Being on holiday is Super Sweet.

Well hello to all you lovely people. This weather is just fantastic right now, I'm really getting that summer-vibe now. Please, please, please let it last for the next couple of weeks.
After that I'm back in work and (sorry to all of you who may be going on your holiday then) I don't care if it starts raining again and being generally rubbish.

One of the downsides to this good climate is having to put off your physical pursuits till the sun has started going down. It's too hot during the day and I'm not getting up early on a weekend.

No way.

Then if you've been hanging out in a beer garden it's nigh on impossible to get up the motivation to go home and get changed and start your long run. I didn't get out till eight on Sunday evening but it was worth it. I watched the sunset and took things steady for ninety minutes. There's no point in trying to break yourself on the longer runs. Save those Hellish sessions for the sprint days!

I had my first on-line donation the other day, I was quite excited I can tell you. I have a little over two months to reach my target but I know my colleagues will be easily cajoled into donating some of their hard-earned for such a good cause. Especially if I time my asking of them for pay-day. Tactics :)

Seriously though, thank you to everyone who has donated so far, it means a lot to me given the year my mums had.

She recently collapsed due to low blood pressure because the levels of her medication still aren't quite right. Not a typical stroke scenario and certainly not as dangerous though she could easily have been injured if she fell.

The doctors took her off the strongest tablets she was on and she seems as feisty as ever though you can never predict when these situations will occur. Incidentally my mum has certain food intolerances and the blood pressure tablets are coated in lactose so they were off the cards immediately. However the cost of getting lactose-free medication is extortionate!

Thank you NHS, many slate you and you're hard to convince when we need something (which'll cost you an arm and a leg!), but mum says you're OK.

Now I'm under orders to have dinner ready on time tonight so I have to go shopping before everyone else thinks the same thing. And it's such a lush day :(

See you soon.

Oh yeah before I forget, I have a web page with Just Giving, if you click the link below you can check out their site as well as my page. I've put links to The Stroke Association on there as well as back to here (in case you get lost on the way).
Please let me know if there's a problem with any of the links and I can check them out.

The sound of music.

Some of you may notice that the title of this entry is very much like the name of a well known musical. However I am NOT making a reference to said musical hence the lack of capital letters.
Not that I'm against it or anything it's just not my cup of tea.
Although all those hills would make for an excellent morning jog.
And if there were, perhaps, some people playing music then I could listen whilst I ran up the aforementioned hills.

I find listening to music when I'm out running or cycling takes my mind off the task at hand and somehow makes it easier. All of a sudden I'm focusing on my pace and getting it in time with the music. Getting into a good old groove. Before too long I'm back where I started and my earphones are full of sweat.

I used to listen to music when I cycled to and from work and it took out the monotony of the twice-daily slog.

I used to listen to music in the gym when I was lifting up heavy weights and putting them back down again.

I used to listen to music when I ran. Wherever I ran.

But over time I forgot what the outside world sounded like. I couldn't remember a time when I hadn't had my headphones clamped around my skull pumping uplifting noise into my aural channels.

Running in the woods hearing the wind in the trees, the squelch and slap of thick mud underfoot, the rain-drummer beating it's snare pattern onto newly formed skins of water.

The constant whirr of tyre on tarmac and the wind whistling past my ears. The feeling of comparative speed exacerbated by the wind vectoring past my ears as I turned my head into corner after corner.

And, well... I need to block out the music channel in the gym. You can only lift so much without needing to cry out to the gods "GIVE ME METAL!" Lady Ga-Ga just doesn't cut it.

So now I run and cycle headset free. Listening to my aching bones as they creak with every bio-mechanical movement. But able to really reflect on the day rather than prolong it by blocking out my brain with hard techno.




Plus my iPod is broken.

I put it in the washing machine.

I was sad.

But if I hadn't had such a mishap I would have missed out on a remnant of the summer solstice. As I ran up to Stonehenge recently (it's right down the road!) I saw in the distance an old library bus with a large tent pitched behind it. As I drew closer I could make out the distinct sound of some psychedelic trance. As I gained ground towards the bus I heard the slightly off-time rhythm of a drummer laying their own pattern on top of the music which, by now, I had figured out was coming from a small PA in the tent. Not just bongos mind you. An actual drum kit. Snare, hi-hats and a kick drum banging over the top of the wobbly acid bass-line.

As a smile spread across my face and my feet aligned themselves with this free feed of four-beat fantastica I ran on, back home, happy that I hadn't been listening to something else.

Lady Ga-Ga is now my prime source of aggression and rage in the gym.