Run, run, gym, gym, marquee erector, run, ride

Photographic debut of part of the new wall, with ‘edged’ lavender bed. The handle behind the wall belongs to a very large hand-pulled roller. The brick pier is straight … it’s just perspective in the photo (honestly).

Working in the garden on Monday – sawing through some high tensile steel hawsers. Long since redundant from their original job of bracing some fir trees, they were well embedded in the trunks.

I had a very warm run on Tuesday – a bit over 10km (6.2miles) at 5:41 per km, which is fairly quick for me. It was along roads and footpaths so I wore the minimalist shoes – I failed to spot just two stones in time to avoid treading on them but, happily, no lasting damage done.

On Wednesday I did laps of the old hill fort – 9.4km (just over 5.2miles) and then out in the garden (and blocking the entry point used by the jackdaws to get into the area above the garages). I booked an hour at the gym for Thursday morning, only to get a message from a friend asking if I was going on Friday. I did the only sensible thing and booked another hour for Friday.

It’s weird having to book gym sessions via the internet – a price of the gyms reopening in the time of Covid – but it still feels well run and as safe as it can be (and noticeably quieter).

Both days went OK – but I have learnt that two successive days in the gym may not be the best of ideas for me. I managed the normal weights on all the machines but it was noticeably harder on Friday than Thursday.

After the gym on Friday I took our marquee over to some friends’ house and helped to erect it in their back garden. It’s quite a big one (about 12m x 6m – 40 x 20 feet) but luckily there were 6 of us putting it up.

The aim is to celebrate the closure of the charitable pop-up shop with a garden party on Sunday for all those who helped make it a success. In the four weeks we were open, we raised over £5,000 ($6,600+) which has more than plugged the hole left in the charity’s finances by having to cancel the annual sportive, which is our biggest fund raiser.

It would be a fair observation that if the second consecutive day at the gym wasn’t the greatest of ideas, a run on Saturday, making five successive days with some significant exercise, probably wasn’t much of an improvement in the decision making process. It was very hard, despite being slow and short (5.5km – 3.4miles).

To complete the idiocy of six straight days I went out for a solo spin on the bike on Sunday morning before the garden party. I assumed that the bike might be easier than another run or gym session. It wasn’t – a nice still day on the way out and a bit of a freshening headwind on the way back. Just 36 km but at a decent 28.9 kph (22 miles @ 18 mph).

Shamefully, that was only my 10th ride outside on the bike this year (and no turbo since May either). Still, the pace suggests that the running has helped keep a degree of fitness that can translate over to the bike.

Strava tells me that I’m on course for over 1000km (620 miles) of running this year. It’s not an earth-shattering distance but such is the pressure of round numbers that I’ll go with it as a target.

Interesting stuff this week

1. African wise words: How can a man whose enemies have lit a fire for him go and rub oil on himself and lie close to the fire?

2. BBC news headline: Football match called off due to Covid-19 fears

Wow, could it really get that bad?

3. BBC news headline: Man in box of ice breaks world record

An Austrian man has broken a world record, by standing in a box filled with ice for over two-and-a-half hours.