Good morning folks

Here is the latest haphazard round-up that is tumultous life and trascribed as this blog.

Been a busy old bee. Just about settled into the new gaff. Started a new job, (two jobs in fact). Limping along with the Run365 challenge and even done my first UK fell race in 13 years (and my first race since Misti Sky Race in 2019). So, it has been a pretty positive time and I have no major grouses nor beefs, which must be a first in the history of this blog in its various grumbling guises (noise, traffic, neighbours, red tape, etc…)

The Nipper has been away with Brownies!

We got fishing, once, to the seaside, beside the sea, and caught our tea.

Spring sprung (finally) and the lambs arrived.

I even got up t’Lakes for a day last week. Lucky you if you are in the Lakes right now. West is best this week. I lived there until I was 14 and cannot remember a whole week without rain! (My obsession with the weather never fades).

So, without further adieu, here is the Ladfromtad.com blog…

TAXI!

Since my last scribblings I have started a new job at work, two jobs in fact and bloody good numbers they are too, which is just as well as I will be working at the British Library until my late 70’s, (I wish I was joking!)

Part of my job is Despatch/Delivery, which highlights to me all the mistakes I am making in my sideline number; the one way rampage to madness and bankruptcy that I call selling on eBay, which is just about to be knocked on the head (again, honest!)
Despatch/delivery do it properly, without the Blue Peter, last minute chaos that is my ebay operations.
I am working with a cool team and a decent gaffer, amd the other half of the job is also ace; driving folk around in the BL car, (we are not a taxi service, before you start booking trips to Torquay, Thurso or Teesside Airport).

It is cool as I get to drive round, and I like driving, and to talk to people, and I like talking, and this is work, and I even get paid for it!

It is not all rainbows, unicorns and Milk Tray though. The roads are full of tosspots, idiots and self-entitled ar$eholes (mainly in Range Rovers with personalised plates), but that is the same for everyone.
(Disclaimer: Not all RR drivers are ar$e$. If you put some RR drivers in a Mini Metro they would still be ar$es and once, a RR actually let me out at a junction!)
A deer, doe a deer, a female deer ran in front of me last week and I had to toot at a partridge (not a euphemism) another day, so it’s a bit like being on safari (*so goody) down the A59 York road, dodging animals and speed traps.
In other motoring news, the Jazz has gone (hoorah) and Red Rum passed its MOT (double hurrah).

*Have I reached an all time reference low here?

Green Runners.

I am not about to become a tree hugger, start quoting Greta Thunderbird or spout from a recycled cardboard soap box, but this is something that has been brewing in my mind for some time.

We have all known about climate change for a long time. The scientists warned us, we largely ignored it, the world is burning (as were a lot of BBQs this weekend) and we should really do as much as we can to reduce our carbon footprint/impact on the environment, if we give a $h!t that is.
Recycle, reduce, reuse is just a bare minimum.
Just to start thinking about NOT buying that banana wrapped in a single use plastic bag (not a euphemism) is a start. It is not hard and if we ALL do something, it might make a difference.
I am taking part in the RUNNING OUT OF TIME relay, from Ben Nevis to Big Ben next month. Anyone can join in, run, walk or cycle a stage.

Carry the baton in Britain’s biggest sporting celebration of climate action and nature!

Join the Running Out of Time Relay and help pass the baton from Ben Nevis to Big Ben.

There are 366 stages along the 2,661km route so, whether you’re a walker, wheeler, runner or cyclist, there’s a stage for everyone!

10th June – 11th July

Sign up HERE: https://running-out-of-time.com/

If you run/jog/walk and you give a toss about the environment, pay your £2.50, make your pledge and join the GREEN RUNNERS.
A running community making changes for a fitter planet 🙂

(It is slightly ironic and indeed hypocritical that my new job is a driving job, but we are getting an electric car soon!)

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly…

(Me, not the surroundings).
I will be honest, a year ago I really thought that my running days were over.
Long Covid, whatever tit is in its broad medical umbrella term, had buggered up my lungs and ticker, meaning I could no longer do what I loved doing, namely exercise. We all have our own coping mechanisms for dealing with the white noise headache called life, and running was mine, even though my knackered old body is wearing down, I still like to do my bit.

One of my GPs (not a sporting type, unless the Eat-all-you-can-buffet becomes an Olympic event) told me last March that after C19, I would be at Couch-to-5k fitness level. He was right. Every scrap of training I had done in the previous 30-odd years (some odder than others) had gone, disappeared.
It took me a long, long time to accept it, but anything I had done/run, had to be forgotten about and reset.

I set myself a goal this year to run every day, as I really thought that racing wasn’t going to happen, but slowly, slowly, I got fitter and then ran on the hills a bit, then stretched the long run a bit, then entered a race!

The good.

The Guisborough Moors race was a race I last ran as a junior in 1987.
I beat Will Styan (who I think was English Champion at the time, although he was obviously not having a good run on the day, but his dad Andy STILL holds the Langdale Horseshoe record from 1977). Anyway, I won the race and was immediately dragged before the Steward’s, as I had “cheated”. Apparently I had cut a corner after the leading group had been misdirected by a marshall (also knocking 10 minutes off the record!)
I was disqualified and placed last, and after absolutely burying myself as a youth! I vowed never to return…

Let bygones be bygones as they say, and I rocked up after 36 years abstaining, swallowed my pride, paid my £6 and ran around, catching up with my old LAMM partner, Barry.

I gave it my absolute all on the descent and couldn’t walk for a few days.

A good start! Chuffed to bits to be back in the racing fold, albeit more toward the back of the field, than the front. It was a start.

The bad.

I received a late call-up to the team for the auspicious Calderdale Way Relay. A 6 stage, 50 mile relay up hill and down valley in deepest darkest West Yorkshire. I was paired with Colin on leg 1.
Relays are quite unique, as all kinds of cock-ups can occur, as it is difficult to know exactly what time your handover will arrive, it is not a 400m track! I have seen other teams absolutely beasting themselves on legs to arrive to an absentee handover, (as happened to the first ladies team this year).
A logistical headache, but a great day out. Last time I ran was 2001, when it was in December. Now it is held in May and the sun shone.

Had a bad day at the office, never got going, felt shot before the start and suffered the old enemy stomach problems 😦

Got round by hanging on to Colin’s coat-tails, then jogged back to the start.
A good 22 mile round trip, but a decidedly disappointing below par performance.

The ugly.

Pride always comes before a fall.
So I thought I was fit enough to enter a longer race. The Lakeland Classics races are Borrowdale, Buttermere, Duddon Valley, Ennerdale, Langdale, Three Shires and Wasdale. All of which I have run, bar Buttermere.
I love the Ennerdale valley, it is for me, one of the best and last unspoilt Lakeland valleys and (if you don’t get crushed by the high speed logging lorries) a great place without the trappings of cafes, glamping pods, gear shops and crowds.
The Ennerdale Horseshoe is just short of 23 miles with 7513ft of up and down.
I entered this in advance, and also entered Wasdale (21 miles with 9000ft+ of climbing) for good measure.

A “recce” is an outing prior to the race, to suss out the course. I had run it in 2001 and 2012, but couldn’t remember much. Fell races are not marked, so if the clag is down, you have to be able to find your way around the course, all of which have their own “lines”. A recce is a good excuse to get lost and/or make a complete balls of the route, plus a chance to try out food/gear and not leave everything to the big day. A bit like a rehearsal, where if it goes wrong, it is not as much of a drama than if it goes wrong on race day.
I was up at 4am, away by 5, A1-A66-A5086, a red hot day, followed by a navigational boo-boo and a seeming unability to coordinate my feet over the tops. It was shambolic.
I had 2 litres of fluids on me and had hoped to top up in a stream, but all the streams were dry and at halfway, as it was taking me so long I decided to bail at Green Gable.

However, Ennerdale Horseshoe is not an actual horseshoe and Green Gable is about 11 miles from the start, so it was a bit of a trudge back down the valley, through the forest and along the lake to the car.

6hrs after setting off, burnt to a crisp and drier than a dead dingo’s ding-a-ling in a desert, I got back to the start. Basically my fitness had been found out. The Lakes is a different kettle of fishfingers and demands some respect (and some proper training).
Bananas, gels, hopes, dreams, aspirations, nostalgia and having listened to Finlay Wild’s podcast is not enough!
Will I get round on race day, within the cut-offs?
It is great to have the confidence to know you can do something, but it makes it more of an adventure if you don’t know you can.
Watch this space…

Legend!

If I haven’t bored you into a running induced coma, if you like podcasts (check me out, listening to a podcast), this is absolutely bloody brilliant!

Raiders round-up.

They say you’re only as good as your last game result, which makes Barrow absolutely brilliant as they trounced Whitehaven 32:16 at in a local derby, played in York!

We can just forget all the other shockers and the possible threat of demotion, whilst we enjoy the moment of this result and the sunshine 🙂

SuperLeeds 😦

What can one say?

Déjà vu?

We’ll be back.

And finally

I harp on about my running, but apart from a few brief glimpses of victory, in a few tinpot races, I was always (and now aspire to be) an also-ran.
I do it because I enjoy it, which is a good enough reason for me.

My Dad however, was a proper runner. He ran short but ridiculously hard and steep fell races, like Grasmere, Ambleside and Kilnsey Crag. I tried running Grasmere one year and I had to walk downstairs backwards for a week!

On May Day in 1970 (& 1971) my Dad (Reuben Parsons) got up to milk 100 cows, rode his motorbike 100 miles, ran the Gawthorpe to Ossett Coal Carrying Championship race, ran for a mile with a hundredweight (50.8kg in new money) of coal, rode 100 miles home, milked 100 cows, then went to bed!

This video is a glimpse into the past…