Sainsbury Anniversary Games

Thursday Night Running and a trip to London

A busy week of sports related outings which have been really fun. First, I was off to my new Thursday evening running club without my brb (best running buddy) Rebecca and also another fellow Commando Runner, Darren, was injured so he wouldn’t be there either. Now it is a strange thing but I can be very happy in my own company even in the middle of a crowd and I quite enjoy being in that little bubble. I will happily make asides and even a bit of conversation - once I’ve got my breathing under control! However, I find that until that point any chatting is really hard work. Unless you are with someone who is familiar with your pattern I worry that people might think you are being stand offish. If I try to chat I can’t keep up the pace and start to fall back even further.
What a dilemma!

Maps make everything look nice and flat!

So it was the back of the field for me on Thursday evening whilst I tried to cope with the heat and getting my breathing under control. We were going to do some hill work and stair climbing. Wonderful if we were not in the middle of, for the UK, a heatwave. 

We had a warm up run to the area we would be using for the hill work and then we would be doing two loops taking in an uphill and downhill section. I found it very hard on the first one as the trainer was talking to me and on the second one the other trainer was talking to me and I desperately wanted to break into a walk but had to resist.

The hill section over we travelled down until we got to the station where there was a steep set of pedestrian stairs with a slope down which enabled us to use for looping round. The idea was to get up the stairs treading on each step (not taking giant leaps as some were!) then running down the slope and back round to the stairs again. I think I managed three sets having found my pace and rhythm at last. Then it was time to head home and I really was glad to get back and cool down with some stretching.

Sainsbury Anniversary Games
Horse Guards Parade

Summer athletics

This is a mini-games held to commemorate the Olympics that were held in London in 2012. We arrived on a scorching hot Sunday after travelling up by train from Colchester to Stratford (terminating here instead of Liverpool Street for some ungiven reason). We then got onto the Jubilee Line and travelled to Westminster and from there we could walk to the venue.

There were lots of tourists which made walking a painfully slow procedure and we stopped in the narrowest Tesco Express ever to get ourselves a picnic lunch to take in with us. Then we reached Trafalgar Square and the Mall where once through we were able to queue to have our bags checked. There was a mad moment where people began to swallow down drinks believing that you couldn’t take them in. Some moaned that we ought to have been warned. The man checking my bag said you were allowed to bring in 500mls so thankfully the bottle of water I had was not taken away. Most of the drinks people were draining would have been allowed but such is the nature of panic in a crowd that when you see one person doing something most people blindly follow. 

Once in we were able to get a lovely Pimms at the bar and take it to our seats where we took in our surroundings and tucked into our lunch.

The meeting would cover high jump, long jump, shot-put, 100m races including hurdling and pole-vaulting. We were able to see the action at the other end of the track on a large screen and to watch interviews and watch the audience take part in kiss me quick when caught on camera. There were also people ‘shooting’ tee shirts into the stands for lucky people to catch.

The sun was incredibly hot on a day supposed to be getting cloudy with rain and we slavered on the suncream and drank lots of water - after the Pimms of course.

I really enjoyed watching the athletes and para-athletes and particularly enjoyed the high jump. 

It was a real treat to see all the competitors and how fit and strong they are. The dedication it must take to become an athlete makes me proud of them and inspires me to keep on doing my own little bit to keep these old bones in shape. I was lucky enough to have experienced all the track events we saw at this meeting when I was at school and I only hope that every child gets an opportunity to try athletics and enjoy them too.