Run, turbo, run, turbo, run, turbo – rooks and rabbits

Keep calm and play croquet

We ran on Monday morning, without any great enthusiasm on the part of my knee. A short run (3 miles) in a biting wind which came as a nasty surprise after the good weather of the previous days.

Croquet again on Tuesday afternoon: we might be up the creek without a paddle, but we’re British – stiff upper lip and all that. I won’t record the results so far, not through false modesty but because I’m taking a beating.

On the subject of croquet, out of (possible) interest, the full name of All England Club which hosts the Wimbledon Tennis Championships, is actually the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club. Originally (1868) it was founded as the All England Croquet Club – tennis was introduced later.

I’ve decided to keep going with the exercise five or six times a week (I seem to be able to fit it into my busy schedule) but ease off on the intensity/duration. After 5 successive days with some sort of exercise session, I took Tuesday as a rest day but put in 45 minutes on the turbo on Wednesday.

I don’t know if the rest day was the difference but I did 23.38km @31.2kph (14.5miles @19.4mph) – much better than recent efforts. For some reason I was able to push a larger gear than has been the case lately, for the whole of the time.

Thursday morning was another run with my wife – about 4 miles in more decent weather – and another 45 minutes on the turbo on a wet and chilly Friday evening. Harder than Wednesday but not as fast. I really don’t understand this exercise lark.

Saturday morning it rained – a nice break from having to water the pots out in the garden but otherwise rather dreary, even after the rain stopped. I ran in the afternoon, just over 10.4km (about 6.5 miles). It was enjoyable except for the delinquent toe launching another attack on its neighbour.

My knee wasn’t too happy and I also tweaked my left calf on the run which meant that Sunday was another 45 minutes on the turbo. Sadly, that put an end to the possibility that I could do a training sequence of “run, turbo, run, turbo, run, run, run” in homage to Flanagan and Allen.

Big local news of the week, the dozen catmint plants I put out in a couple of the flower beds have survived the first few days – last year they were repeatedly dug up and destroyed by rabbits, although the catmint by the side of the driveway was left alone.

The rooks nesting in one of the loft spaces have made themselves very much at home. From the sound of it, they are holding line dancing sessions for the entire rookery. There is also a pair nesting above the garages – at times it’s like a scene from ‘The Birds’.

It’s easy to lose perspective at the moment. Quite rightly, coronavirus dominates the news but I saw a headline that, in the UK, one in five deaths is linked to the virus. Of course, one is too many but without actually thinking about it, I’d assumed that the virus was the main source of deaths at the moment.

I was astonished to read that it would be normal for there to be about 10,000 deaths a week in the UK at this time of year (around 500,000 – 600,000 pa). As we head into another three weeks of lockdown, it’s very sobering that while life seems to be on hold, death, sadly, is not.

Stay safe out there.

Confirmed cases of Coronavirus for Oxfordshire: population c. 690,000

14/3 – 22

21/3 – 44

28/3 – 113

4/4 – 356

11/4 – 653

18/4 – 1070