**Disclaimer: this post was written while the author was experiencing a quite severe dose of Bank Holiday weekend #FOMO and running injury induced blues. As always, all rants, raves and opinions represent my own views. Other (far superior) less opinionated and negative running blogs are available**
Rave: the Olympics
Like the vast majority of people I follow on social media I loved the 2016 Olympics. Unfortunately, some of my family spent the two weeks complaining about sports taking over the BBC, I told them to get a grip. Although due to my obsession with getting more sleep, I had to miss loads of the athletics finals, I still managed to watch most of my favourite sports. I loved watching people who had clearly worked incredibly hard achieving their goals. I loved the break from all of the negativity in the press.
My Rio 2016 highlights included Mo Farah doing the double, Simone Biles seemingly defying gravity, the Brownlee brothers winning gold and silver, Andy Murray winning a second gold medal and one of my favourite athletes – Ruth Beita – winning gold in the high jump. However, my number one highlight was watching Nick Skelton win a gold medal in the individual show jumping.
Rant: pavement works
Regular readers of my blog will have noticed that I’ve been spending a lot of time training for the Great Birmingham Run. Like most runners I’m quite predictable and have a favourite running route. The route is relatively flat – unusual for Four Oaks – and usually very quiet. Having some posh houses and bungalows to admire while I’m running is an added bonus.
Imagine my horror when I recently discovered that my favourite route had been converted into an urban assault course. Huge sections of the pavement had been fenced off leaving me with no other option but to run in the road.
I quickly discovered that temporary yellow plastic covers are really, really slippery when they are wet. Huge sections of the pavements in Four Oaks have been out of action for over two months now. Only this morning I noticed a new section of my favourite route had been marked up ready for the diggers to move in. I’m rapidly running out of places to safely complete my early morning runs!
Rave: Up & Running Birmingham
Although Birmingham is supposedly quite a large city, the absence of stores such as Nike, Lululemon, Sweatshop and Sweaty Betty mean that there are very few free organised training sessions. In London I could theoretically attend training runs and gym classes for free several times a week. In Birmingham, if I want to run with others or attend a yoga session I have to pay.
Earlier this year Up & Running Birmingham organised a series of free Night Runs. Unfortunately I was coming back from injury and only managed to attend one session. As you can imagine I was thrilled when I discovered that Up & Running Birmingham are in the process of setting up a Social Run with Great Run Anytime.
I’m definitely going to attend the launch party on September 5th. I might even treat my niggles to a physio assessment and a 5k run around the centre of Birmingham.
Rant: niggles
I’ve now reached week nine of my half marathon training – only another seven to go. At the moment I have a painful right knee, a sore left foot and slightly sore to the touch shins. As my half marathon training has got more challenging, I’ve developed an unhealthy obsession with sports injury books and have turned into a hypochondriac. I genuinely have no idea if I’ll be able to run a half marathon in October.
Rave: new trainers
After an unsuccessful shopping trip while I was in London last week, I tracked down some Adrenalines in the Sweatshop sale. I’m now the proud owner of a new pair of Adrenalines in a slightly dodgy colour. I love the smell of new trainers – does that make me strange?
I just need to find some mud now!
Rave: St Ives harbour webcam
And finally, I’ve done enough moaning so I’ve added a bonus rave. I live approximately eight miles to the north of the UK’s most landlocked city, Birmingham. The closest beach to Birmingham is over 100 miles away at Weston-super-Mare. I couldn’t live much further away from the coast! During the last couple of weeks I’ve become slightly obsessed with watching the St Ives harbour webcam.
I clearly really need a holiday!
If you’ve reached the end of my latest random selection of rants and raves, I’m seriously impressed.
Apologies for the very random blog, hopefully my next post will actually feature some running.
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I just heard the radio 4 media show and someone was moaning about the Olympics taking over. I mean, it’s for a few weeks every four years!
That pavement looks tricky indeed, hope they finish soon.
And hooray for free running clubs. I used to go to the sweatshop one each week but they made it later and then I moved away so it doesn’t suit me any more .
Some of my family seemed to do nothing but moan on social media. Like you say it’s only a couple of weeks every four years. I don’t even think that the Olympics did take over. My only gripe was with the BBC constantly switching between BBC1 and BBC2. Although that stretch of pavement has now been repaired, the workmen have started to dig up another section of my running route. At least it makes me concentrate on what I’m doing! I’m really hoping that Up & Running do start to organise regular free running clubs, there is definitely a shortage in Birmingham.
Like the rants and raves.
As for niggles, ignore those injury books for a second and focus on yourself, how do you feel while you’re running? Is it painful the whole time? Are pains getting worse?
If all else fails, take 2-3 days totally off and see how you feel. Or, you can effectively replace a few runs with cross training. If you’re 7 weeks away, you’ve still got some time to rest, recover, and then head back into serious training.
Thanks, I really enjoy writing my rants and raves posts. When I’m running my knee and foot are both virtually pain free. I get the occasional twinge but nothing serious. I’m definitely not in pain the whole time; I’d stop running if I reached that stage. I think that making sure that I ice my knee as soon as I stop running has helped loads. I’ll have to see how my knee copes with the longer weekend runs, if it starts to feel more painful I’ll take a few days off
Oooh that’s so cool about the run meet-up!
Sorry to hear about your niggles though. As someone who is often injured, I feel your woe 🙁 Just listen to your body and rest when you need to. Training plans don’t need to be followed to the letter (I know you probably know this!)
I’m so excited about Monday – it will be great to meet lots of other runners. Hopefully a few will be doing the Great Birmingham Run. I was thinking about my niggles earlier today while I was running, and I honestly can’t remember the last time I was 100 per cent injury free. I guess that 25+ years of running have had an impact. I’m like so many runners I know in that I can give out advice, but I’m not very good at being sensible myself. I hope that waffle makes sense! It will be interesting to see how broken I feel after my run on Sunday.