Tag: Grim

The Grim Greensand Beast

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Because I’m off to London tonight to meet my friends with the impeccable taste in music (i.e. the Cardiacs chatlist people), I decided to save my energy and not do Grim: Beast in the East with Shaun, Grant and Tom, but to do my own cross-country 10k here instead, taking in some of the Greensand Way.

Although Shaun kept waking me up while he was getting ready to go by coming back upstairs to inform me that a) the cat had done a poo; b) it was really smelly; c) it was also quite runny; and d) he’d covered it over with litter (you will note he hadn’t cleaned it up. When it comes to litter-tray incidents, that’s when the cat becomes *my* cat), then back upstairs again to tell me that a) he hadn’t gone yet; and b) he’d made me a cup of tea, I had a decent night’s sleep and got up reasonably early and I’d said to Shaun that I would set off for my run at 10:30, the same time Grim started but that meant I had two hours to wait and so I decided that because they’d probably finish about an hour before me, that I should get a headstart anyway and so at 9am, I decided I’d get changed and head off for my run.

At 10am, I’m still sitting in front of my computer and hadn’t even changed into my running gear and so I decided I might as well head off the same time as Grim and so I got changed and went downstairs and put on my clown shoes and went outside and waited for it to be 10:30. (Why is it when you’re sitting in front of your computer dicking around on Facebook and Twitter, time whizzes past, but when you’re looking at your watch (or in my case the clock on my ipod), waiting for three minutes to go by, it seems like it takes for ever?)

The clock eventually ticked over to 10:30 and I set off on my cross-country 10k. All was well until I got to about the fifth field and at the end of the field were some horses and I didn’t want to run towards the horses in case they got scared and gallopped towards me and trampled me to death and I was scared enough being in a field with the horses in the first place as I used to think horses were friendly until someone on Twitter said her son’s girlfriend got attacked by one and had to go to hospital and so I walked slowly past the horses with what I hoped was my I’m-friendly-and-while-I-don’t-have-any-sugar-lumps-for-you-I-mean-you-no-harm face and the horses stared at me but didn’t look particularly interested in attacking me and then I got to the next field and at the end of the field was a toilet with a wooden seat and a basin and I wondered who dumped their bathroom in this field and then I wondered if I was near the gypsies house and then I was on the road and further along there was indeed the gypsies house with their lovely classy stone lions and stuff and all their gates were open and I was scared of their dog coming out and barking at me and chasing me down the road like it did to Shaun but no dog came out and a bit further up are some woods and I got to the woods and I went round the woods which didn’t take very long and then I had to decide which way to go as I’d only done about 2.75 miles and going back the way I had came wouldn’t have got me up to 6.2 miles but I decided to go back the way I had come and try and loop some more miles in and so I went back through the bathroom field but instead of walking past the horses again I went through a different field and up through another foresty bit and then I got to the road and I wondered if going on the road when I was supposed to be doing cross-country was cheating and I decided it was and so I turned right and went over what must have been the twentieth stile so far today and back through the fields I first went through and then I went down the cycle path as, even though it’s not really cross-country, it does feel like you’re in the countryside if you look to the fields to the right and not at the housing estate on the left and then I was back on the road and I decided to go through the park to finish up as there’s water there and Grim involves water and so although I wasn’t going to jump in it, I could at least incorporate some water in my run and so I went through the park and past the pond and I got out of the park and I did 6.2 miles in a very slow time but in my defence there were about sixty stiles to go over and a field of horses to walk through.

Stats
Distance: 6.2 miles
Time: a long time
Pace: slow
Calories: 531
Grims wimped out of: 1
Cats doing smelly, runny poos: 1
Boyfriends cleaning out litter trays: 0
Hours wasted until leaving the house: 2
Stiles climbed over: about sixty
Fields of horses walked through: 1
Fields with bathrooms in: 1
Forests: 2
Ponds: 1
Music
Toyah

The box of neglected shoes

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After a week of not sleeping well at all last week which resulted in me not doing any exercise at all, even though I was well aware that doing some exercise would make me feel better and help me sleep, the last couple of nights I’ve been sleeping better and so I returned to the gym yesterday and decided to go out for a run this morning.

In the unlikely event that I do make it to Grim in a couple of weeks, I’m going to need some trail shoes and I don’t want to ruin my nice new Hoka Mafates and so I thought I’d take a look in the box of neglected shoes that hasn’t made it back into the nearly finished porch with the other twenty+ pairs of shoes and be brave and look in the carrier bag which has been home to my muddy Asics trail shoes for nearly a year.

On the way through the box, I came across a pair of orange Converse, a pair of black Converse, a pair of pink Converse, some smart officey interview type boots, my chav boots, a pair of Salomon trail shoes in their box that I only wore once (can’t remember why), a pair of New Balance running shoes in their box that I only wore once due to them giving me a MASSIVE blister and there at the bottom of the box was the bag of doom containing a muddy pair of Asics.

Actually, they weren’t that bad.

asics

I put them on and they feel fine, although I was expecting them to be crisp and crunchy.

I get outside and do my usual run for a bit then walk when it starts going uphill and I see my postman and I think bah, he always sees me when I’m walking and he knows where I live and therefore knows I’ve started walking after 0.14 of a mile and he must think I’m a complete lightweight and then I get to the trail and instead of turning right where the sheep are, the sky looks bluer up ahead and so I carry on going straight and then when I get to the end I turn right instead of straight on and I follow the road round and I think the little park is down here and lo! the little park is indeed down here and I go up the park and down the cycle lane and then I see a Tesco and I think ooh, a new Tesco and I then I think stop being an idiot, it’s the Tesco that you’ve lived five minutes’ walk from for the last year and I don’t want to go back yet and so I turn left and go back down the cycle path and the trail that I went up in the first place and I realise that I haven’t done much trail running today and it’s mostly been on the road and the whole point was to try out my trail shoes and Grim isn’t going to consist of a nice smooth cycle path for eight miles, no, it’s going to consist of a load of mud and water and maybe I should go to Ham Street Woods next time I go out for a run and get a bit muddy and then I get back and my Asics have given me a blister.

Stats:
Distance: 3.06 miles
Time: 36:44
Pace: 12 m/m
Calories: 312
Boxes of neglected shoes: 1
Pairs of running shoes that have only been worn once: 2
Bags of doom: 1
Blisters: 1
Music:
Audiofuel