Great things to do! – Page 7

May 17, 2010May 17, 2010

John Wayne re:cycled

Having trained for the marathon on the south coast with its cliffs and pebbles over the first quarter of the year, it was really good to get across to the east coast and see how very different it is.

I’ve been working really hard all week, including playing a promotional-girl role at a consumer show on Saturday & Sunday in order to really immerse myself in a business. As a result, my entire weekend is on a Monday this week and James, my kind host, suggested that rather than exhausting myself by going for my usual run, we cycle down to the beach to have a leisurely breakfast.

The choice of bicycles, between a manly Land Rover bike and a girly unisex model was REALLY easy… the latter had a wide gel saddle!

My other hosts, Kerry and Dani, drove down to meet us there and I duly polished off a large and delicious plate of egg, bacon & tomatoes on crusty white toast, washed down with a latte.

We cycled on along the coast, finding a very happy man with a 7-kilo fish that he had just caught from a sit-a-top kayak, before we continued into the next bay.

Completing the circle back to the house meant that we had cycled 17km, or just over 10 miles, which I reckon is as good a workout as a run any day of the week. And bearing in mind that the last time I was on a bike was probably in 1990, you won’t be terribly surprised to hear that as soon as we got back I collapsed in a heap! Or that, despite the gel saddle, I’ll almost certainly be doing a John Wayne impersonation tomorrow!

March 11, 2010March 11, 2010

Ten on the tenth – part three!

Yesterday was always going to be a bit of a rush, hence my delay in posting.

I had a really interesting meeting in London late morning, spent the afternoon reading HBR and networking in the Alumni lounge at London Business School and then participated as a Judge (a pseudo potential early-stage investor) in a Trade Show by LBS MBA students in the Discovering Entrepreneurial Opportunities core course.

This is well worth mentioning further.

390 students, working in 65 teams, had identified opportunities which typically focused around resolving a real customer or stakeholder pain. They then distinguished between mere ideas and more valuable opportunities, confirming their hypotheses by observation or primary customer research. Finally they contextualised the opportunities to ensure that they represented distinctive, fresh ways of creating value in the face of incumbents, and thought through the value chain for delivering the solution.

The Trade Show last night was one of the last parts of the course, where they opened up their ideas to peer review and pitched their ideas to a range of Alumni judges including me. I have to say that the standard was extremely high indeed, phenomenal really, especially bearing in mind that this is a core MBA course rather than an elective. It was a real privilege to see their work and full marks should go to the students and the tutors involved!

Of course, in advance of this fascinating day, I had to sneak in a ten mile run, so it was a bit of an early start.

Once again, for time reasons, it was a magic carpet run, but at least that enables me to make a direct comparison with the last two ’10 on the 10th’ runs.

January 10th: 10 miles in 82 minutes, heart rate sub 175, slight post-run staggering, upstairs bathroom in progress.

February 10th: 10 miles in 79.35, heart rate sub 170, scant post-run staggering, bathroom complete.

March 10th: 10 miles in 78.47, heart rate in the low 160’s, no time to stagger afterwards as I had bolt down some breakfast, run through the shower and get to the station!

For more interest (beyond Radio 4) I varied the speed of each quarter mile, warming up at 6 and 6.5mph then cycling thr0ugh 7, 7.5, 8 and 8.5mph until the end.

This certainly made the task more bearable and I definitely feel as if I’m progressing… which is useful bearing in mind that there are only 5 training weekends left before the marathon!

December 20, 2009

Two weeks off

I appear to have taken two weeks off running since running with Phil. This started when I inadvertently managed to poison myself, probably with some blue cream-cheese, resulting in me being horizontal for 36 hours and effectively out of action for a good week. Hence me not making it to a couple of the more boozy Christmas events which I was looking forward to.

And then there was the snow. This is a poor excuse, as Cliff managed to run for a couple of hours in it yesterday, but someone had to take photos from the warmth of inside. Here are a few of the resultant images:

And then last night there was a fab gathering at Clive & Nat’s where my photographic skills left much more to be desired, but great fun was had by all. We’ve not had a 2am night for an age, but if there’s anything guaranteed to put your head straight, it’s an evening like that! Thanks guys!

September 20, 2009

Beep-Beep!

I ran on the road this morning which should make me a road-runner, but alas, any one of the hundreds of drivers who passed me will be able to testify that I was really not moving that fast!

But at least I was out and about on this beautiful morning… unlike all the other mornings this week when, for a variety of reasons, I wasn’t!

Part of the reason for running on the road for a change was to get myself more used to it ahead of the marathon… and part because I’m wasn’t quite yet ready to trash the shininess of my new runners after the torrential rain last night! I’m sure the Bok would understand, if no-one else!

The route was really not that inspiring and if I’m going to have to train on the road, I shall have to find a more interesting one… the picture above is slightly misleading as it’s the only 100m stretch of garden path in an otherwise flat and hard-surfaced route.

Simple (did I say boring?) route… down to Wivelsfield Station, left to London Road, left to Stone Pound Crossroads in Hassocks, left through Keymer and Ditching to Spatham Lane, left to Middleton Lane, left to Ditchling Common, Folders Lane and home. And pretty much nothing else of note to report.

Eleven miles took me 1 hour 41 minutes which was actually quite good bearing in mind I stopped four times to stretch my stiff legs… in fact it’s pretty much the pace I ran Berlin marathon at… just over 6.5mph.

Since I’ve got a little space left, I thought I would share with you a childish game that I’ve played this weekend. Under normal circumstances, very little would get past Kim, but she’s had a mother of a cold this week and has also been pre-occupied with a fascinating mediation course that she’s taking, so she’s not been as observant as normal.

My game was to see how many things I could do that she didn’t notice… although to be fair, I only really started playing it last night when she didn’t notice all the things I’d done while she’d been out. So here (mainly for Kim) are the things that I did:

Saturday: Clean the insides of all the windows in the house, clean the two glazed internal doors and all the mirrors and glazed pictures, bleach the shower and then polish all the shiny bits (which she would have noticed last night and probably didn’t comment because I had my nose stuck into a James Bond film), clean the fish-tank, treat the exterior wood and decking on the tea-house with teak-oil, paint half of what was left to paint of the east wall of the house (which she would be unlikely to notice, to be fair), paint the facing side of next doors garage (rather more obvious!), clean brushes and implements and change ready to adopt a ‘I’ve been moping around the house all day’ kind of attitude for her return. This latter she saw straight through, saying that I don’t normally mope around, but other than commenting that she liked the richness of the wood in the rain that later poured down (of the freshly oiled tea-house, otherwise dry beneath its extended canopy), she showed no signs of noticing.

Sunday: Pull the untidy tops off the day lilies and the poppies (seeds anyone?), cut the tall grasses back to give light to the other plants around them, put a second coat of decking protector on the top deck, paint the remaining part of the east wall of the house including cleaning brushes etc, do all the washing & drying (although she would have guessed that I would have done that), including her pyjamas that she had hidden on the back of the dressing room door (potentially less expected, especially as I hung them back there afterwards), drive to Focus to get some supplies but find it closed, go back, shower and adopt a similarly louche (not quite the right word, but you know what I mean) stance as yesterday. I obviously didn’t do quite so much today, but then I did start with a long run!

Have a great week everybody peops!

September 3, 2009September 3, 2009

The great French getaway!

I know that my parents and my uncle Roy will all want to know the route of our travels around France, so I enclose a quick guided tour… on the basis that I can never remember the names of places when people ask me, as has already happened this morning!

The general idea was for Kim and I to take a relaxed road trip to Limoges for Philip & Isabelle’s wedding and back again, not driving more than four hours on any of the travelling days and generally getting to experience a little more of this beautiful country.

You have almost certainly seen paintings of Giverny, as it is the home of Monet’s water garden with its glorious water lilies and low arching bridges. The village is narrow and quaint and beautiful in the evening sun. We arrived too late to visit the house and gardens so had to endure the crowds and the drizzle the following day, but it was still beautiful.

Arriving in Loches the following evening, we were slightly taken aback that the hotel looked like a house, it’s front door opening directly onto the pavement of a busy thoroughfare. We were however welcomed through the door into a hidden paradise that backed gracefully onto a canal with a park beyond… shown below from further up on the ramparts. The well-travelled owners hosted afternoon tea on the terrace and gave the assorted guests the opportunity to chat amongst themselves and to a couple of interesting local friends who had stopped by. It was a wonderful lesson in true hospitality and resulted in us dining with Katrine and Phillip, a French couple from Blois… who incidentally belong to a running club that regularly visits Lewes!

The town itself is beautiful, with its narrow streets and tall roof-lines surrounding a near impenetrable fortress of a chateau.

We wondered how the next hotel, a converted barn in Nantiat near Limoges, would compare to the opulence of Le Logis, but we were not disappointed. It is a glorious contemporary conversion of the kind that you may well like to live in yourself… well I would anyway! The quiet contemplative space is surrounded by countryside, but only a twenty minute stroll to the bustling village where the hosts cycle or walk each morning to buy croissants and bread for breakfast. Ironically this getaway is run by a couple who used to live in Burgess Hill and belong to Kim’s running club!

We had been invited to a small informal barbecue at Isabelle’s parents house the evening before the wedding and we duly turned up to find a table set for about sixty… pictured looking each way from the middle below! The caterers were excellent and the festivities went on from a glorious day and well into a cool clear evening.

The wedding was on the following day and despite a groom who looked poorly briefed about the nature and order of a French wedding (he certainly signed up to something), it was a wonderfully lighthearted and participative affair. The sixty then decamped to a local chateau for extended festivities which continued from the afternoon well into the following morning… we finally got to bed around 3am.

We spent the following day reading and relaxing in our relaxing haven and later ate in a picture postcard restaurant in nearby Bellac. This shall remain nameless as, run by another English couple, it was a lesson in how not to if ever there was one! Cheap ingredients, poorly prepared and presented and thus extortionately priced. Sorry to be frank and all!

It was always going to be hard to match the calm of Nantiat, but the studio on the hill overlooking Saumur was still quiet, despite the team of gardeners working furiously for two days to make the previously overgrown garden presentable for our departure. Saumur itself is a lovely town and is overlooked by another of France’s great defensive chateaux, which appears to be undergoing a complete restoration. Certainly the town below the ramparts has large sections of contemporary buildings in the vernacular, with a cosmopolitan cafe culture spilling out into shaded squares.

After all the other delightful accommodation we had visited during our 1026 mile road trip, we arrived late last night at the best of all: with it’s bright shower room and crisp sheets… there’s nothing like a trip away to remind you how wonderful home is!

August 15, 2009August 17, 2009

Happy Second Blogthday

YES indeedie, two years have passed since I started writing this blog and if you’ve been reading it all this time, you probably deserve a drink! To celebrate, of course!

Without the enigmatic Bok to keep me going through the winter, my results have been down on the first year, but only a touch. In fact, I have been surprisingly consistent.

A quick run down on the comparisons show the following:

Writing is down from 156 to 102 posts, reducing the weekly average from 3 to 2, but then the first year there were a series of posts about films (we’ve not been going so often) and about the building of the tea-house.

Total mileage is also down, but only from 538 miles to 512, a reduction of just 2 miles per month… but WOW, that makes over 1050 miles in the last two years! And if you take out all the time in between (that I was probably sitting down) it only took me 172 hours… a little over a week!

The slackest months were January 09 with 13.6 miles and February 09 with 14.3 miles compared to 22.3 miles in February 08 but, in my defence, I did do quite a lot of swimming in that period this year whereas last year we were away ice driving and skiing.

There were five months this year that I ran more than 50 miles (plus one at 49.3) compared to 4 the year before, but the best I managed was 62.75, where there were 3 over 66 miles last year.

Overall my average run was 8.14 miles in a time of 1 hour 20 minutes… just over 6mph, and 0.1mph slower year on year. Of course what the figures don’t show is that I have been tackling more challenging runs. For example, more than half of the difference in the average speed is accounted for by just one run: The Blighty Grouse Grind on the 26th July.

Since I have not replaced my splodge since the beginning of July last year, I thought today would be an appropriate day to visit Kurt at Run in Hove. And as you can see, I now have a bright and shiny new pair of Saucony runners to add to the other four pairs I have bought from Run (and then slowly destroyed) in the last five or six years.

So another great big THANK YOU to all the readers of FosterRuns.com, especially the people who have made hilarious comments and the myriad of amazing folk who have allowed me to run with them. I sincerely hope that you will continue to both read and run with me as we sprint, energenetically, into year three!

June 21, 2009

Oh, by the way…

The day before we went to the Tate, Kim twisted my arm to make her some bookshelves for her study. They’re fun and functional and whilst they might not be finished as well as a shop-bought piece of furniture, they have been designed to satisfy one persons’ particular requirements. Price, say £30 (although I had most of the wood that bought left over afterwards) plus a day’s labour.

June 21, 2009

Sunday 14th

Apologies for the sporadic nature of the last few posts, to do both with missed runs and missed posts. Although I didn’t run midweek (yet again!), last Sunday fell into the latter category, primarily because we rushed straight out to meet our friends Patrick & Sarah at the Tate Modern for lunch… and I’ve then had a manic week.

What makes it doubly difficult to remember what I did is that my notes from the run go as follows: 1.48, Noel, 11 dog walkers, 10.75. From Cliff’s perspective this might make for a prefect post, but I feel at least some more colour is required, if only to remind me what I did when I cast my eyes back over this at some point in the future.

It was a lovely morning, accentuated by the 7.15am departure time and bearing in mind our plans for the rest of the day, the run couldn’t be too strenuous. I headed out past Ote Hall, across to the pub at the bottom of Fox Hill in Haywards Heath and up into Colwell Lane, which you may remember is a really muddy lane. I turned off early though, cutting through to Slugwash Lane, joined the Sussex Border path for a short distance and then headed into Wivelsfield from the north via Strood Farm.

There was a slight diversion when I tracked all the way around a huge field because I missed the path… the funny thing is that it’s not the first time I’ve done it… I just went round the other way last time!

I came out of Wivelsfield on Hundred Acre Lane and I was gently running up the hill, minding my own business when a training shoe appeared silently at my left… I nearly jumped out of my skin! It was Noel, who was out for a three mile run and therefore running quite a bit faster, but I relish company so I sped up to his pace and we chatted for most of a mile as we ran down the lane.

I then headed back across to the magical path and across the common. Between the common and the railway line is a path that takes less than 5 minutes to run down and in this duration I passed 11 separate dog walkers. 9.00am must be the time to go out and be sociable around here!

10.75 miles took 1 hour 48 minutes, pretty much 6mph.

April 20, 2009

London Marathon… call to action!

If anyone reading this would like to donate a little money to the Arthritis Research Campaign via a good friend of mine who is running in the London Marathon next Sunday, 26th April, please go to http://www.justgiving.com/philstuppleslondon

I bought my first house in 1990 from Phil and his wife Pam and they have been firm friends ever since. Pam is a long-time arthritis sufferer and Phil has been training hard for months so any donations, no matter how small, will be greatly appreciated.

February 15, 2009

Crawling towards The Soul Katz

Managed to get back in the pool on Thursday night for 45 minutes and found that it’s easier to count in sets of four than singly. Three breast-stroked and a length crawled. At the end of the session I did an extra crawl, so out of 56 lengths I managed 15 crawlies. Still pretty knacked at the end, but it’s all starting to hang together a little better than it was.

Having swum, we beat it back to base for a quick pit-stop before hurtling off to Bar Nun at the Priory in Haywards Heath for a gig. Our good friend & neighbour Andrew has been playing in The Soul Katz for about 15 years (it was a Commitments-style tribute band), but they have apparently not played for a while.

Knowing how good a player he is I was not at all surprised to find the venue pretty much splitting at the seams… the place was rammed! The band comprises eleven excellent musicians (and one sound guy) and they played BRILLIANTLY. What DID amaze us was how long they played for… they must have started just after half eight and aside from a short break, they ran right through until a quarter to twelve!

I took a video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aO3ChBLgGuQ of one of the numbers which gives a sense of what they play and how good Andrew is on the harmonica, although my camera does NO justice to the sound, alas!