking if I was going to be cycling. Clearly I did not look like a cyclist! I explained there was also a run that was going on.
Kyle had some serious amounts of enthusiasm and everyone joked that whatever he’d been taking we wanted in on it too. It was a fun run. Nice and relaxed, with everyone having a laugh and chatting.
Annoyingly my adidas Boosts have run over 460 miles and really need to be changed but I won’t be picking up my new ones for a week and the Mizunos I thought I’d be able to wear feel dreadful. It’s so weird because I’ve worn those models before but they gave my foot cramp when I put them on and just felt SO structured and unwieldy. I’m thinking it’s better to go with an old pair of comfortable trainers than a new pair of uncomfortable ones.
We didn’t manage to avoid the rain but luckily it didn’t tip down on us… Seriously lucky because I was off for dinner straight from work with my sister and didn’t particularly want to look like a drowned rat.
The run felt so gentle and relaxed. I literally felt like I was jogging. I guess my marathon training is still helping. We had a couple of stop breaks to gather the group together when we separated out a bit and in the end did 3.8 miles.
