We’ve been back from Philadelphia for 2 weeks now so it’s about time I caught up! I’m in the middle of a lush Spa Day so finally feel like I have the headspace to write. Philly was good for running for me. Here’s a summary:
The Liberty Bell
Run 1: the first morning we had a little explore round the block from the hotel using Couch to 5km week 3 intervals.
Run 2: We ran (week 3 intervals again) to the Museum of Art and then obviously we took it in turns to run up the Rocky Steps.
Knee high to the Rocky Statue
Run 3: last morning and a 2 mile explore along the river
Not a run but time on feet: 11 miles walking round Philly on our last day to see the Japanese House and Garden.
All the running felt quite hard. It felt too warm and I felt like breathing was tough. But what wasn’t hard was getting out to run. Somehow getting out is easier when I am away somewhere. It was also lovely to run with Kath. We’re not doing much of that at the moment.
While in Philly I made all sorts of plans for when we got home. I really thought I was getting somewhere with consistency. But that’s not quite how it worked out. More on that later.
Philly was also good in the sense that there were lots of reminders about why I want to run and why I want to be fitter. I would have liked to have been able to do more tourist running. It’s fun to go see the sights on foot early in the morning. I also want to be able to walk places and not worry about distance. I got more tired than I’d like towards the end of our walk. I don’t want fitness for fitness’s sake, I want to be able to keep going on our adventures.
I’m in Birmingham for work and currently sitting in the Clayton Hotel restaurant hoping that writing this on my phone will make me look unsociable enough to stop any of the others joining me for breakfast. There should be a very clear rule against joining others for breakfast unless explicitly agreed beforehand.
Anyway, I am feeling quite pleased with myself because I actually got out for a run. I was awake early but couldn’t really be bothered to get up. I felt dehydrated and quite creaky. I dozed for a bit, had some water and decided to at least go for a little walk in what seemed to be glorious morning sunshine. I got my running gear on and set off. I walked up the slope towards the cathedral and after about 5 minutes dropped into run/walk. I carried on to symphony hall and then looped back to say hi to the Floozie in the Jacuzzi before coming back past the still closed shops, Moor Street station and the seemingly ever expanding HS2 building site.
The run was almost exactly 2 miles and felt like a positive loop to start the day with. My right hamstring and calf are tight and might need some tlc but other than that it just felt nice to be out.
Week 3 was always going to be a challenge to my running. I spent the entire week (actually Monday to Monday) in Bath at the final residential for my DBA programme. I can’t quite believe that the taught phase of the programme is now over or that I have managed to get 2 distinctions and a merit so far (given everything going on I would have happily taken 3 passes!) but all that’s another story for a different blog! Let’s just say the residentials are always intense and somehow I really felt the intensity of this one. Maybe it was just because I was 100% present physically and mentally without any day job distractions. For the week I was basically a sort of happy tired that was mostly mental and which comes from thinking about hard things lots. I’m not explaining it very well. It’s sort of energising but at the same time utterly exhausting – but in a good way…
Me – Bath Botanical Gardens
Anyway, before I tie myself in knots completely trying to explain my happy tired brain, let’s focus on running. Monday was out because of travel and then classes until 6 and then hotel check in and catching up with people… Tuesday I felt totally overwhelmed and at the same time eager to get on with my studies – so instead of running I got the bus to Bath University campus and got stuck in. The bus stop was right by Pulteney Weir (below) so not a bad place to wait for a bus and it was also lovely to wander through town, past the Abbey and taking in the really quite phenomenal architecture. Wednesday I tried to get my backside out before my brain could find an excuse. I had a random trot round Bath which felt clunky and not at all normal (see previous post). It was still quite dark so I didn’t take any pictures. I made decisions about which way to go based on avoiding the few people already out and I spent a disproportionate amount of time thinking about how sporty Bath Uni is and that all the runners I had seen out and about looked liked runners. Yes yes I know! Turns out I ran a very wonky but somehow very satisfying almost figure of 8.
Strava map of my run
Roman Baths
I tried to stretch but there wasn’t really enough space in my hotel room and I was also desperate to get showered and sorted and out. I had a windowless room – cheaper, but not great – so wanted to spend as little time in it as possible. The truth is, I wasn’t moving enough. I was spending all day sitting whether that was doing some work before class, in class, on the bus orin the evening at restaurants or on/in bed in my room and everything was stiffening up. I felt creaky. Very creaky and my foot was hurting a little again. For run 2, I put running gear on but I was just going to go walk and see how it felt. I walked almost all of the 25 minutes or whatever it was I was meant to be doing. I think I only ran 3 or 4 of the intervals. I felt better for having got out but annoyed at not running. I think it was probably the right thing to do given how niggly my feet and ankles were once I got up to the uni though.
River Avon, Bath
On Sunday I was aiming for run 3. Oh how I would love to get the week ticked off even if there was way more walking involved than I wanted. By Sunday I was tired. I snoozed my alarm several times and by the time I properly woke up I wasn’t sure I would have time to run my 2 miles, come back to the hotel, get showered and organised and then get the bus. So instead I got dressed, grabbed my bag and set off on a walk. From the hotel I walked to the Royal Crescent, from there to the botanical gardens and then towards the river. Then I had to decide whether I was going to walk up to the uni. I hadn’t done it all week mainly to protect my foot and when I had set off from the hotel I thought I might walk up so at least I’d done it once…but I could feel my foot. So instead of heading back the short way and then walking up hill to campus, I walked the long way on the flat along the river. Flat is much easier on my foot. By the time I got back into town to grab coffee and breakfast, I was in pain though. I’d only walked a little over 3 miles and it was glorious thinking time but it was probably a stupid thing to do. We finished a little earlier than during the week so once back in town I went to the Roman Baths and then into the Abbey – it was nice to do some tourist stuff, too. We celebrated our last night of the residential with a lovely meal in town.
Pulteney Weir and Bridge, Bath
On Monday I really did feel stiff and my foot hurt – to the point that I took the anti-inflammatory pain killers I had been prescribed. No chance of getting a run in before the final day of classes. I decided to count the 2 outings that were essentially walks, tick off week 3 and move on. Getting out three times and moving is still winning. Consistency is perhaps more important than whether I run or walk or how fast at the minute. I need getting out there every couple of days to just be what I do again – the more it’s a habit the easier it is to get out. For week 4 I would be at home so it should be easier.
Well, we are home and jet lag is a bitch. My grand total of achievements for today is to get out of bed briefly and to make some hummus and then some lemon drizzle cake. I might add eating said cake to that list shortly. Still, there are tourist running blog posts to be caught up on!
We left Shenandoah on Friday morning and on the way out of the park stopped at the Northern Visitor Centre called Dickey Ridge and did a little loop walk from there. We just did the short Fox Hollow Loop which was a nice leg stretcher. We kept our eyes peeled for another bear, there were signs that one was in the area and warning people not to talk the loop with dogs as the bear was aggressive towards dogs. We didn’t see one though but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t there.
Then we drove to Gettysburg watching the landscape change again as we went. After a little walk round, a drink at the bar and a shower we headed to the Mason Dixon Distillery for food and a drink or two. After trying a spirits flight and then another cocktail our morning run was never going to be all rainbows and unicorns.
We set off and went in a straight line from our hotel until we hit the Gettysburg National Cemetery. It was too hot, too humid, too everything. I was struggling to breathe and my legs were heavy. I huffed and puffed my way for that half mile feeling pretty crappy. Well what do you expect drinking a mix of vodka, rum and rough as a bear’s backside stuff the American’s call whiskey.
We walked round the cemetery and then into the Military Park. We walked through the park from monument to monument. It felt a bit odd to run so we didn’t. I was more than happy to walk! It is a quite spectacular site and the scale is hard to capture.
After a quick pee stop and after having seen lots of people running through the park we decided to run back to the hotel. It was roughly 2.5 miles ish and had some hills in. I wasn’t optimistic but clearly walking round the park had woken my system up and as soon as we started running I knew I felt better. We plodded our way back through the park and then along the road rather than through the cemetery and actually it was a good little run in the end.
So I am still in catch up mode… this was written on the 5th June and edited today.
We left DC on Monday and that is not a drive I ever want to repeat (and I wasn’t even driving!). We picked up our car (a Nissan Kicks we’ve called Neville), negotiated our way to Arlington Cemetery and walked round that for a bit and then headed out into what can only be described as lane chaos. It seems that exits and turn offs are located anywhere and that every car seeks to take the most direct route to theirs thus cutting across however many lanes of traffic there happen to be switching places with each other and generally causing panic in anyone who is trying to figure out where they need to be.
Eventually we were out of the worst and dared to breathe again. Satnav didn’t really help and the signs are next to useless because they do not seem to say anything useful or be based on any sort of logic. Then we got stuck in traffic for quite a while before eventually the road cleared and we could begin to enjoy the drive. At about the same time the landscape began to change and we were clearly heading into rather more rural Virginia. I thought running here might be fun and interesting.
We arrived at our hotel just on the edge of Charlottesville, checked in and went for a little walk round some little walking paths at the back of the hotel. We’d had enough though. The drive had been pretty full on so we decided we wouldn’t try and do anything or go anywhere but instead have dinner at the hotel and get an early night. We were thinking about maybe running the next morning but then changed our minds on Tuesday and headed to Monticello, the home of Thomas Jefferson, pretty much as soon as it opened and immediately after breakfast. We still had some vague ideas about running later.
After that we looked at Charlottesville itself including a walk up to the University of Virginia campus. I think we were both tired because we struggled to make decisions about what to do or where to eat etc and we weren’t communicating well. Again we decided an early night was needed so we didn’t run. I felt a bit crap about not running. We had printed loads of running maps for Charlottesvile and there was a trail by the river which we should have been able to get on and I was vaguely conscious of now being behind my #run1000Miles target and not having run very much since the London Marathon… But it was the right call. Running would not have been positive and sometimes not running is the best thing you can do for future running.
really (not) a runner 