Isolation Journal 29

Another "not" day off for me today.  Alan got up as normal and logged on for work at 9am, I faffed around on social media before getting out of bed around 10.15am and made myself yoghurt, granny smith, granola and home grown raspberries.  Only one coffee today.

I got straight into my run kit as I wanted to get a run over and done with and I put on a load of washing and took out the recycling and chatted to the gardener who mows our lawn for us.

I had planned to run for about an hour, but it was about 28 degrees so after a fairly fast 5km I decided to head back as it was just too warm and did just over 4 miles!  I listened to more of What Alice Forgot which is such a good audio book! I had an ice lolly when I got back and felt a bit light headed so sat down for a bit.  I was due to take little Alex (not so little anymore) out for a walk, but he had heatrash so wasn't heading out, so I had a long bath and then headed downstairs and made a salad with sriarcha mayo dressing and a couple of small potatoes with cheese, butter and marmite. I had another ice lolly.  Some herb plants that I'd ordered arrived and I planted out some mint, coriander, parsley, chives and nearly pulled up some seedlings that I then realised had grown from a tomato I planted 3 months back, so I replanted them!

I did a bit of work email stuff and Alan suggested we head out on the bikes and so I got my bike out and didn't get into biking gear, just the shorts and t-shirt that I already had on.  We cycled to post a parcel and then went to Fairburn Ings via Lumby and locked up our bikes and went for a walk and did some more mapping using the inaturist app.  We then cycled back via Ledsham just under 10 miles in total, I was surprised to get some cycling strava segments not clipped in or in proper cycling gear.

I've also been trying to sort out re-letting the studio flat that I own in the centre of Leeds, I'm not sure the agent I've been with since I bought it in 2017 are being very proactive so I'm considering whether I change agents.  It feels wrong to have it vacant, I wouldn't mind reducing the price especially if it could help a key worker.

We chatted with our nextdoor neighbour and I cleared up some feathers from a bird that the cats had clearly brought in.  Alan then made some chicken Laksa for tea and we ate outside and watched Chris from number 5 on his sit on mower cut the grass and Alan watered the plants and the lawn for us and Denise at number 4.  I had a Gentleman Jack and Ginger and we had ice cream and cream for dessert.  I then had a rose wine with some ice and came inside to watch some Catfish and plan my guide meeting for tomorrow as well as write a session plan for run club.

Isolation Journal 27

Mondays I usually find extremely challenging in lockdown as I am a person who gets their morning energy from seeing people, and not through a screen!

I had a much healthier than usual breakfast of yoghurt, homegrown raspberries, granola and a granny smith cut up with the magic slicer thing!

This morning I managed to kick off well and sent a shortlist to a job as well as catching up with people I'd not spoken to for a while.  At 12pm I went down and did my online Pilates class that was challenging, but just the right level of challenge.  Alan had made Eggy bread and fruit compote for lunch and I just cooked my slice of bread before eating it in front of my laptop.

I managed to do a load of washing and hang it out whilst catching up with a candidate.  All good for multitasking today.  I had 2 coffees in total today and one cookie as a snack.

I finished work around ten past 6 and joined Alan for a run of about 5K and used the new app that I'd downloaded inaturalist to find out what different plants in the fields were - pineapple weed, burdock, onion (we foraged some!), some hares that I took from a big distance and zoomed in my phone camera and it even recognised Maya!  I asked Alan if I was the geekiest person he'd ever gone out with and he said yes apart from perhaps someone he was with who was really into pylons...

We came home and Alan finished cooking tea that he'd prepped before we went out which was okra rice and a carribean lamb curry, it was delicious.  I had a whisky and ginger and a lime cheesecake as treats!

We watched Catfish the film which was far weirder than any of the encounters he has in the show, it was really odd.  I then watched some more Best of Big Brother.

Isolation Journal 25

It was fairly late by the time I got into bed last night, probably around 2am, but I didn't expect my first open eyed "this is a new day" realisation to be at 11.50am!  I'd missed the chance of logging into the parkrun zoom call and it was lunchtime.

I made some black pudding sausages and scrambled eggs with sriracha for brunch (or lunch!) and we watched some Scrubs.

I'd planned a few things I wanted to do over the weekend on my post it notes and I did a few of them like tidying the lounge, dining room and kitchen and I managed to hoover a bit later, but still need to mop the floors down.  Alan cleaned the bathroom and after nearly 14 weeks of black marks post lush bathbomb we have a white bath again!

At 4pm I realised that it was nearly time for my 5th dance class with Eliza, so I watched Catfish and ate leftover curry from last night (not the best way to prepare for a dance class) before the class at 5pm.  I was awarded star of the week and we learned that our dance teacher had interviewed and recruited her sister to do all the admin for her (her mum hoped writing invoices and posters would encourage her in her writing) with a payment of not playing loud music at least 2 times a week.  I do enjoy the sense of entrepeneurship she has demonstrated.

My friend Gem came around to get me to sign a form for the guides for gift aid and it was nice to see for a catch up with her daughter and husband Chris, I also saw both the neighbours from number 2 and number 5 as well.  

Alan went for a run and then after he'd returned told me that he thought that I should cut his hair for him.   Last time was quite stressful, but I'd watched a video from Brad Mondo which seemed to have a better method and so I shared it with Alan and we watched it and used it to cut his hair, again he put it live on Facebook, but I'm more pleased with the end results even if it took 40 mins!

I then took my opportunity to go for a run and did 6.5K in 35 mins and watched the sunset.  Felt a bit sluggish, but was very pleased to be out.  Dinner was ready when I got through the door and so I had a pork stir fry with rice from Hello Fresh and we opened a bottle of Cava and watched Hidden Figures as my friend Mark mentioned it earlier.  It was a really good film, although my attention span for films is very challenging at the moment  

I'm now running a bath and I've very naughtily opened a bag of Cadburys treatsize chocs that I ended up getting for free as they were incorrected sold as weighing more than the catalog, but 8 weeks later they've not asked me to return them, but I have to say after very little chocolate in the past 3 months, I'm eating it, but with less joy than I thought I'd experience.

Isolation Journal 20

Alan got up earlier today to go to his office and was running around as he'd also agreed to take the go pro back to our his work colleague Danielle who leant it to us when we went snorkling in Barbados (we didn't expect to have it so long)  Qubit came running up the stairs and had caught a baby rabbit.  The rabbit was unharmed (although surely scared) and we managed to catch it (well Alan did, even gave it a little stroke) and put it in the laundry basket and set it free in one of the neighby fields.

I had 2 black coffees and a bowl of cornflakes for breakfast and another day of a lot of teams meetings, 3 lots of internal meetings including one quite detailed one coming up with ideas.  

I managed to place a candidate today which was good news, it's been a bit busier over the last 2 weeks, but since lockdown it's been much quieter than usual.  At least organisations are becoming more comfortable with the prospect of recruiting and onboarding remotely.

I had a couple of small potatoes for lunch with cheese, marmite and butter for lunch and a salad of lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber with cider apple vinegar, olive oil and salt dressing.  I had a couple of chocolate digestives and a tunnocks tea cake as a snack.

Alan got back after meeting up with Danielle and opened a small package that was from his Uncle Dez and had some old currency that he'd found in his Mum (Alan's Grandma's) belongings.  I'd watched a bit of the Daily Briefing and it seems really odd that there are no scientists around these days.  I also responded to my Mum's face book post that she'd shared of Boris Johnson writing a whole essay about statues, I really genuinely think that people are more important than things (even if the things are made to look like people) I commented that perhaps it would be better if our "prime minister" spent more time on things like looking at the fact that many children will be going hungry over the summer holidays.  I'm very touched by Marcus Rashford who has donated many meals to kids and is campaigning to get some government policy change on this.  I shared these thoughts in response to the Boris Johnson post and got told by her friend Pauline (who I remember as a child being the kind mum of my friend Peter) "So typical of you and you ilk?" although hasn't clarified what she means by this, but given her previous pro brexit anti social justice replies I'm guessing she is all about the statues..

I tweeted This world is confusing, apparently children are important when they are an excuse to drive 260 miles during lockdown, but not as important when they are hungry needing meals throughout school holidays.  Neither are as important as bits of metal and stone made to look like people

Work finished up late around 7pm as I had a few longer calls this evening and a lot of emails to sort through.  Another win on the day was that I'd picked up a role to refer to our sister company which felt like good news.

Alan had prepped the Hello Fresh for Chicken Tikka Masala from last week, accidentally we'd not checked the best before date on the chicken so I swapped it for some we'd got delivered with the Amazon Prime at the end of last week.  

I ate dinner and we watched Scrubs and then after I'd let the food go down I went for a run, I went a little way along towards Newthorpe and as it started to get dark came closer to home and the last 5 minutes I ran up and down the road up to the gateway.  I did just over 5.6K in just over 30 mins.  I listened to the audio book of Suble Art of Not Giving a... quite useful giving all the social media rage going on.

I had a shower in the bath and then had some cherry crumble from last night.

Isolation Journal 17

I slept terribly last night, Alan was in the other room and so I read until very late and then as I was drifting asleep at around 2am my laptop started narrating things.  I was feeling really angry and kicked my legs up and down on the bed.   I also felt really lonely as even the cats both decided to sleep in the other room.

I managed to get mysefl awake and logged on for work, I'd hoped to get up a bit early and do some morning pages, but I was too tired, so instead I had coffee and cornflakes.  I brought the milk in from the pouring rain outside - 1 full fat, 2 semi skimmed and 1 orange.  I watched a video from our CEO that revealed some positive news, I had a chat with my director about it and then cracked on with a lot of work.  I managed to arrange 4 interviews as well as sort out a few other ad hoc things and catch up with people.  I also managed to refer 5 - 7 jobs.

Lunchtime Alan made some saffron rice and mixed it with the pork mince from yesterday and I didn't have an allergic reaction...the only difference was the lack of rice noodles.  I can't imagine I'm allergic to rice noodles.

I ended up getting a bit distracted at the end of the day and wanted to make sure I reduced my emails down below 300 to set me up well for next week and so I finally logged off at about 7.30pm.  Alan had already been on Zwift and also had a bath and started cooking.  I still wanted to go for a run so I made sure I got into my run kit and had dinner which was wedges with mince and beans and cheese and waited an hour before going out for my run.  

I got a reminder email on crowdcast about a flash fiction reading and listened to a bit and Lauren and I discussed it and think that we might have a go at entering next week.

It was past 9pm and pretty overcast so again I did lots of hill reps and did just over 6K up and down the driveway.  I listened again to more of I'm not your Baby Mother by Candice Brathwaite and the birth story makes me grateful I'm unlikely to experience this.  I also gifted a copy to my friend Hannah as I thought she'd find it interesting.

I came back in cleaned the kitchen and helped Alan unload the Amazon pantry order than had arrived and had a bath with a lush lavendar bubble bar and then had some malbec that Alan had had with dinner, but I'd saved for after my run.  

I put Scrubs on the TV because my brain is still better with familiar content at the moment.

Isolation Journal 16

Again another day with quite a lot of meetings, a kick off, a sector, another sector, a client and a candidate and then guides on zoom.  Lots of time spent looking at my face.

I managed to squeeze in pilates at 12pm with West Point Practice which was challenging, but good for my core strength - important when we're all a lot less active at the moment.  Qubit meowed really loudly at the start of the lesson.

Alan made a very tasty pork mince, Chinese five spice noodle dish for lunch and I ate it upstairs catching up on more work.  

For some reason ever since perhaps the first breakfast we had in Barbados I've had random allergic reactions shortly after I eat or drink, not every time and not for weeks at a time sometimes, but today my face felt like it was on fire and my knees, arms, chest and face went bright red.  It died down after about 20 minutes, but made me feel odd.  There doesn't seem to be a consistent obvious cause, but worth tracking I suppose?

I finished work at 6.30pm and dashed downstairs to cook Hello Fresh for tea - duck with plum sauce and mashed potato.  I finished just in time to be able to dial into the guide meeting.  I think Alan was irritated by me rushing around to get it finished, I was irritated that I had to cook before guides and that it was cold by the time I got to eat.  

Guides we did a UMA on privaledge using examples of animals and whether they always had food, a safe place to sleep etc, they seemed to enjoy it and have also discovered the chat function on zoom which was interesting!  We used the whiteboard function which was new and seemed to work quite well.

After Guides I ate my food and then messed around on social media before getting changed and going for a run at 9.20pm.  I also had a call from Ally my neighbour who wanted to borrow some red wine vinegar, I managed to find 1 single sachet and posted it through her door although I think she needed 4 tablespoons.

It was wet and starting to get dark so I did a hills session running up and down the slope that leads up to the gatehouse as it started to get darker and darker.  I really do appreciate this time of year for the extra long nights to give me time to do more activities outside.  I ran just over 6K and was able to tick off enough "activity" for 8 vitality points (I hope!)  I listened to more of "I'm not your baby mother" by Candice Brathwaite whilst I ran and made the monotony less frustrating.

I came back in and washed my hands before cleaning up the kitchen surfaces and was delighted to see that Alan had emptied and refilled the dishwasher.  I put a little bleach and water in the half sink with the clothes and covered with a chopping board to soak overnight.

I'm now running and bath and hopefully will help me get a good night of sleep.

Isolation Journal 15

Today was my "day off" and I felt totally exhausted so I ended up waking up when Alan got up to go to work and then falling asleep until about 10.30am and not getting out of bed until 11am.  I wasn't sure what to do with the day, I knew I needed to do a bit of tidying and wanted to go for a run of at least 7 miles, but that was about it.  I got into my run kit to make sure that I would get myself out for a run and wanted to make it easier for myself.  

I had granola, a granny smith and somee yoghurt for breakfast and a couple of coffees and then watched a bit of catfish after setting off the washing machine and emptying the dishwasher.  I then listened to the Archers whilst I cleaned out the baking cupboard - Alan was less impressed with my accomplishment when he got home. I also took the dead flowers that were from my birthday out to the green waste bins and also some weeds from the garden.  I took some compost food waste to the compost bin.  

Maya brought in a dead bird and it made me sad.  

I then did another load of washing and got settled down in front of the laptop to write up a session plan for runclub.  I went for a pyramid session where you warm up and then run 1 minute at a high intensity 7 - 9 RPE and then have 30 secs of recovery and increase each minute by a minute up to 2, 3, 4 and then 5 before doing down 4, 3, 2, 1 and then cool down run.  

I then finally went out for my run and I'd planned to do around 7 miles and managed a little over this.  It was damp and so I wore long sleeves and leggings and I didn't push myself too hard and it felt quite comfortable.  I borrowed Alan's aftershoks headphones so I could hear well and listened to I am not your baby mother by Candice Brathwaite on audible, I heard her being interviewed on the High Low Podcast last week and I couldn't buy the book as it was sold out and actually I loved hearing her speak so I was keen to hear her narrate her own book.  It definitely made the run go a lot easier.  I also had an idea for a book I could write, something targetting siblings of kids with behavioural problems, I was that child and I read Superfudge by Judy Blume and found it really fun to read, but also really helpful.  No ideas of plots of anything yet, but a concept.

Alan rang me as I was running and I had to be quick as people were staring at me.  I then got back and he was sat drinking tea on the front step and watching the bumblebees.  I had a glass of orange squash and ice and an orange lolly and realised I'd forgotten to have any lunch.

We watched the Daily Briefing again and it's lovely that people who have been living alone can now form bubbles, but the rules around it did seem confusing and I'm still concerned that the death rate is high and that the back to school goals seem to have been abandoned rather than thought through in a considered fashion.

I then got a call from my boss who wanted to fill me in on a few things which was interesting and some food for thought.

Alan cooked hello fresh for tea and it was a really nice sweetcorn and chorizo creamy pasta and we had some naughty ice cream for dessert and then I went up for a bath and came down to watch more catfish and tidy up the dining room and the kitchen.

Isolation Journal 14

So this is now 2 weeks of writing a journal everyday and it's strange it feels like a lot has happened, but that also there is an overriding sense of deja vu.

This morning Alan was awake early, I had forgotten that he had to head into the office and so he got up and left around 8am.  I snoozed for a bit and put Headspace on for 10 minutes before getting up.

I had cornflakes for breakfast and a couple of coffees and then had a team meeting to start off the morning, then two client meetings and it's been pretty busy at work all day.  I've made a dent in some of the emails as when I have too many it feels as though I'm not on top of things and might miss something so hopefully I can get them squared off and feel more in control.

One of the meetings started at 11.30am and went on until about 12.20pm (although I was late to join as I hadn't realised it wasn't on Teams and that I'd get the automatic alert to say that it was ready to start, it was on googlemeet so I had to sign in separately.  I missed my Pilates class, but I did have a delivery which was addressed to Alan, but was my exciting customised Vans trainers with bees and flowers on.  I had pizza from last night for lunch and then I was a bit hungry for snacks and I had a protein bar and a mini babybel.

I had one interview request which I didn't manage to confirm by the end of the day and the important roles that I'd picked up last week for a colleague we got lots of interviews on, including one for a friend's partner which is good news.

I watched the daily briefing and only 55 deaths which was positive, but there is always a weekend lag.  Other news topics that were interesting were the reporting on the Coulson statue being pulled down yesterday.  I was also reading about how a donut place in Leeds that a lot of people raved about has been exposed by an ex employee to be owned by racists/neo nazis, I'd not been there, but it made for uncomfortable reading.

I then got some more roles in to refer to colleagues just as I was about to sign off and then I went for a run with Alan.  We ran about 5.2K and took it steady with a few walk breaks.  My right knee was really sore when I first woke up, but this did get better and was fine for the run.

Alan made tea when we got back - Hello Fresh - Halluomi with couscous and salad and we had Haagen Daas salted caramel ice cream and some double cream for tea!

I went up for a quick shower, but ended up having a stupidly long bath - I don't get relaxed by baths, I get stuck, mess around on my phone and realise that the water is cold.  

I cleaned up the kitchen and then came into the lounge and logged on to write this and to check some more work emails.

Alan went up for a bath and I turned on Catfish again to watch whilst dealing with emails.

Isolation Journal 13

I realised this evening when out for a run that it's only 2 weeks since the whole Dominic Cummings story broke and it feels like a lot of "news" has happened since that time which is strange as we're still all fairly locked down.  Today I felt fairly low energy, quite low and just wasn't sure what to do with myself really as I didn't feel very productive.  

Again it was a bit of a late rise for us both as I went to bed before Alan did and read some of my book - Uncommon Types by Tom Hanks - it's an attempt to get my brain back into reading and it's working slowly.  My concentration span is terrible these days.  We probably didn't get to sleep until around 3.30am again and so we didn't really get up until about 11am.

I made the same breakfast again and we had home baked bread toast (mine with marmite) and then avocado, scrambled egg and sriacha sauce and we watched some TV the IT Crowd and some more Catfish.  

I dug out my old creative writing from when I was about 20 and doing a module at Uni on my BA English Language and Literature.  It was run by the brother of Nigel Williams, but I can't remember his name!  Nigel Williams lived in Wimbledon and was a reasonably successful novelist and I went to several house parties that his son Jack had when I was about 16 - they were great parties.  I even read one of his books and told his Dad when he came into the kitchen during one of the parties to get a drink.  It's irritating me that I can't remember what his name was maybe John Williams?  As I read through it, particularly the bits from when I was mid 20s I realised just how odd the antidepressants I was on made me behave (especially cipralex and prozac).  I'd written down the highlights of some of my dreams and I know everyone's dreams are odd, but wow these were so strange.  Maybe they'll feed into some writing now that I have the distance and experience from that time in my life to process it all.  It's weird to consider that this is the month that I stopped taking antidepressants 7 years ago, but that I was on them for 12 years of my life.

I did a load of washing and hung it out and put away the dry washing that was on the rack.

I investigated some online writing retreats and listened to the intro of one.  I then went and read upstairs as Alan was playing around with the internet and it kept cutting out.  I set off some dough in the breadmaker.

I came downstairs and watched some more Catfish after Alan had showed me how to use the Apple TV that arrived this afternoon.

The dough finished in the breadmaker and so I made 3 pizzas with tomato puree topped with spring onion and red pepper that Alan prepped for me and then some mozzarella and serrano ham and I also used up some of the roasted veg left over from Friday night.

I let the pizza go down and both Alan and me gave each other neck rubs as we have both had consistent headaches for the last few days.  Maya came running in having caught another bird - again I feel awful about this.

I then got myself out for a run and did 6.1K in just over half an hour and it was cold and I wore the wrong shorts that are too small and short for me.

I had a bath and then we watched Hypothetical and I ate leftover rhubarb and apple crumble with cream.  

Isolation Journal 12

Alan and I were up late until around 3.30am last night, I was writing and working on a piece of flash fiction.   It was of course really late when we woke up, probably about 11am and so we got up and had breakfast.  I'd put a loaf on overnight in the breadmaker and we had scrambled eggs, avocado with sriracha sauce.  

We put Space Force on the TV and I ended up napping on the sofa for a bit which it occurred to me hasn't really happened in lockdown as I'm generally getting a lot more sleep.  

We'd debated going to the usual parkrun location at later than 9am as one of my friends had invited me, but we got up too late.  We even got up too late for virtual parkrun coffeeshop.  Lauren had also invited me to a creative writing group at 1pm, but I was a bit too exhausted although I'm really keen to join it next month.

I hoovered the house and tidied the kitchen and set off the dishwasher and tidied up the lounge - more to be done tomorrow.  I listended to the High Low Podcast as I was doing it.

Alan did more coding and then went to get the shopping via click and collect and I joined the dance class by our friends 6 year old daughter again.  She did a good job and I dropped off my £1 payment on my run along with returning the Singapore guide book that they had leant us and 7 egg boxes that I'd saved up.  They have chickens and right at the start of lockdown were very kind at giving us some eggs on a few occasions.  I debating running with the 6 eggs they gave us, but in the end I picked them up on the way home it seemed like a wiser move!  I ran a bit more steadily as my hips have been sore and so I managed about 3.5 miles in 32 minutes.  

Maya managed to catch and kill and bird and as usually insisted on bringing it all the way upstairs, I love birds and it really breaks my heart when the cats catch and kill them.

Alan cooked a very delicious Carribean lamb curry and made rhubarb and apple crumble for dinner.  

We then watched more Picard and finished the series and then I put on Catfish that I've not watched for ages.  

I considered thoughts around the Black Lives Matters protests, What was really interesting was that Alan mentioned he'd seen 2 people doing a little protest at the supermarket, I wonder if a really organised and very socially distanced protest could reach lots of different locations?  I also read this article which really did make me pause for thought on this.  

Isolation Journal 10

Alan slept in the other room last night because he had a cough, although then didn't cough at all in the night and seems to be fine now thankfully.

I got up and made breakfast and had coffee again - we're a bit short on milk so I went for yoghurt, granny smith apple and granola and it was really nice.  

We had our morning kick off meeting and then I prepped for my meeting with a client at 10am with one of my colleagues and it went well.  We've certainly been a lot busier this week which has been positive.

I then did pilates online with my physio with some really tough core exercises.  I had to move Qubit in the Amazon box out of the way.  

Alan cooked some more of our home grown artichokes for lunch with garlic and I had a carrot chopped into batons and then 2 crisp breads with goats cheese and chutney.  

Back to work and a launch call for a BD competition next week and then more calling and then a team quiz which was good fun even if I was completely rubbish.

Alan kindly cooked dinner - pil pil prawn stir fry with rice and brought it up to me and so I came downstairs to eat it, but remembered that my friend Lauren was having a short story read out on the radio and so tuned in just in time - it was really good!

I then had guides online at 7pm and one of our young leaders lead the session by doing an online dance session - it was tough, but really fun and she was so good!  We had some guides join in that had been reluctant to, it's hard to get them all to be comfortable with seeing themselves online, I wish I could help them feel more comfortable.

I read an interesting post from one of my friends about #blacklivesmatter in how she thought her white friends could help support the movement.  One thing she mentioned was how people should unfriend her if they were bigots and my view is slightly different, I won't allow people who are already in a negative echo chamber to increase their own noise, I think it's important to challenge negative views and also see how they are forming the opinions that I may strongly disagree with.

It rained a lot today, but fortunately by around 8pm it had stopped so I went out for about 30 minutes and did 6K.  I didn't mean to go particularly fast, but it was still less than 8.30 minute miles.

I was a bit covered in mud by the time I came back as I splashed in puddles so I had a bath with a lavender lush bubble bar.

I then logged on to do my isolation blog and my computer did some updates and got stuck, fortunately it saved everything!

Isolation Journal 8

Today was a pretty exhausting day, another day of work starting with a 9am kick off meeting.  Again I had a couple of black coffees and some cornflakes for breakfast and during the 9am meeting I learned that having worked at 80% hours for the past 2 months we are going to have this reviewed and I could potentially go back to 100% or stay at 80%.  I have found having more free time has been good over the past 2 months, it's allowed me to do more focussed work for Guides and runclub as well as tidy the house, train and do blogging and the creative writing last week.  In the last couple of days at work though it's been signficantly more busy so I'm thinking that I could easily fill 5 days of work, there's is plenty to do.  I'm not sure what I'll decide or exactly when I need to have decided by, but the whole lockdown situation has made me value having more time at home and less time commuting.  

After the 9am meeting, we then had a temp update meeting and I helped one of my team in preparing a proposal for a client which I found out later this afternoon was accepted which is a big relief.  

I knew I had a busy evening this evening so I went out to post a letter to a friend and go for my run at lunchtime.  I had shared a tweet over the weekend from Postsecret about someone's biggest fear being able to not be with their pet if they had to be put to sleep because of the Covid situation, it is a huge fear for me and I hadn't realised that one of my very few twitter followers who I'm friends with in real life had been through this.  I felt bad, although I don't think she thought I'd done it intentionally so I sent her a card with some seeds to plant to remember her kitty and also a dribble that I'd written about cats.  I hope she likes it and it doesn't upset her more.  I also remembered that I'd planned on sending a tangle to one of my colleagues who mentioned she'd been really picking at her hands with all the anxiety.

My run was fast today, I managed to get a PB on a segment near me and was onlyl 8 seconds off being the fastest woman to have run it, I did just over 5K in just around 26 minutes.  I grabbed an orangle lolly out of the freezer and a pint of orange squash with ice and a bit of salt thrown in to cool down.  I was then straight back onto another teams call to launch an BD session for the afternoon and then a meeting about the housing sector and another about government and then a wrap up call - it was exhausting!  I managed to pick up 2 leads for colleagues in the North West that will hopefully turn into jobs and so it wasn't completely meeting focussed thankfully.  I realised that after signing in for the call straight after my run that an hour passed before I realised I'd not eaten so I quickly prepped a carrot and cucumber into sticks as well as cheese (coverdale and goats) chutney and a couple of slices of serrano ham.  

I then had 15 mins away from the laptop before running my virtual #runandtalk meeting for the run club, we had 6 people sign in and a nice chat about how we were finding things.  I was hungry so I'd grabbed a granny smith apple and cut it into chunks and a babybel light. I then had a call with my friends Hayley and Sam for a catch up for about an hour and a half.  and Alan very kindly made Beef Ragu for tea from Hello Fresh.  We talked about how we are all still very nervous of being out and about, even if we are allowed more freedom at the moment.  Hayley also told us about a commission she's working on.  I tidied the kitchen, grabbed another glass of white wine and a gu pudding and had a sneaky couple of slices of serrano ham.

I read a lot more about the unrest going on in America today, I blacked out my facebook and Instagram for #blackouttuesday and I'm still trying to read and learn more about how I can support black people better.  I feel ignorant, I feel ashamed, I feel guilty and I'm confused as to what I can do, so I'm going to do my best to learn more and try and support more.

New York Marathon - Marathon Number 11 and how not to run or train for a marathon!

In a fit of pique in January when Alan realised that he had a fair few air miles from his credit card (definitely recommend a reward or cashback credit card if you end up putting a lot on for work that you claim back!) he asked if I fancied going to New York again.  I'd been twice before and both times loved it and so was up for the idea, he then did some research and found that Sports Tour International offer guaranteed marathon places with a combined holiday package and asked if I fancied it - and so feeling positive about my running in the midst of Red January I said yes!

Now first things first, it's not a cheap marathon to run or enter.  I think that the ballot places are most likely as tough to get into as London and if you want to run as a group of friends/couple the likelihood of everyone getting a ballot place is probably very limited and I believe it still costs $358 per place if you are a non US resident.

If you are speedy you could try and run a qualifying time which is even tighter than London as for the 2020 race you would need to be nailing the following times, broken down by age group: 18 to 34 years old (3:00 for men, 3:30 for women) 35 to 39 (3:05 for men, 3:35 for women (I'm sure you still have to pay those chunky entry fees!).

You can also try and secure a place by running a "virtual" marathon between the 31st October and 3rd November.... although this has already happened for 2020 - but more information is here - again I'm guessing you'll still have to pay, although the fees listed for charity places seem to be around $150 and I think that is for US charities only and with fundraising targets of c$2650.  I've tried to see what the fundraising targets might be for UK charities, but it seems as though you have to apply and will still need to pay for your flights, accommodation and the $358 fee.

So the costs are a bit prohibitive, but the good news is that you get all of this stuff included in your fee:

• Entry to the 2020 TCS New York City Marathon, including fluid/fueling stations, medical support, entertainment, bag-check handling, and security 
• Official New Balance technical shirt 
• Official transportation to the start from Midtown Manhattan, Lower Manhattan, or the Meadowlands Sports Complex (New Jersey) - Start area, including breakfast and entertainment 
• Finisher materials: medal, food, beverages, and United Airlines/Foot Locker Heatsheet™ 

However...it's worth nothing that:

• The drawing is free to enter and limited to one entry per person
• Entry fees are charged upon acceptance. 
• Once an entrant is accepted, the entry fee is nontransferable under any and all circumstances, and is also nonrefundable under any and all circumstances except in the event of cancellation of the marathon.

There are a few other ways to enter, but most likely out of reach for a few of us, but if you are interested and a budding elite athlete or philanthropist, here are some ideas.

Accommodation in New York is also not cheap, Sports Tours sell packages that include guaranteed entry plus accommodation, flights, transfers and other extras or a combination of your choosing.  Alan being a frugal (definitely not stereotypical Yorkshireman(!!)) knew that the air miles sorted our flights (although we paid the usual air taxes) and we went for the guaranteed entry and minimum accommodation option of 3 nights to save money.  We then used Hotwire to book a cheaper (and better quality) hotel for our last 2 nights.  Hotwire is great if you are a bit relaxed about exactly what hotel you get - it allows you to stipulate an area and price range for your chosen dates and tells you what you might get and then you book blind and find out where you end up after you've paid.  It's always worked really well for us previously (we didn't end up in the Trump hotel - phew no ethical conflict!).  This time it took us to Hyatt House in Midtown/Chelsea area - only a few blocks from most of the places you'd want walk to in NYC, very roomy and a really friendly welcome.

New York Marathon was something Alan and myself both hoped to look forward to and train well for.  The reality was that life got in the way a bit; things like getting engaged in April and married in September, Alan having a slipped disc injury flare up after London Marathon and not running more than Liverpool Half in May, me studying for and completing my CIRF course in September, both of us being a lot heavier than when we were at our running peaks back in 2016, me currently trying to be more than one person at work as well as my own on/off niggly injuries,  This all meant as the weeks passed I was starting to dread the marathon I should be really excited about.

We'd clearly invested a lot of money in our trip and 4 days before race day (having only run 8 miles the Sunday before and the furthest before then being the Leeds Country Way (11.5 miles) on 1st September) I was really ill with a heavy cold/flu and I ended up working from home (not something I tend to do!). I was really worried as to whether I could make it around.

Alan and I had discussed our game plan for the marathon and as a qualified Coach in Running Fitness I would always recommend training appropriately for a marathon as it is a distance not to be trifled with!  So none of the below is what I would actually coach.

However, with money invested and a non transferable place, we decided to research how long was available to complete the course and make it a true sightseeing trip of NYC.  They have 4 waves and 3 different starts, somehow I'd ended up in Wave 3 and Alan in Wave 2.  We checked and he was able to start further back in my wave.  The sweep vehicle is 6 hours and 30, but unlike London starts at the end of the starting pack - so being in Wave 3 would mean we had more like 7 - 7 hours 30 until we were swept up.  They also keep the finishing line open until 7.25 pm.  This was my 11th marathon and Alan's 8th and I wouldn't recommend taking on a marathon as we did without the training, but we have the benefit of knowing what the demands of this distance are on our bodies and how to mitigate for this we knew we'd likely complete it, even if it was slow.  We figured that we could walk run c9mins 15 secs KM and get around in sub 6.5 hours and so that was the plan.

We flew out from Manchester with Virgin at 12.30pm on the Thursday and Alan had strategically booked seats that allowed for him to comfortably stretch his legs and didn't have to pay extra to do so.  For the week between our clocks going back and the Sunday of the marathon, NYC is only 4 hours behind UK time, so we arrived at a reasonable time.  We made our way through crowded transport with the Air Train and then the subway to the Port Authority and we walked a few minutes to the Sports Tours International Hotel which was Double Tree by Hilton New York Times Square West.  It was a good location to get to the Expo the following morning - around 15 minutes walk and also to the transfer buses on the morning of the marathon - around 15 minutes walk as well.  The room was small, but functional and my only issue was that the shower seal was not present so the room flooded when you showered - Alan was also sad there wasn't a bath!  Our first evening was a bit functional as I was still really poorly and so we grabbed a Five Guys for tea after checking into our room and got an early night.

The following day we went along to the Expo to pick up our race numbers and marathon t-shirts which were great - long sleeved and technical.  Only slight niggle was I had to get an XXL as they'd run out of L and XL and M was a bit of a suffocating fit!  However it looks great and I will definitely wear it often (first outing was to parkrun this morning!).

Speaking of parkrun - there is one in New Jersey - Delaware and Raritan Canal, you can get a train and an uber, or there was a bus arranged via Facebook...needless to say we didn't partake as it wouldn't have been sensible prep for either of us in these circumstances - they did have a record turnout of 111 as a result of the marathon.  There is also an optional 5K Abbott race that gives you a great hat souvenir and is "race to the finish" for the last 5K of the marathon I believe - again not good prep for us so we gave it a miss.

 

The Expo was fun, and despite feeling gross I managed to enjoy picking up free samples of compeed (Just as we were saying damn...we forgot the compeed!) and we bought some cool looking, roomy and comfortable NYC Marathon branded running belts for $23 each.  I also realised I'd totally forgotten my running nutrition, but fortunately managed to find the same Shot Bloks as I use in the UK, but with exciting new flavours like Margarita with 3 x extra sodium - useful when you sweat a lot!

We grabbed a self serve deli salad for lunch (they do it by weight rather than what you can cram into a container so it was a rather expensive, but delicious lunch!).  And after a bit more exploring we went back to the hotel so I could rest and Alan went to get breakfast for the following morning and picked up bananas, croissants and belvita.  We somehow managed to find a table that evening at an Italian restaurant - Il Punto and filled up on pasta.

That night the clocks went back and fortunately we had an early night as we were still jet lagged and so the obscenely early start of 4.30am to get the 5.30am transfer bus meant we still had around 6 hours sleep.  Classically I had the anxiety sleep I get pre-marathon and kept waking up, panicking about everything - again not what I recommend as a coach.  Eliud Kipchoge reportedly gets a religious 8 hours per night plus a 2 hour nap during the day!

We'd laid out our kit the night before and so we got ready quickly with each of us putting on a throw away t-shirt on and walked down to reception where the Sports Tours International rep met us and at 5.10am walked us down to the bus stop where the marshalls were super enthusiastic even at that eye-wateringly early time!

The bus takes you across to Staten Island and took around 45 minutes as we watched the sun slowly rises over NYC.  The weather was perfect running weather - completely dry, clear sky, but pretty chilly as a result!  We got off the bus and walked through to the security gates - it's a sad fact that you have to be scanned for weapons and bombs and aren't even allowed to wear large fancy dress costumes or camel bak style water packs.  

We then were in the race start village which was great!  We had complimentary coffees, bagels, Gatorade  and water as well as picking up Dunkin Donut hats (brilliant marketing on their part!).  There were also Honey Stinger waffles and bananas available.  We found a spot to sit down at around 6.15am and then had over 4 hours to wait until my 10.35am start wave!  It was a great atmosphere, everyone was in good spirits, but it was FREEZING!  We'd fortunately picked up rain ponchos and so we huddled together and tried to keep warm, but if there is one piece of advice I can give for race day it's please take extra layers and even old blankets to use and then donate to the goodwill bins (which I thought were excellent ideas!).  

About an hour and a half before the start we wandered down towards the blue start village area and I had a quick glance in the Therapy Dog tent (if I wasn't so cold I'd have been tempted to sneak in for a stroke!)  I needed the toilet again (they were plentiful and with not many queues) and as I walked back, I spotted a full goodwill bin and so "borrowed" a blanket for the last hour of our wait to share with Alan (we returned it to the bin after we'd finished with it).

I realised as we were waiting that my hair band had fallen off... I tried tying my hair up with string from the start village bag, but it wasn't great.  At least my buff would keep most of my flyaway thin hair away from my face I hoped. 

We queued up for our wave having heard the cannon fire for all the previous waves!  When you sign up you can either choose a bag drop (as you get at London Marathon etc) or a post race Poncho - we went for the poncho which meant that we didn't have to drop a bag off with the UPS trucks.

We were in our wave, it was all becoming real and we were about to take on 26.2 miles.  The sun was shining, the atmosphere was buzzing and we started to walk towards the bridge for our start.  As we walked over the bridge I noticed there were lots of clothes thrown on the floor (no goodwill bins on the bridge as per all the regular tannoy announcements!) and I said to Alan "I wish there was a spare hairband" and 2 steps later there was one there so I was able to discard the ineffective string and properly tie my hair back!  I then said "I wish I could find £1m" sadly this wish wasn't granted...should have gone with that first?

We were started with a cannon, ticker tape and the sound track of "New York New York" and even though there are 2 starts as per London Marathon, there are more runners (53000) it somehow felt more intimate as a start rather than being moved like cattle over the start line.  

The first 2 miles is just running over the Staten Island Bridge, loads of people stopped for selfies on the bridge, but we cracked on with our slow running plan and cleared the bridge in a solid time of just over 20 minutes.  The bridge workers were super excited to cheer all the runners on!

We then got onto Brooklyn and that's when the support really kicked off!  It's a hard to describe the dichotomy that New York Marathon was both more and less serious than London Marathon and other UK races.  More serious - very few fancy dress costumes at all, no club runners generally, but everyone mostly in serious running gear and certainly walking around NYC before and after lots of very obvious "runners" or as Alan sometimes referred to them "running w**nkers" i.e. always in running gear, wearing their medal for 3 days after the race even in the airport with a hint of arrogance about them.  Less serious - overly enthusiastic supporters who literally screamed with excitement, even by the time we reached some of them after 4 plus hours, people with great sense of humour on banners like at mile 10 "you're nearly there - Fake News! and printing out huge personal pictures of runners faces and even their pet cats and dogs.  NB. I'm definitely printing out massive Maya and Qubit faces for the next race I have to support Alan for!

Brooklyn I think was my favourite in terms of support - it was the longest section and had full on marching bands, rappers and rock bands - we loved it!   Alan kept a close eye on his heart rate and we adapted our pace to make sure we didn't peak his heart rate and so ran walked and got fairly quickly to around 10 miles and I figured as we had the opportunity to do so I'd use the walking sections to share some of the atmosphere, sights and sounds of the marathon on facebook live.  I'd intended to use it as a distraction to Alan from his sore back, but I'm not sure he altogether appreciated it!  The first time I'd taken my phone out I started jogging and ended up throwing shot bloks everywhere!  

The water and Gatorade stations are pretty frequent (every mile?) after the first 3 miles (none on the Staten Island bridge) and they all had paper cups which I think I preferred as it felt potentially less environmentally harmful that plastic bottles and was certainly much less of a trip hazard.  I tend to not recommend using anything on race day that you haven't had in training and Gatorade isn't something I've had much of before, but it worked well for me on the day.  There are also toilets every mile and fortunately we only needed to stop once.  The best thing is that there are formally arranged and informally arranged music stations around 3 per mile!  I had quite a few dances as we were running along and we clapped every single band and singer regardless of talent!

I like to count down all long distance races in miles, kilometres and parkruns to mean that I'm ticking something off every few minutes.  As a distraction (annoyance?) technique with Alan we nominate parkruns for each 5K segment of the race and always finish on Woodhouse Moor of course!  We ticked over the halfway point and then soon reached Queensborough Bridge which is 16 miles in and even though the bridge itself wasn't the most scenic there were some great views across to Manhattan Island as we trudged over onto Manhattan and up into Harlem before heading into the Bronx and then back into Manhattan for the iconic finish in Central Park.

       

I had hoped that by not spiking my heart rate and run walking it would mean my legs didn't get that 20 mile ache where every step hurts a bit.  Neither of us hit the wall as a result of the slower place which was great and actually we could have taken advantage of the 20 mile Biofreeze station, but the end was in sight so we kept going.  We continued with our Facebook live breaks which I certainly enjoyed and it was nice to get support from our friends back home whilst we were running!

 

The last couple of miles you can count down the blocks until you hit Central Park and the support continues to be great - I really enjoyed a brass band just before we hit Manhattan again coming out of Harlem.  Once you hit Central Park it feels like the end is in reach, but there is still a good nearly 2 miles to count down (amazingly our Garmins were fairly accurate despite all the huge buildings that usually skew GPS).  There was an incentive to run the last mile the fastest - we tried, but Alan's back by this point was incredibly sore so we had to walk a bit, although we did manage to run over the finish line!  

As we crossed the finish in 5 hours 51 minutes (my second slowest ever time next to Medoc - the wine marathon!) we held hands and it was an amazing atmosphere.  We then walked down to pick up first a heat sheet (necessary as it's a 30 minute walk to get your poncho or bag), then the great big apple medal, then a very good quality (and reusable!) goody bag which included water, an apple, pretzels, more Gatorade, protein shake, Honey Stinger waffle, biofreeze and I think some other things!

We walked down to our poncho collection point and they were fleece lined, waterproof and felt like a hug!  It was funny watching all the runners dressed in them as we walked out of the marathon area.  Fortunately we had no need for the reunion point as we ran together, but like all big races phone signal is patchy, so definitely worth pre-arranging a meeting point if you need one.  We staggered a bit confused to the subway and managed to get on a train back - it was only 20 minutes walk, but we'd done just enough thanks.  The trains were rammed and one lady even passed out and had to get off the train early - she seemed ok thankfully.

After a shower and change of clothes we had just enough time to walk down to the pre-booked post race celebration party (kindly only 5 blocks away from the hotel) for £20 we got 2 cocktails and canapes which included tasty mini slider burgers and meant we didn't need to buy dinner.  We chatted to one of the reps who was lovely (I feel this may be my future "retirement" job!) and after the food was done and we'd had a final JD and ginger to celebrate we walked back to the hotel stopping off at Shake Shack for a celebration Salted Caramel milkshake and then went straight to bed clocking up 66267 steps for the day!

All in all, whilst it was nearly a personal worst for me in terms of time, it was definitely a personal best in terms of experience and atmosphere.  It was lovely to "run" a whole marathon with Alan and cross the finish together and not once did we argue about stopping or pace.  The views were incredible and the organisation was great!  I said as we set off and as we shivered in the start village "I definitely won't want to do this again"...but I might have changed my mind...

PS. if you want to do NYC 2020 it's their 50th anniversary and I think the day before Trump is either re-elected or knocked out of the Whitehouse - could be an interesting time to visit!