**Disclaimer: I’m writing this rants and raves post after spending the day completing mandatory training courses. One of the training courses took over three hours to complete so I’m feeling a little bit grumpy. As a result, I have a feeling that this rants and raves post may turn out to be quite ranty. As always, all moans and groans and rants and raves represent my personal views. Other, far less negative running blogs are available**

I’d like to start by saying good morning, good afternoon, good evening, etc to whoever takes the time to read my latest selection of rants and raves. TGIF! It’s been a few months since my last rants and raves post and I’ve been feeling a bit stressed so I’m hoping that having a moan on here will relieve some of my stress. I hope that you are all keeping well, staying safe, and looking forward to the weekend.

As always, I’ve waffled on far too much, so here is my selection of rants and raves. I apologise in advance for the repeat rants and raves, and I hope that you enjoy this tiny insight into what’s been happening in my life recently.

Rave: Winter mornings in Sutton Park

I thought that I’d start with a weather-related rave, if you’ve read any of my previous rants and raves posts you’ll know that I love talking about the weather. Let’s ignore the fact that the last few Saturday mornings have been more what I’d describe as mild and wet than dry and frosty, I love frosty mornings in Sutton Park.

I thought I’d share some of the photos I took a few Saturdays ago while I was waiting for Sutton Park parkrun to start. It was a chilly morning but thanks to some sensible wardrobe decision-making and the fact I was tail walking, I didn’t feel too cold.

Rant: My knees, again

It wouldn’t be a rants and raves post if I didn’t mention my knees. I’m aware that this is a repeat rant, apologies, but my knees are still causing me a few issues.

After a couple of months when my knees tricked me into thinking that all of the strengthening exercises I’ve been doing had started to work, a couple of weeks ago the constant pain made an unwelcome reappearance. I’m now at the stage my knees niggle when I walk up the stairs at home, walk down the stairs at home, sit on the toilet and get up from the toilet.

Last week, after finally accepting that my exercise bike was far too small for my longer than average length legs, I decided it was time to say goodbye. I’m an impulsive type of person, so once I decided the exercise bike had to go, I lugged it down the stairs – my knees really grumbled as it weighed more than 25kg – and left it outside my house. I estimate it took less than an hour for the local scrap metal merchant to take the exercise bike.

I’m now researching exercise bikes for people with fragile knees and longer than average legs. I’m also waiting for the local private hospital to respond to my initial query.

Rave: parkrun challenges

If you follow me on Instagram, you’ll probably already be aware that I was recently on the receiving end of some somewhat snarky comments about me hogging the tail walker role. As I want to keep my Saturday mornings as stress and as conflict-free as possible, I decided to temporarily take a break from volunteering.

Last month, I shared my running, walking, and parkrun goals for 2022. I must confess that although I love parkrun, I didn’t take much notice of the various parkrun challenges. Although it’s now looking doubtful I’ll volunteer 25 times this year, I decided to set myself the challenge of completing 50 parkruns this year and of achieving a Gold parkrun obsessive badge. I’m also aiming to complete the Bushy Pilgrimage challenge and would like to make a start on the Name Badge challenge.

Rant: Hermes

Hermes ‘misplaced’ my Boston Marathon finishers package. While the organisers very kindly sent me a replacement finishers medal, they weren’t able to send a replacement finishers top. A little bit frustrating as walking 26.2 miles wasn’t easy. I now contact companies before I order anything online to see which courier company they use. My new approach is that if a company uses Hermes, I ask if they can use an alternative courier. If they can’t or won’t, I don’t place an order.

Rave: Sweaty Betty Power Cycling Shorts

A couple of weeks ago, I needed some running shorts with pockets for parkrun, so I squeezed myself into my favourite Lululemon shorts. I was genuinely devastated when I discovered that my chunky thighs had rubbed a hole in an unfortunate location and that I’d have to retire my favourite shorts. Lululemon no longer seems to stock anything similar, so I ended up treating myself to a pair of these cycling shorts from Sweaty Betty.

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So, thanks Sweaty Betty for producing shorts in a range of lengths and colours and for the spacey side pocket. The 30 percent discount code I found was an added bonus. Fingers crossed I actually get to wear the shorts on some training runs at some point this year!

Rant: Blue Monday

I know Blue Monday was a few weeks ago – I’ve been writing this rants and raves post for quite a while – but I felt it was still worthy of a quick rant. I feel bad for mentioning something that happened last month, but as someone with slightly fragile mental health, the whole concept of Blue Monday really annoyed me. If you don’t know what Blue Monday is, here’s a quick explanation.

Every year, the third Monday of January is called Blue Monday. The idea of Blue Monday was first conceived in 2005 by a psychologist and life coach called Dr. Cliff Arnall who created a formula to determine the ‘saddest’ day of the year.

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Dr. Cliff Arnall landed on the third Monday in January, because of the bad weather, dark nights, post-Christmas debt, and failed New Year’s resolutions.

Although Blue Monday was originally devised as a marketing tool to get people to book holidays, the term seems to make an unwelcome appearance every year.

And that’s my final rant. Am I’m trying to be more positive in 2022, I’ve decided to end this post with a selection of random raves.

Rave: Girl & the Cat Designs Etsy Store

If you love parkrun and want to support a small business, please check out Girl & the Cat Designs on Instagram and on Etsy.

Founded by Joanna, the Girl & the Cat Designs Etsy Store currently has a selection of awesome items available for purchase. Two of my favourite items are the parkrun milestone congratulations cards and the parkrun tracker bullet journal pages.

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So, if you are looking for a cute greetings card or if you know one of your parkrun friends is about to reach a milestone, check out the Girl & the Cat Designs Esty store.

Rave: parkrun pin badges

With apologies for the repetitiveness, I’ve got a second parkrun related rave. When I completed my 50th parkrun last year, I didn’t buy myself a red milestone t-shirt. I’m feeling increasingly concerned about the environmental impact of running clothes and I figured that I didn’t need any more running t-shirts.

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Although I didn’t add to my running t-shirt collection, I’ve always loved collecting things, so I treated myself to a couple of milestone club pin badges. Actually, writing this has made me wonder where I put the pin badges.

Rave: WORDLE

If you haven’t heard of WORDLE – where have you been? – here’s a quick introduction.

WORDLE is a word game developed by software engineer Josh Wardle. Players attempt to guess a five-letter word in six attempts; feedback, in the form of coloured tiles, is given for each guess, informing players which letters are in the correct position and which are in other positions of the answer word. There is a specific answer word for each day, which is the same for everyone.

I love WORDLE and I’m one of those supposedly irritating people who share their results on Twitter every day. Fingers crossed WORDLE remains free to play, if it doesn’t then there are plenty of alternatives including Sweardle, the sweary word guessing game, and Nerdle, a daily numbers game.

Rave: Kari Traa

That well-known running store TK Maxx introduced me to Kari Traa a few years ago. I spotted a long-sleeved running top that looked like it *might* be long enough in the body for me, bought it, and have lost count of the number of times I’ve worn it. Sadly, I’ve not seen any Kari Traa tops in my local TK Maxx since.

Fortunately for me, SportPursuit recently held a Kari Traa flash sale. I broke my self-imposed no buying new running clothes in 2022 challenge and bought myself a Maske half zip Merino base layer top.

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If you’re tall and if you struggle to find long-sleeved running tops that fit, I recommend that you check out Kari Traa. I’ve just had a quick look and SportPursuit has a selection of women’s Kari Traa tops and tights on sale.

If you made it to the end of this latest random selection of rants and raves, thank you. I’m not completely convinced I would have made it to the end! I’m pleased to report that I feel much better for having a bit of a rant. And finally, I hope that I haven’t somehow managed to inadvertently offend anyone – if I did, that wasn’t my intention, so I apologise – and that my rants were reasonable.

Are you heading to parkrun tomorrow morning?

Have you had any negative experiences with Hermes?

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