January 2016 – Doing A Bit Of Running

20 Miles!

I would be dancing for joy today if my legs weren’t aching so much. I went out this morning with the intention of doing a longish run but not expecting to manage much more than about 13 miles. I slowed my pace, kept plugging on and arrived back home 4 hours later having completed 20 miles. I’m thrilled, overjoyed and incredibly relieved. My longest distance for some time now has been 15 miles and I’ve been finding it extremely difficult to increase that. I’ve arrived home time after time having reached 15 and been crippled for the next 3 days. This time I had no real agenda and just kept running. I passed 13 miles and realised that I was quite some distance away from home. I also realised that I still had some energy left in my legs so could quite happily keep going. I got closer to home and checked my Strava app. It now said that I had run 26.2 kilometres. My goodness thinks I. That seems quite a lot. I taxed my little brain for some time trying to figure out how many miles that may be and all the while the distance I had covered was going up. It’s now 27 kilometres. Well, that’s quite close to 30 so why not go for that. I got to 30 and I’m quite close to home but still had some energy left. Why not make it 32 and then I’m only 10 kilometres from my marathon target.

And so I did.

People have been telling me for some time that if I can manage 18 miles before the London marathon then the adrenalin provided by the crowds and the occasion will push me on for the rest. I’ve now covered 20 miles and reckon I still had a little bit left in the tank. This is such a relief. I now feel that the 26.2 miles is an attainable goal. It has previously always seemed too ridiculously far to even contemplate. Reaching it has now become a very distinct possibility.

This has been quite a week and in other news I got a wonderful gift from one of the people who have donated to my ‘Save The Rhino’ campaign.

Claire Middlehurst popped into my office on Friday with a bottle of tonic. She ran the London Marathon last year and said that one of the most important parts of her training was trying to stay clear of coughs, sneezes and general diseases.I shall be taking regular doses of the tonic to try and ward off the evil lurgi.

Thanks Claire

It’s very much appreciated.

I also went along to Anglia Ruskin University to see the Saucony running shoe folks and try out their new gait analysis machine. They’ve promised to send me the video from the machine so I’ll be writing a little more about this once they send it across.

Meanwhile here’s a little bit of video we shot on the night with my phone

And here’s a pic of the running gait computer. It filmed from 3 different angles. I’m really looking forward to seeing the video it produced.

Rhino Running in Oakwell Mud

Oakwell Hall is a fine setting for the parkrun. It’s not as big and grand as huge places such as Temple Newsam but it’s very much of its time and place being a late 17th century family home more suited to the affluent upper middle classes of the time rather than the nobility you would find in the great houses. It looks hard, stern and super tough. The parkrun course is similarly tough and this rhino found it difficult going up and down the hills, through the trees and then slogging its way through the mud.

We are waved off and go charging past the house circling right around and then charging down the hill. Going down seems fine but then you have to climb back up the other side. No mean feat for a rhino that can’t see its legs. I know that they’re down there somewhere but not entirely sure what they’re getting up to. We flounder our way along until there’s a car park and then dive into the woods. This is a really pretty bit. There are trees and tracks and all sorts of good stuff. Then we come out of the trees into a short stretch of field before another track. The mud is so thick here that I become completely stuck and can’t move for a moment. I haul one foot out of the mud and plonk it down in front of me. Then repeat process for next foot and continue until the gate of joy and hope is reached and normal rhino running can be resumed.

Then there’s more running around Oakwell Hall and the stables and we can begin all over again. It’s a great run but a difficult one. There’s no chance of a rhino pb today despite the abundance of super manic marshalls cheering us all on. The course is just too tough. Great fun though and absolutely gorgeous.

I eventually crown the hill and am running along the finish funnel. Amanda, our run director is there cheering everyone in and doing the timekeeping too. We wait until the flood of runners coming in slackens off a little and then bag her for a rhino and run director photo.

There’s a whiteboard at the finish line and various people write on their new year resolutions. I couldn’t think of any new ones so didn’t add to it myself.

We go for a coffee afterwards and discover a Leeds Rhinos fan who would very much like a picture with the rhino and I also meet the chap who had been taking video with his GoPro on buggycam at Woodhouse Moor and Temple Newsam. He promises to post the link to the video on the Oakwell Hall parkrun page.

We took some more photos around the house including this one from the front which mirrors Charlotte Bronte’s splendid description of it when she used it as a model for Fieldhead in the novel ‘Shirley’

and then this great model of a sheep which is hanging about in the front garden. Me and the sheep make a splendid art installation I reckon.

We have a great time relaxing with a coffee and talking to other parkrunners but must eventually leave as we need to drive back to Cambridge today. There will be two cats waiting for us there who haven’t seen us for two weeks and will need their cuddle quota topped up as soon as possible.

If anyone gets the urge to donate to Save The Rhino then please visit the page http://virginmoneygiving.com/jimmowatt and donate whatever you feel you can afford.

New Year’s Day on Woodhouse Moor

I’m visiting my mum in Leeds and there are parkruns on New Year’s Day. Of course I have to go. What’s more I want to do two parkruns in one morning. Also I want to do them in rhino costume. All sounds perfectly reasonable to me. Carrie sighed and agreed to come along. I can see so little out of the front of the rhino suit that I need as much assistance as I can possibly get just to make sure I arrive on the start line. Therefore I’m really grateful that she can come along to help.

There’s a fine gathering on the moor. As with last year there seems to be a tradition of gathering near the finish funnel and then moving back to the start for the prerun briefing. Sam, the run director does the briefing. He mentions someone who got what sounded like about 84 per cent in age grading and also someone doing their 250th parkrun. Unfortunately I couldn’t hear much from inside the rhino but many congratulations to them. Sam also does a wonderful shout out for me and talks a little about the sorry plight of the rhino.

The run director counts us down and then sends us on our way around the course. It’s a nice flat course although there are occasional patches of ice. We do a fair amount of looping around and pass some places three times during the run. It’s not the most scenic parkrun I’ve ever done but it’s an excellent example of being able to put on a fine run even in quite a limited space. They’ve really used what they have in an interesting way alternating the loops slightly each time around. I follow someone in an orange shirt for a while and eventually manage to pass by. Then I followed someone in a 250 shirt but I didn’t have enough energy to pass her and she left me staggering along behind. It looks a really nice shirt. Hope they’re still doing them when I get to 250 parkruns.

I hauled myself across the finish line and run director Sam came across for a chat. I thanked him for the shout out at the start and we had a photo taken together. Sam then grabbed my finish token and barcode and scanned them in for me. He then shooed me away to my next parkrun at Temple Newsam asking me to remember him to Ronnie who would be run directing there.

I’ve just received my Woodhouse Moor parkrun time and it’s a new rhino pb:

Woodhouse Moor parkrun results for event #435. Your time was 00:32:49.

If anyone gets the urge to donate to Save The Rhino then please visit the page http://virginmoneygiving.com/jimmowatt and donate whatever you feel you can afford.

A Temple Newsam Parkrun Rhino

Wow!

So many people here at Temple Newsam.

The run director is doing the prerun briefing but I can’t hear any of the words. I’m not sure the people around me can either. My guess is that there may be rather more people here today than they are accustomed to. However it all seems really well organised so they handled the large turnout really well.

Jill popped over to say hello. She’s been answering my email enquiries about the parkrun. Hiya Jill, good to see you.

Dogs are barking at me and I’m meeting folk I saw at Woodhouse Moor. I’m also seeing a lot more children at this parkrun and they are all intensely curious. That gives us a great opportunity to offer them Save The Rhino stickers and talk to them and their parents a little about the endangered rhinos. I see a family running with a buggy and a small dog. They have a GoPro Hero strapped to one of the buggy arms and assure me thay have footage of the rhino from Woodhouse Moor. I wish I’d swapped email addresses with them to ask for some of that footage. Quite apart from gathering more rhino video I would like to see how the Hero performs. I quite fancy getting one for myself.

We set off past the glorious Elizabethan mansion and out through the formal gardens. Down the long hill, left at the motorway and curl back along the edge of the woods until we are once again struggling up the hill toward the house. Twice around we go and the second time we are curved around the hill a little until we burst out into the finish funnel. I queue to be scanned behind the girl in the orange tee shirt. I’d finished before her at Woodhouse Moor but she was really pleased to finish in front of me here at Temple Newsam. “I couldn’t be beaten by a rhino twice in one day” she said.

I was going to get a coffee afterwards but there was a very long queue indeed and I had more family duties to attend to at home. We made our way back up by the house and stopped for a moment outside the glorious front doors for just one more picture. We were immediately pounced on by large numbers of people asking if we’d let them take a picture of their child standing by the rhino. It was really sweet and I posed for many photos beside children who were either delighted or terrified to take part in a rhino photo.

I never got to pass on your regards Sam, to Ronnie the run director. He seemed awfully busy. I’m saying hello to Ronnie here from Sam and the Rhino.

If anyone gets the urge to donate to Save The Rhino then please visit the page http://virginmoneygiving.com/jimmowatt and donate whatever you feel you can afford.