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Active Weekend

Sunday, April 24th, 2016

Emma RunningDuncan RunningIt’s been an active weekend in the Currie household. On Saturday morning we made the trek over to Staunton Country Park for the second in SOC’s Solent Summer Series. Buoyed by just receiving the SOC Junior Women’s trophy for 2015 (although she was quick to point out that she didn’t have much competition, Emma was happy to go out on the yellow with Christine and a grumpy Duncan in tow. I went out on the light green which was more than a little muddy in places. Rob Finch managed to turn the tables from Fleming Park pipping me to first place by 14 seconds.

Christine after half marathonFrom there we headed in to Southampton for the ABP Southampton Fun Run. Christine set off on the 1 mile course with both children but Duncan got a stitch and Emma ran off and left them towards the end. The field was smaller than I had expected given the potential catchment area for the race. Christine then ran again in the half marathon on Sunday finishing in a chip time of 1:40:54. Not bad given the lack of training she’s done due to injury.

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Start of Summer Series

Saturday, April 9th, 2016

Emma finishing at Fleming ParkToday was the start of SOC’s Summer Series of events at Fleming Park. Christine cycled down early to spectate the parkrun (her calf is currently knackered) and then the rest of us joined her.

Duncan declined to start so Emma went round the yellow with Christine in tow. She was really pleased with her second place so will hopefully be a bit more enthusiastic before the next event. I enjoyed my subsequent run round the light green although could have done without the cold showers (it was lovely sunny day when we arrived). I was in first place when I finished although, to be fair, both Rob and Roger had done the parkrun beforehand. Most importantly, there was a great turnout. Let’s hope it continues for the rest of the series.

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It’s a Hard life

Thursday, April 7th, 2016

Buckler's Hard
I was on child minding duty today. We had to pick up a parcel from the UPS depot in Southampton so decided to carry on to Buckler’s Hard, the maritime museum and old ship-building hamlet on the Beaulieu estuary; somewhere I haven’t previously been in my 17+ years in Southampton.

We started out in the museum which the children quite enjoyed despite (or maybe because of) missing out on the children’s quiz (the cashier was on the phone when we arrived). The contents is fairly eclectic, covering life in Buckler’s Hard over the centuries including naval ship building and the involvement of the area in preparation for Operation Overlord in WWII, Sir Francis Chichester’s circumnavigation in Gipsy Moth and the sinking of the SS Persia. We then wandered down the ‘street’ to the river where the ship-building would have once taken place. There was, unfortunately, a cold breeze blowing in off the water and we quickly repaired to the tearoom for lunch.

After lunch I attempted to persuade the children to do the woodland walk but instead we returned to the museum to let the rain pass. When I eventually succeeded in getting them to the woods it took us less than five minutes to get round!

My recommendation would be to make sure it’s a warm, sunny day if you’re planning a trip so you can enjoy the wide open spaces and the vista. The latter you can, however, get from the public footpath that runs along the foreshore so, having ticked it off the list, I’m not sure we’ll be rushing back.

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Back to the Brecons

Sunday, April 3rd, 2016

Pen y FanFor the first week of the Easter holidays we returned to the same cottage that we stayed at two years ago for the JK (having decided not to go up to the JK in Yorkshire this year). It was an action packed week with walking, running, cycling, swimming, canoeing and climbing, with a fair amount of dodging showers thrown in for good measure!

Here’s a quick run down of the week:
Friday: Arrived early evening having spent rather too much of a beautifully sunny day sat on the M4!
Saturday: Managed a quick walk down to the canal before the rain arrived. Headed to Brecon to stock up on supplies.
Sunday:pen-y-fan-2016-2.jpg Made the most of all the rain by going to visit the waterfalls above the Talybont Reservoir. Made it back from our walk just as the hail descended. I managed to time my run in the evening for the return of the sunshine.
Monday: We returned to the scene of the JK relays (Pwll Du) for the Rogue Runs ‘Gilwern Grunt’ race. The children were marshalling with their grandparents which meant both Christine and I could run. The hail ceased just in time for the start. Running through the mine workings was fun although my progress on the ascents/descents was pretty poor. Christine bagged a prize for third lady. We headed to Big Pit afterwards although sadly they weren’t running underground tours that day.
Tuesday: Gerry and Sue took the children climbing at Llangorse and Christine and I headed out on our bikes. We took the Taff Trail up to the top of Talybont Forest and then had a quick walk up Craif y Fan Ddu before heading for the tea shop. It began to snow heavily whilst we were sat there which wasn’t so much of a problem as the freezing cold rain it became as dropped altitude on our way back to the cottage.
Wednesday:pen-y-fan-2016-7.jpg The weather finally took a turn for the better and we spent a fun few hours paddling along the canal from Brecon (trying to catch the electric hire boats!).
Thursday: With a clear day forecast we finally took to the hills, climbing Pen y Fan and Cribyn via the Corn Du ridge. The snow on the way up certainly added to the excitement for the children. Most memorable for the adults was the orderly queue to take your photo at the summit of Pen y Fan!
Friday: Time to pack our bags and make our way back to Southampton via a night in Monmouth.

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Classic Burley

Monday, November 2nd, 2015

Yesterday was the first Sunday of November which can only mean one thing: the November Classic. We were down to help on the start. Christine was down to run first and I was on duty calling out names (always an embarrassing job when you can’t remember the names of people you’ve known for decades!). As is usually the case with SOC, the start was well staffed and the children weren’t needed so they sat in their folding chairs and read (something that Duncan wouldn’t have been able to do a year ago). The mist took a while to burn off but it was otherwise dry and the autumn colours were lovely.

I didn’t get off to a great start on my run wasting about 3 minutes on the second control which shows up well on RouteGadget. (Christine tells me the path I should have set off down was not obvious but no excuse really as the angle was totally wrong.) Next wobble was at 18 where I must have been stood on top of the control before running away and then coming back again. In my haste to get away I then veered off to the left on the next leg but didn’t lose much time correcting myself.

When we eventually made it to the assembly field to download I was going to complain that I seemed to have an extra four minutes on my time but then remembered I had auto-pause enabled on my Garmin. Shows just how much standing around I must have been doing! The time was good enough to win the Brown course though even if all the action was on the Black. Mostly I was just pleased that, other than when climbing through the odd fence, my back hadn’t given me any problems on the way round (and doesn’t appear to be any the worse for it today).

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Visiting the Cornish Cousins

Wednesday, October 28th, 2015

Canoe, Loe BeachSea Otter ChristineIt’s half term this week and things got off to a flying start with a trip to see the Cornish cousins. Our arrival was timed perfectly weather-wise. Having stopped in Exeter on Friday night we arrived around lunchtime on Saturday, just as the skies began to clear and the afternoon was spent paddling around on the river in the sunshine. We could just about squeeze the eight of us in to Ian and Sarah’s open canoe and a friend’s kayak. We didn’t get very far but everyone enjoyed themselves. The kids particularly liked picking rubbish out of the water! Christine also made the most of having squeezed herself in to a wetsuit and went for a dip in the water afterwards. She struggled a bit with keeping her feet underwater though!

Sunday was packed with more activities. We started out with a scoot round the boating lake at Helston, taking in the playground and skate park. We then relocated just down the road to the National Trust’s Penrose Estate where it was apple day. There wasn’t a huge amount laid on but the children thoroughly enjoyed mashing up the apples and then pressing the juice out of them.

BeforeDuringAfter

Emma bodyboardingDuncan sat in the surfNext stop we the beach at Hayle. Having stopped at the surf shop on the way Emma and Duncan were suitably kitted out in wetsuits and had a whale of a time bodyboarding and just generally messing about in the surf. My back was starting to play up again at this point so I settled for just enjoying the autumnal sunshine.

Lost Gardens of HeliganMonday was our last day and sadly the weather was set to take a turn for the worse. We managed to spend most of the morning at the Lost Gardens of Heligan, taking in their Halloween trail, craft activities and story telling, before the rain really set in and we were glad to de-camp to the cafe for lunch. Then it was all too soon time to wave goodbye to the cousins and wend our way back home to Hampshire.

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Duncan hits six

Monday, October 5th, 2015

Duncan at SixIt was Duncan’s sixth birthday at the weekend which proved to be a remarkably relaxed affair. One of the coaches from Duncan’s weekly football training would come and give a fun session for Duncan and a group of his friends. There was a bit of injury time but thankfully no red cards (although the birthday boy indulged in a bit of cheating). Conveniently, having booked the sports hall at work, you can’t bring your own food, so the party tea was catered for admirably by the clubhouse. That just left the cake which some bright spark had decided should be in the shape of a football. Christine baked the two halves and then, whilst she enjoyed an evening with her book group mums, muggins was left to convert them in to something resembling a football! The end result seemed to pass muster though.

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10K Time

Sunday, September 20th, 2015

Hursley 10KIt’s been a busy weekend with Duncan off at a party yesterday and then setting out our stall at the school car boot sale (a profitable couple of hours but we still came back with far more stuff than I’d hope to have!). Today it was the Hursley 10K and it was my turn to run this year. As an added incentive, this year I was running with #8 which, I was told, was based on the estimated time that I had submitted. What I also knew was that #1 had beaten me by some 4 minutes two years ago so I wasn’t trying to keep up from the start!

Things went well for the first half when I was in a pack of five behind the leading two runners. Unfortunately I started to fade after that (blood doning last Wednesday?) and also started to wretch around the 7km marker (something that’s affected me before in 10k races so there’s probably something wrong with my pre-race prep). I was therefore glad to hit the open at the end with no-one on my tail and could coast to finish in 7th place. Depending on how you look at things, either I was either 4 seconds slower that two years ago (gun time of 38:49) or one second faster (chip time of 38:45).

Duncan - Hursley Fun RunEmma - Hursley Fun RunBoth Emma and Duncan were entered in the children’s races. Duncan was off first in the KS1 race and declared that he wanted to run on his own. This was probably a mistake as he got his first stitch on the way round which was obviously paining him as he came in to the finish. Emma had a longer loop in the KS2 race and, although she claimed not to have enjoyed herself very much, put on a respectable show. She seems to have become very materialistic of late and was very put out at ‘just’ getting a buff, bag, banana and water bottle!

Emma and PonyWe then had to race off as Emma was meant to be singing with the Brownies at the local fun day (she’d already missed singing with the school). We arrived just in time for her to enter the arena having no idea what she was meant to be singing! She needn’t have worried though as it was virtually impossible to hear them over the band playing at the other end of the rec. Thankfully there were long queues at most of the attractions to disuade Emma but she eventually decided that she would like to have a go on the pony rides. By this time I needed to get home to have a cup of tea and a sit down!

 

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