York - Week 15

Rest day once again.

Yesterday was my last long run and legs feeling really good today, no heavy feeling in my quads and a little calf niggle I had seems to have settled so all is good.

Bit of a boring morning, no appointments until lunchtime so a morning spent cleaning the house, doing the washing and sorting out tea for later as I'll be working from lunch until 8pm.

Grabbed all my soggy wet running gear and chucked it in the wash with some other things and then straight in the dryer. 

Now, imagine here that an hour or so later you went to get the freshly washed and dried clothes from the tumble dryer and imagine if you will that when you looked down at the dryer you see a familiar looking object that looks like the empty packet of an energy gel lying in the dryer, an energy gel that's clearly been washed and dried and kind of exploded.

Exploded everywhere in the tumble dryer.

Imagine that.

The sticky, sugary mess of an energy gel all over all your clothes.

Are you imagining what that would be like?

The red hot, sticky, sugary mess of an energy gel all over your clothes.

Yeah, it is as grim as you can imagine.

So then I washed all the washing again and dried it all again.

Such a twat.

At least it was an SIS one and not a £4 maurten.

Easy run day, it's cold and it's raining.

I'm sick of the weather. 

I want to go on holiday.

Head out to do 5 miles and then head to co-op to grab a meal deal for me and Mrs J for lunch.  As always they have sod all vegetarian options apart from an onion bhaji sandwich, who the fuck puts an onion bhaji in a sandwich, sort your shit out co-op.

I buy a bag of crisps for my lunch.

And an aero.

And some of my Toblerone.

Home for a bit of work and then I'm off to the tattoo parlour, been thinking of getting a new one for a while and my obsession with Nick Cave means I'm getting some lyrics tattooed, it's a song I love called 'push the sky' and I decided to get it on the inside off my right arm.

Turns out this is a very painful area to get tattooed, it kind of fells like someone sticking needles in your arm constantly and over and over again for an hour.

I sort of forgot to tell the family I'm getting it done but they'll soon see it. 

If you're reading this mum I got a new tattoo, you can't tell me off anymore as I'm 49 and I have a wife to do that now.  And hitting children is frowned upon, you may have got away with it in the 70's and 80's but now it's time to put the belt away.

I should say my mum never hit me as a child.

She kicked me. 

All the time, for fun mostly.

She's a vicious woman.

She's gonna punch me when she reads this.

Usually it's 4 miles easy and some hills but haven't got time today, not strictly true as I could have gone out at 7am but that's just another way of saying I don't have time today.

Massage booked for 11am for one final flush out of my legs and loosen of my quads which once again feel a little tight and stiff.

Friday night is still a booze free Zone so I'll nip out to buy some Guinness zero so I can pretend I'm drinking.

Last Sunday run before the marathon, just a little 14 miler today so no need to head to the coast road and I decide to stick along the coast.

Wake up at 7:45 and realise if I jump up now and get dressed, I could jog down Monkseaton Drive and meet up with the EMC crew on the prom.  So I roll over and go back to sleep.

Wake up 15 mins later and get up and get ready.

Only 14 miles so don't need gels and things today but I want to do a test run fully loaded with gels, Kendal mint cake and salt sticks so loads the shorts and head out.  The plan today is up to Seaton Sluice, loop round and head back along the coast to Tynemouth, down through Shields, back up past Tynemouth Golf Club into Tynemouth and back along the coast to finish at co-op and treat myself to a coffee and a chocolate twist.

Quick check at mile 1 and pace is 8:26, all is good so flick the screen off and settle into the run.

It's cold.

My fingers are numb, I can't undo the zip on my pocket to get my salt sticks, last week I wore gloves and couldn't get salt sticks because I had no grip.

I'm now I'm a glove/no glove dilemma.  This will eat away at me all week and I wont know what to do and then I'll make a rash decision on Sunday morning and spend most of the marathon overthinking it.

Loop through Sluice and head along to Tynemouth, I spot the E team runners in Cullercoats who give me a cheer and round of applause, people out walking give me a look trying to work out why people are clapping me, probably wondering if I'm a local celebrity, maybe I'm Sam Fender, Ant or perhaps Dec, the bloke from ACDC, maybe Sting, oh I know Jimmy Nail or that other bloke from that show Jimmy Nail was on Kevin something, Denise Welch she looks a bit like a bloke, Jayne Middlemiss, remember her, I fancied her in the 90's, whatever happened to Jayne Middlemiss. That's it, I've run out of famous Geordies.

The bloke that played Des Barnes in Coronation Street, he was a Geordie I think.  He was at my 6th form leaving party back in 1993, I look back on that now and wonder why a man in his 30's or 40's was at a party full of 17 and 18 year olds.  I had a drunken wee at the urinal next to him and stared at him awkwardly the entire time.

I just remembered he was there with the bloke from Minder, not George Cole or Dennis Waterman, the other guy who was in the later series and played the Dennis Waterman replacement.  I'm going to Google this now.

Phil Middlemiss, he's from Hartlepool and he was 29 when he was at my 6th form party.

And the Minder fella was Gary Webster and he was 28 and he's from London, not even close to being a Geordie.

Anyway, I digress.

I saw Ben! We passed each other in Shields, it was a lovely moment and I had a smile on my face for the next few miles.

Finished the run, went to co-op and no fucking chocolate twists.  No chocolate croissants.  All they had were two apple tart things or a raisin swirl.

I bought both apple things, an old lady with a Zimmer frame was behind me, I heard her sigh when I took the second apple tart.  She can have the raisin swirl, I just ran 14 miles and I deserve it and I highly doubt she's done 15 miles with that Zimmer frame.

She wasn't even wearing trainers.

One week to go, traditional Sunday night visiti to the oub and ill be on the zero alcohol beer once again.

Im going to google what happened to Jayne Middlemiss now.

All previous blogs are available to read HERE