Crawley Sports and Social Club

Fuck Crawley

2009-10-18T02:16:00.000-07:00

I'm in Oulu, in Finland.

I love flying, and I love the feeling you get when the plane leaves the ground. The fight last weekend was that little bit better, leaving the miserable town which had not been my home for the last two years. I spent the whole weekend with a complete feeling of unreality - I said I would go back and I did go back, but two months ago I didn't know I had any chance, and just a little while before that I didn't want to go back, so a lot of the time I felt like I was just floating. It is sinking in now though, I guess.

The journey up to Oulu was good but pretty routine. I flew from Gatwick to Helsingfors, then got the train up to Oulu. Originally I was going to hang out in Helsingfors and then get the night train to Oulu, but on reflection decided that coming up in the day and staying over at a friend's place was better. I changed my sleeper ticket for a Pendolino ticket, and was about to ask if there was any change when the cashier coolly slid 10 cents across the desk. So I saved money already.

First week at work has been great. I am working as a consultant in a small sub-contractor company who work for a larger IT company, and am based on the client's premises. The client are providing me with computers to work on, and gave me a laptop and a ludicrously powerful computer when I got there. They then said “install any operating system you want.” If you aren't in IT you may not get just how amazingly cool that is.

To an extent I still feel that Oulu is the second prize, in that it is good but I preferred the other option. Oh well. Life sucks. Deal with it. Either way, I hated living in England and I hated my old job. I used to loe technology, and I think that I am going to rediscover that love of technology in my new job, so career-wise - irrespective of my past, like break-ups or having lived in Oulu before, but focussing purely on my career, then I have made an excellent move.

My former employer was a defence company called Thales. My grandfather was a conscientious objector during the second world war and I always felt so ashamed to work for a defence company, even though I was in the civil part and not defence. Even if that wasn't an issue, project management and engineering standards at Thales really suck, and I am glad to be out of there.

Slightly random picture. I got this new hat – it's grey and warm, and I wanted to get a picture of it. My friend Matti is a good friend but a rubbish photographer, so I had to make my own pictures.

ANYWAY. This is the penultimate post in this blog. I no longer live in Crawley, so need a new blog about Oulu. Maybe next week though.

The Changing of the Light

2009-09-24T14:18:00.000-07:00

Everybody want to have the exciting life that I have. And who can blame them?

AT the moment it isn't very exciting. I have nothing interesting to write in my blog. I'm packing my room up into boxes during the week, and visiting friends who I am not going to see for a long time in the week. Very exciting.

I had a couple of vouchers which work gave me for being awesome about a year ago. I had to use them before I went, so I took them to a hairdresser who accept them in Brighton. It was a posh hairdresser so i'd hoped for a good job, but actually it's shit: it is really hard to find a good hairdresser, isn't it? I'm pretty sure that I'll be able to make my hair look good before I come to Finland because I'm usually OK at making something of it. Otherwise, sure it'll grow back.

There was a cracking sunset over Brighton when I got there. It seemed like it was saying something to me.

Nothing to report

2009-09-17T15:06:00.000-07:00

You'd think that a new job and an international relocation would give me plenty to write about. But actually not. I've spoken to a lot of friends in Kråli, and they all said “oh no, don't go.” but I think that they are just being polite.

I spoke to my ex, but she doesn't talk about much. She speaks more when I talk about starting a family, but I don't want to talk about my family with her.

I left my mantid with my ex. My mantid died.

I don't have any pictures, so sad songs from Finland instead.

So much to do and yet so little to do as well. So little time but all the time in the world. Nothing I do or own is of any value, any more.

Soooooo tired

2009-09-09T22:25:00.000-07:00

It is 8.20, I'm waiting for the flight to Helsinki in Oulunsalo airport.

Got to sleep at about 1 last night, up again at 6 this morning. I don't think that I'm too old for this, I'm just frikking tired from late nights in Oulu.

I've got a hotel then a couple of days hostelling in Helsinki before I get any rest. Although that isn't going to be much in the way of rest, as I have a week of packing, three weeks of more packing, flight to Oulu then settling back into the city: I'm not going to get any proper rest until November.

I didn't take a whole lot of pictures of Oulu. It's my home town, and I have 1000s of Oulu pictures already. Here's one I made earlier.

Slightly more in depth

2009-09-09T00:51:00.001-07:00

Oh my Cod!! I spoke to someone in Oulu who said she had heard all of these things off of my blog!!! I'm kinda pleased that someone reads all this crap, but slightly shy about it too. Jeypers.

More in depth update for what I am doing in the Republic of Finland.

Week 1. Helsinki and Lahti.

Watched a lot of football and hung out in Lahti. Injured my anterior tibialis muscle by running too fast up and down the hills in Lahti, and played with a baby squirrel which the owner of the Matkakoti Patria hostel in Lahti was looking after.

Had a telephone interview with a company based in Oulu for a position. They decided that they liked the sound of me, and suggested a face to face interview asap. An interesting position in a great city!

Soccer:

Finland – Denmark opener, 1-0 Finland.
England – Italy opener, 2-1 Italy :(
Finland – Holland on tele. Finns won.
Norway – Iceland, 1-0 Norway
England – Russia, 3-2 England, v. exciting match.
Finland – Ukraine. 1-0 to the Ukraine in front of a crowd of 15,000 Finns.
Norway – France, 1-1 slightly boring match.

Top Hostel!! Matkakoti Patria in Lahti. Recommend it 100%, although book early to avoid dissappointment.

Week 2: Turku

Week opened with a series of emails between me and an invitation to interview on the Tuesday. The company were offering to fly me up to Oulu and back to Turku for the interview, which was cool.

This came right before the England -Sweden 1-0 draw. The England team usually hang out with the fans after the match, which is cool. Stuck around until about 11.30, had to be up at 5 the next day to fly to Oulu.

Made it though, and got the job :)

No more football until Thursday, when we watched England beat Finland to get through to the quarter finals. An exciting 3-2 win, but in front of only 7,500 Finns.

Friday back to Lahti to watch Germany win a lack-lustre game against Italy, 2-1 but Italy were inches away from equalising in the last minute and taking it to extra time. A real shame, would have been great to see Italy take the Germans out.

Saturday to Helsinki to hang out with a friend and his v v cute kids (as in picture).

Sunday was the England semi-final against Holland. I was up in Oulu by then so missed it, but saw the last five minutes of extra time on telly. Jill Scott – who is gorgeous – scored the winning goal on a cross from Karen Carney just about 4 minutes from time. Amazing!

Week 3

Oulu.

Not much done this week. Hung out with friends. Seen all the friends that I need to see, well, still a couple that I have to see yet but will do today.

Back to Helsinki tomorrow to watch England take on the mighty Germany for the final. Winning would be to much to dream for, it is Germany after all. Just getting to the finals is enough for a big celebration after the match. Woo hoo!!!

QUICK QUICK!!

2009-09-02T09:12:00.001-07:00

Time for a quick blog update:

-Watched lots of football, had a great time.
-Explored Lahti, Helsinki and Turku.
-Got Flown to Oulu for a job interview.
-Been out drinking with lots of England fans, and had people ask us the score while in the pub. “3-2 to England,” we said.
-Explored gay Helsinki and Gay Turku.
-Got offered a job in Oulu.
-Had an invite back to the hotel with a whole load of other England supporters to meet the team. The coach, Hope Powell, saw me looking a bit shy and came up to me. “Hi, I've not seen you before. I'm Hope Powell.”
-Invented a new dish, Helsinki Mushrooms. Potato, onion, mushrooms, tomatoes and mustard. Recipe on request.
-Signed a contract for a new position in Oulu.

I'm in Helsinki Vantaa airport, on my way to an interview.

Miss my ex, but I'm moving on now. I have to go and visit her in a couple of weeks, but after that I am never going to look upon her beautiful face again. It sounds really dark and sad, but really it's a good thing.

Sports, sports and more sports

2009-08-22T06:09:00.000-07:00

It's one of those weekends where there is a lot of sports. Late August and September: height of the sports season, well, not really. But that's probably why I don't sleep much in August and September, that and other things.

I'm currently watching qualifying for the European GP in Valencia, with Lewis Hamilton on top and whooping some ass - first pole position this season, meaning that McLaren have finally got their car to work. It's an awesome track but I shan't see the race as I will be travelling to the opening match of Euro 2009, as foretold here:

A blog post from last year about football

I'm watching the opening Finland-Denmark game at the Olympic Stadium in Helsinki tomorrow, then next match is England's opener in Lahti against Italy. AWESOME, and will take my mind off of the faintly hollow feeling that I have inside all the time these days.

<--Stuart Broad, England's current golden boy, leads the team off for a nice hot cup of tea. Broad did some serious damage to Australian hopes on day 2.

Elsewhere, England Men's Cricket team have, after a pretty bad start, been spanking the Australians in this year's Ashes Cricket Series. The Ashes is the longest--living Cricket rivalry in the world. We play it every two years, the women usually win for England but the men haven't be so lucky. This year's season has been good and bad for the boys. The next few days will be gripping, but the great thing about test cricket is that you don't have to pay attention......

So, not much in the way of blog writing for the next few weeks. I am going to be too busy doing other things. Expect a half arsed write up sometime next month.

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That's amazing.

2009-08-20T15:25:00.001-07:00

It's been a heck of a week. I am frakking busy at work, because I have tight deadlines - I have to get three projects tied up at work, and they are hard. I have to do it by tomorrow, because I am on holiday next week. They are hard, and they aren't working, and I have been in tears at work because I am so frustrated.

I am going to Finland for three weeks for Euro 2009. There are big deadlines for all my projects on the first of September. Why then? Don't know.

I sent off my CV to a few Finnish companies a few weeks back, but didn't get much of a response. So I thought "well, recession, better luck next time." Then on Wednesday I had an email, inviting me to interview next week, in Helsinki. I felt like I scored the winning goal in extra time, and I was through to the next round. Go me.

Then Wednesday night was the last yoga class that I will have with my old yoga group, and that was sad. Hugs all round.

Today was my last run of the season for our running club's annual competition. I think that I have put up enough of a lead to win the competition (called 'The Pie') for a second year running, which would be great. But there are still three weeks to go until it is over. I came back with the second fastest time for the route I was on, which made me feel a lot better, especially after Saturday's crappy result. I can feel my ability to go fast just coming back all of a sudden.

I'm doing the Birmingham Half Marathon in October, and have been fundraising this week. It went very well - people actually want to sponsor me, which is cool. I have done well with pledges.

And this evening I dyed my hair. It was 'ex-girlfriend red', something which was annoying me quite a lot. I would have done it earlier, but ex-girlfriend is due round on Saturday night for dinner, so I waited until the last minute to do it. It's a plum colour and I think it looks VERY NICE, but you will have to guess the shade as the above picture doesn't do it justice.

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661 - 55 dead

2009-08-16T03:43:00.001-07:00

So this week I shan't mention my ex-girlfriend at all.

We were planning to run the London Pride 10K Run together - well, not together as I'm way faster than her, but at the same event. But we broke up and she has, actually, got a really bad leg - I spoke to her in the week before and she was in pain running, so she didn't come. Fair enough.

I'm running the Birmingham Half Marathon on the 11th of October, and I am doing it for an LGBT charity called the Albert Kennedy Trust. They sent me a t-shirt during the week, and I thought that the London pride run was the ideal opportunity to get some photographs of me in the shirt. For that I needed friends to come, and I was lucky enough to be able to persuade a couple to come and take pictures. For fun, and because they aren't gay, I took a long this big pink flag for them to wave. It was useful as well, it made them really easy to spot :)

The course itself is a really nice one: three laps around Victoria Park in East London. I love running in London - great atmosphere, great city, as you weave through the jovial Londoners out and about. The great thing about the course if that you aren't running one long, timeless, 10k but you are running three short runs consecutively. So much of running is about what goes on in your head, and this made a big difference for me.

Me in my running shirt, looking far too wholesome. You can't tell from the picture, but I sprinted so hard at the end of the race that I had to apologise to the bag-people there, and take a minute to stop myself from throwing up.

And that would be me in the Albert Kennedy t-shirt. I'm such a goody two-shoes.

In the last kilometre of the run and suddenly I saw my friends and the pink flag, so I waved at them. To my shock, Pete, who was carrying the flag, nipped across and offered me the flag! I thought I'd feel a twat carrying the flag, but didn't want to offend my friend so I took it, and finished the last part of the race going pretty quick, and waving this big pink flag. Now there was an experience.
Time was 55 minutes exactly on my stopwatch, not sure what the chip time will be. I'd hoped to go faster but was running with a knee injury from a fall in training on Thursday, and I did feel it as I went round. I have eight weeks until Birmingham but I think I'll be better by then.

Actually, I am feeling pretty wrecked this morning. I can't sleep, so I tried sleeping tablets. They worked for a couple of days but I soon got used to them, and they didn't work. Apparently sleeping tablets can, rarely, make you feel suicidal and this may be why I spent the end of last week making comments which scared the fuck out of my colleagues: I am not, in fact, suicidal, but the tablets made me feel that way. I am living on less than three hours sleep most nights. It can't go on.

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Teit meistä kauniin

2009-08-06T13:35:00.000-07:00

Love this song - "You make us beautiful", a Finnish love song by this pop-group called Apulanta.

In other words, I have nothing to post that is exciting.

Well, not really. I just got off the phone with my ex-girlfriend. Sh e texted me on Saturday, now she is phoning me today. Why is she calling me up?

I think it's because we have/had a holiday booked, and she wants to call me up and tell me what I'd already worked out: that she isn't coming. I already knew that she wasn't likely to come - well, we did just break up, after all.

I'm going to the Republic of Finland for Euro 2009, the Women's soccer championship. It's a two and a half week long tournament, and xgf was coming out for the last week as she hates the beautiful game. We were going to stay with friends in the north and then go back to Helsinki for the end of the tournament.

It would be good if she came. Would it be good if she came? When we broke up I cancelled the hotel we had booked. Then I thought about booking a hostel, realised that she wasn't coming (I know her so well), and decided to book a hotel for the last bit as I have the money to do that.

So I looked for the best price I could get for a single, and it was..... more than the double which I had booked. So I rebooked the room, probably the same room, but it feels like my room not ours because I cancelled then rebooked.

I don't think that she will come over, but WHO KNOWS, she still may. It would be great, because after all, she made us beautiful.

Single, whiny and proud

2009-08-02T02:21:00.001-07:00

I'm two weeks into being single and know that it is getting easier now. There is still an ex-girlfriend shaped space inside of me, which I don't like having. But it's different now: it's not that I want her back, I just wish that the hole wasn't there.

In an attempt to fill that hole I went to Brighton Pride yesterday. I got there early, watched the parade, tried to find a couple of charidees which I have had some dealings with, and then had a few drinks with friends.

I didn't find the charities I was looking for - one of them had pulled out due to Swine Fever, and they are a small charity without the resources to cover that. The other one just wasn't there, don't know why. Probably the same reason.

On the plus side, I bumped into a woman I work with but don't know that well. "Oh hello! What are you doing here?" she said.

"It's Brighton Pride, and I'm a dyke," said I in return. "I've lost my friends, and broke up with my girlfriend two weeks ago, so I'm just floating around."

"Well, I'm a dyke too," said she. "I'm here with my wife, you can join us if you like."

Flying the flag. I brought this from a woman selling flags. She was a flag-hag.

I hung with them for a while, then met up with my friends again. It rained a lot, and after a few hours I was too drunk and miserable to be good company to anyone, so I just went home.

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2009-07-28T12:58:00.000-07:00

I should so spend less time on line doing stupid things like this and then posting it on a blog which isn't actually relevant to anyone.

I took the 43 Things Personality Quiz and found out I'm a

Tree Hugging Healthy Extrovert

But that being said, I like that I have somewhere that I can post my upset, frustrations and similar nonsense. It's healthy to keep a diary, I reckon.

Shh

2009-07-26T23:15:00.001-07:00

First week over, which means the statutory moping period for this relationship has now passed, and I have to get back to being the amazing focussed me that I was before. Speaking to my ex-girlfriend helped me to get over it a lot, although it seems odd that one of the friends who helped me through it was the one that I broke up with. Hmmm.

I've gone signed up for the Birmingham Half Marathon in October, and I think that I'm going to choose a charity and run for them. I want to run for a gay charity, because people almost never run for gay charities. Last Half I did was for the Broken Rainbow charity, I had set out to raise £100 but made over £200, which was awesome. I explained the run to one of my more fuddy-duddy sponsors. He asked if it was the Brighton Half Marathon, and when I said it was he said "yes, it sounds a bit Brightony".

I had an OK night's sleep last night. Things are going to be OK.

Profound sense of loss

2009-07-26T05:57:00.001-07:00

Is my feeling for today :(

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Things are....

2009-07-25T00:34:00.001-07:00

...sometimes better in the morning.

My former partner opened it up by texting me on the Thursday night. I decided to play it as cool as possible, and be friends, and left it at that.
Then I texted her pure friendliness on Friday morning. She texted back on Friday evening and we spoke on the phone.

And no, I'm not naïve enough to think that we are going to get back together again. I'm open to it if she is, but only if we can work through the problem we had before. I'm going to be totally cautious with this, all I can say is that it is good to know that she will still be a part of my life going forwards into the future - I didn't fall in love for nothing, she is a wonderful woman.

I'm a huge fan of Wim Mertens. This track gets me through pretty much anything. There is a lead of about 20 seconds on this YouTube clip.

I think the most important thing to get out of our conversation is to know that it wasn't anything I did or said, and that she did love me - it wasn't just words, delusion and hopes for something that weren't ever really real. I'm not going to frak things up by taking this the wrong way, but hearing her voice and knowing that she came after me and I didn't go after her is a good thing.

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Friday

2009-07-24T11:17:00.001-07:00

So, weirdly, it seems I don't cry on days beginning with a 'T'.
It's coming up to a week, which I think means my free licence to mooch around and be miserable is going to be over soon, and I will have to be more cheerfuller. Hope I can sleep tonight.
Actually, my ex started texting last night. She wasn't really saying much - said she was sorry a couple of times and asked how I was. Nice idea but my ex is tactless, if I wasn't as old and wise as I am I'd interpret that to mean way more than she means it to. Hence the sleepless night, then tears at work the next day because I am too frakking tired not to.

It seems wrong to post a blog without a picture. This is the garden of the first house I likve in in Shitsville. I was grieving when I moved here.

I did have a good Thursday though, really good.

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So I quit the gym

2009-07-22T14:26:00.001-07:00

I love my gym workouts. I love the gym which I'm a member of now, the Virgin Active gym in Kråli.
So I handed my notice in this evening. I will be a member of the gym for another month, then I'm leaving.

(: ~ :)

I'm upset. I'm not a happy woman. But talking to people about it helps. It just happens I have a huge bruise on my arm - something to do wiht breaking up, I guess. One of my colleagues asked, as a joke, if I had done that via rough sex.
"No," I told him. "I no longer have a girlfriend."
He was most apologetic for his insensitive comments. I told him not to worry about it, and moped back to my desk. Minutes later an apologetic email came from him. We emailed chit-chat back and forth for a bit.
Come the afternoon and I can't concentrate on work. You know how it is, you break up and the object of your affections, and his/her face just keeps floating through your mind. It just got too much, and I left my desk and slunk off to the ladies for a quick cry.
Then I drifted over to my friends office, and we had a chat. Eventually we start talking about break-ups.
"You should look at it like this," he said. "Now that you are single, there is nothing stopping you from going out more often and getting drunk."
"She didn't mind me doing that," I replied. "In fact, she drove me there and back, we used to go out in Brighton."

The skylark on the shore of Brighton beach. It's a bit of an icon, even though it is on straight-side.

My friend was silent for a moment, then he looked at me and he said "so why don't you move to Brighton then?"
It's obvious, really. There are reasons why I couldn't do that last year, and no reason why this year: so I'm going. And the thought is cheering me up a lot, because Brighton is the gay capital of the UK so I am looking forward to it already.
I've given notice on my room, and I've cancelled my gym membership. Next thing to do is to pack my room up.
Then I'm on holiday for three weeks, and when I get back to the UK I'm going to stay in B&B until I get a flat.
And I'm not going to think of my ex-girlfriend if I don't need to, because this will be awesome =)

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Better, better

2009-07-20T11:56:00.001-07:00

Today was my first day back to work after breaking up with my girlfreind. I thought that it would be a bit hard, but it was a lot easier than I thought it would be.
Part of the help came from listening to the Ashes on the wireless. As y'all know, the Ashes is the bi-annual cricket tournament between England and Australia, which we haven't done terribly well at for the last few years - we won in 2005 for the first time in 20 years, but lost the next time round. I thought it was because the captain at the time was lousy - Mr F Flintoff, great player, terrible captain.

The whole team want a piece of Andrew Flintoff as he kicks some arse.

Freddie Flintoff redeemed himself today, with some excellent bowling which finished the Australians off before lunch-time. Fantastic - the only problem was that we had to all get back to work in the afternoon.

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Actually, life isn't that bad

2009-07-18T23:38:00.001-07:00

Tags: life, love, friends

Being as I'm resurrecting this blog, I've been and looked through some of the older posts. There's one where I'd had a bad crash on my bike, and was injured, got home, and had no-one to call, I felt so alone.

Since breaking up with my girlfriend I hurt so much and I had to say something to someone. I texted a few of my closest friends, and they all called back and listened to me crying and wittering and trying to understand what had happened.

I never ever expected that to happen to me. People have been great, and it lifted me up a lot. Yes, it still hurts, but knowing that there are people one can turn to means a lot, doesn't it?

And of course, lesbian exs traditionally end up as friends after a while. One day I will wonder how on earth I ever fell for her, who knows? Maybe even call her up and cry my eyes out from my next break up....

Back

2009-07-18T22:41:00.000-07:00

This blog is coming back to life, oh yes!!

Things with the girlfriend were great, but they ran there course and now they are over. I'd rather that they weren't over, but they are, and that is all there is too that. I'm not going to blog that because, well, they hurt.

Elämä on lyhyt ja surkea. Life is short and miserable.

I've been writing on this other blog I've got, on the MyOpera site. I'm not overly fond of the site anymore: yes, people do flick through it, but the site used to have a lot of cool people on it, now it is just strange people from far away who send friend requests but don't read the blog.

On the other hand, I got some random messages from this one, which was kind of cool.

We are in the second match of the Ashes series, and England are doing quite well! May post more after the match. Oh, and there is an England Women's football match upcoming, I'm going because I need to take my mind off my ex-girlfriend.

Nähdään ;)

2008-12-26T01:11:00.000-08:00

This blog is kind of dead for now. Well, sleeping is more accurate.

I'm not doing any big events until February 22nd, so all I'm doing at the moment is training. And I have a new girlfriend, who I'd like to spend a lot of time with and then not write about.

The last run I did was on the 6th December, and I wrote about it but never posted it. So here it is, and then nothing more until February.

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Now being well into advent, it must be OK to do gratuitous Christmas things already. So I spent the morning of Saturday 6th running the London Santa Run 2008 in Battersea Park.

Battersea Park is a pretty central park in London. It's south of the river and not massive, so isn't as well known as some of London's other parks. But because it is a park in London, it can be taken as read that it is a lovely park – pretty much all of London's parks are lovely.

The run is called the Santa Run with good reason: the idea is to wear a Santa suit, and run. All competitors are issued with a Santa suit before hand. It's not exactly a high performance bit of gear – in fact, the legs on mine were wrecked after the race, but it was actually labelled as a special santa suit designed for running. That is just freaky. Mine was missing a belt, so I customised it with a scarf borrowed from my mother. A lot of other entrants had some neat modifications to their suits – clearly they have done this before.

I had been going to run the race with a friend, but said friend was too flaky to sign up for the race. I wasn't looking forward to running it by myself – something as plain silly as the Santa Run should be shared with someone else, one feels. So at last minute I called my mother to see if she was up for coming down, even though I wouldn't be able to hang around for long afterwards. She agreed. I always feel a bit bad for non-runner family members, as we make them wait around while they watch thousands of strangers running past, but on this occasion I'm pleased to say that my mother had a great time watching the runners stream past in their suits, and watching the surprised looks on the face of regular park users, and getting into the spirit of the whole thing.

The run was a gentle, flat, 6k run through the park. Wearing Santa suits. The atmosphere was fun, there were a lot of people wearing customised suits, and because of the length and nature of the run there were a lot of entrants who weren't regular, obsessive running types, which is always a good thing. I don't envy the real Santa his job though: running in a big red suit for only 6k is tricky enough, and I found myself overheating rather, even though it was only about 5 or 6 degrees outside and I had really light running clothes on. Can't complain though, it was fun. You don't usually see runners stopping to take pictures of the run – it was that kind of race.

I was expecting to finish in about 40 minutes – I haven't trained much recently due to injury, and I had things planned for the evening so was taking my time. I was quite surprised to finish in 32.54 – I'd been aiming for a sedate, 10 minute mile pace...

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Hope yous had an OK Christmas and a not bad New Year!

The C-Word

2008-12-03T23:59:00.000-08:00

I'm still too busy in the evenings to update this to some kind of schedule. Oh well.

The weekend was another quasi-romantic weekend. I was volunteering at the Finnish church on the Saturday, and was in the kitchen. I like working in the kitchen, and pomoni ('My boss') seemed happy with the work I did. She even said as much, which was nice! I was dating someone in the evening, so there was romance as well.

The romance side wasn't so good. I mean, it was good in that I like her and we had fun, but at the same time I know I'm biding time with her. I think that she knows that I know that, which is why she hasn't called this week. Easy come, easy go.

So, I was watching the L Word not long ago, and it occurred to me that the characters in the program go round in a big pack. I noticed then that I don't have that many like-minded friends in town. I've lost contact with the only two gay girls I knew in Crawley, but they were kinda butch so I don't mind that. Anyway, about 6 weeks ago I decided to put an advert in Diva magazine with the idea of building up a posse of my own. Then last month I got a whole load of sleazy horrible replies from horrible people, well, frak that.

It turns out that these were the sleazy pervs reading through the early adverts pre-publication. Now it's actually been published, I had my first genuine 'just friends' response from a woman in London!!

Obviously I'm not publishing her name or number, but the advert is:

“She's a model” (that bit was added by the Diva staff)

Diva Cover Girl, 30s, seeks lady-loving ladies for fun & friendship - partying, hanging out, cinema, theatre, etc. West Sussex area. Box 622151

The bit about being a cover-girl on Diva magazine is true as well! I'm on the cover of issue 150.

Awesome.

My camera is still not working, so no new pictures. This from last year. I have about 10 months to fix my camera.

The Christmas lights are on in Crawley, I have another date on Saturday evening, I just got my tax rebate (after 20 months) from the Finnish government, and I'm in the Santa Run 2008 in Battersea Park on Saturday morning. Elämä on ihmisen parasta aikaa!! Life is the best time of your life!!

It's Christmas, and I'm Cream-Crackered

2008-11-27T13:55:00.000-08:00

Not much blog updates. That's because last week was awesome, but really really hard work.

A quick summary while I have a quiet night in to do it:

Last Wednesday I crashed my bike. The front inner tube went. I wasn't going really really fast, but fast enough for the tyre to slip over, get caught in the brakes, stop the bike abruptly and send me flying about six feet through the air. Luckily I landed gracefully on a grass verge, rolled over twice and came to rest a little shook up but uninjured – more than can be said for the bike, which needed a new front tyre and inner tube.

Saturday I was at the Finnish Church Christmas Fair in the day. I was in the kitchen all day, helping out with the easy stuff – cutting salads and things like that up, cleaning, etc. The head of the kitchen has changed since I was there last – previously it was a guy called Asko who speaks pretty good English, now it's a woman called Pirjo who doesn't really speak English at all. So we had to speak in Finnish – I'm not an expert speaker, but I can speak enough to get by. It was a lot of fun!

Date on Saturday. I promised myself that I wouldn't go back to her place as I was working the next day, and was staying at the church. I went back to her place anyway. I got back to the church the next day at 9.15, time for breakfast and another day of hard work in the kitchen.

Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday were all eaten up by THE COMPANY. I'm working on a project which is both interesting – for the planning stage – and then really dull, hard work for the implementation. That and the whole company has to work a whole lot harder at the moment because this time of year is always hard anyway, means stress stress stress. Still, I'll be able to get away early on Friday to see my date again.

I was coming home from work on Monday when I crashed my bike again. I'm just not concentrating on riding safely. This time it was worse though:

Inside the Finnish Church. You can see the things which they are selling on the racks. The grasses growing on top are an Easter tradition, because I actually took this picture at the Easter Fair. Then there is a cross, and a model of a ship hanging from the ceiling. The ship marks it out as being a Seaman's Church (Merimieskirkko). Most of the churches along the Finnish coast also have similar models hanging from the ceiling.

It was late, and cold, and I was coming home at about top speed. I came slightly wide on a corner, and the front wheel was heading for the kerb. I knew that I should steer round it, but a tiny voice in my head said that I should be able to just bounce up the kerb if I get the angle right. The voice was wrong – the front wheel skidded along the side of the kerb before bouncing back too fast. The bike tipped, and I was thrown clear over the handlebars (again). My left knee hit the tarmac first, ripping my trowsers. Then I think my right elbow, which is bruised now. That wrenched my shoulder, which was agony when I got home and the adrenalin dropped off. Finally, my chin smacked hard on the tarmac, but was saved by the visor on my helmet. The visor hit and bounced my head back, saving me from some pretty horrible damage to my face.

I picked myself up. The bike was OK this time, so I got myself home. When I got home I slumped onto the kitchen floor and I cried my eyes out. After a bit I tried to get up, but my knee and my elbow were so bad that I couldn't, not right away. You know when you just want to call someone to say something like “I'm hurt, I'm OK, I just need to hear your voice”? That's what I needed right then, but I don't have anyone.

Elämä on tuskaa.

I think I'm riding so badly because I'm under pressure, too much pressure. So I got myself a bus pass. No riding until 2009.

Christmas Cometh – Part I

2008-11-17T00:03:00.000-08:00

Apparently, more organised people maintain that Christmas starts in December. Shops famously insist that it starts right after Halloween. But I'm from a more traditional English family: for us, Christmas starts when you've been to a seasonal recital of Handel's Messiah, and, being as I did just that on Saturday night, then for me Christmas has begun.

The production was put on by the Weald Choir, of Crawley. Amazingly there are people in Crawley who do good classical work. The soloists were all professional singers, and the soprano, one Erica Eloff, was very good. And a fine looking woman too: what more do you need from a soloist?

GF Handel: Great Britain's finest composer. He is wearing socks similar to the type I run in.

I went to the Quaker's meeting in Ifield the following Sunday. I'm not a Quaker, but I am a good non-conformist girl so feel that it is OK to go to Quaker services sometimes. They have cool services: you sit in a circle in silence until someone gets an idea that they want to talk about. Anyway, one of the choir members was at the service. I said 'hi' to her, and we chatted briefly about singing. I'm a pretty terrible singer, but I'd love to learn. She mentioned that enthusiasm is the most important thing and she'd only been doing it for a couple of years, so I may go back to that.

My first Christmas run was on Sunday afternoon. I made maybe four or five miles at a pretty OK pace – I wasn't pushing it. I'd been reading in some textbook about breathing for runners: at a steady pace you should breathe in for about three steps and breath out for two, with this changing to 2 in 1 out when you are clicking along at a fair old trot. I counted this while I was running and I was going at about that rate, so that's all alright then. It's taken me ages to realise that runners should be breathing with the ribcage and keeping the diaphragm tight. I used to swim a lot – not so much now because the pool at my gym isn't particularly enticing. For my type of swimming I needed to breathe mostly with my diaphragm: big, deep breathes. Not dissimilar to how singers breathe, but not much use for most of the activities which I do now.

Then it rained for the last mile or so, but it was a nice, fine misty rain which was quite pleasant to run in. Yay.

Next week I'm all churchy again at the Merimieskirkko Lontoossa Joulubasaari – the Finnish Church in London's Christmas Fayre. I'm doing Saturday and Sunday and staying over. Ra.

The Weald Choir, an aged amateur choir.
Erica Eloff - young upcoming soprano.
Finnish Church London - if you are in London next weekend, drop round for kahvipulla.

Putting the 'Social' into 'Social'

2008-11-12T16:10:00.000-08:00

No blog update at the weekend – I've been concentrating more on the social side recently. If you can call spending 25 hours with one person 'social'........

I had a date and it went pretty well, but having thought about it (and thought about it, and thought about it, and thought about it... it was a good date!), I've decided not to post a Date Report. Im just not keeping that kind of blog.

:)

I'm winding down running and other activities over the winter season – not because it's cold, but because with the party season hard upon us I'm just not going to be able to get enough sleep. I've only got one more organised race this year :( and it is only four miles, so I don't need to train that much. Ski holiday in February isn't looking likely either :(( but I have plenty of other things to witter on about on-line...

Last year I went on holiday to Cyprus with my good friend Saaannndddyyyyy. It was fun. This year I'm meeting Sandy in Munich, but not until December.

Archive blog report for last year's trip to Cyprus :D

The last race of the season

2008-11-02T15:58:00.000-08:00

Stevenage Half Marathon. 2 hours, 5 minutes and 42 seconds.

It's a pretty good time, but I was disappointed with it. I'd been hoping to crack the two hour mark this time, but I missed it in the most annoying way.

The course at Stevenage is a really nice course, especially at this time of year. The route goes from the Rindlins Stadium, round some parts quieter parts of Stevenage and through the Fairlands Valley Park. Back for a couple of miles and past the stadium again, before heading round the course a second time. First time round was absolutely awesome. The trees are in their Autumn colours and there was a lot of mist, so it was cool and, well, pretty beautiful. I have a memory from here of looking across Fairlands Valley, at the red, orange and yellow of the trees, a low mist across the grass and a long line of runners, stretching across the park. Absolutely cracking. The route is a bit deceptive as well: it's billed as a flat race, and it is pretty flat, but not that flat. Stevenage isn't in Anglia, and isn't that flat, and the route takes you across a lot of cycle tracks – and the many underpasses which slowly wear you down.

Like most runners I run with a stopwatch and check the time as I'm going, and I was going strong and well right up to the 10-mile mark and on time for the two hour target. Then at about the 11 mile mark, with just two miles left to go, I broke. I just didn't have the energy to get up the hills as fast as I wanted to. I think partly it was genuine fatigue – it's not like half-marathons are easy – but a lot of it was that I just didn't want it enough to kill myself over it. It didn't help that one of the marshalls was telling us that the next three miles were all down hill, either: I'd just run them an hour ago, and I knew that wasn't the case! I don't think that was the problem, but I don't think that drawing attention to how much work I had left to do really helped that much. I'm still sure that I can do under two hours, I think a long rest and some awesome training are all I need. Then I can set my next target.

I was vexed that I didn't get the time I'd hoped. I sat down to get my chip taken off, and I was so grateful to have that seat as I actually was on my last legs. So much of running is in your head. The rest is in your legs.

So, last half-marathon until February – plenty of time to rest, train, and think happy thoughts. I've a 6k on the 6th December which I'm gonna start training for on Thursday, but it's only a 6k so training will be actually kinda fun. Plus the December run is in a Santa suit, so who is gonna care about the result??

I've got a lot of pictures of me during and after runs. My favourite running photographers are my sisters-in-law, both of whom are artists. This was not by one of them, although last week's was – you can tell. It's really not very kind to make runners pose for pictures straight after a run.

Lewis Hamilton is from Stevenage, and it was also his last race of the season, in São Paolo, Brazil. The Ham was leading the drivers table for the F1 World Championship by 7 points, and only had to finish fifth to take the title. Qualifying hadn't been amazing but he was comfortably in 4th, with Championship rival Felipe Massa on pole position – and perhaps key to the race, Massa's team mate Kimi Räikkönen in 3rd.

A warm track with rain at the start and the finish of the race and so much at stake, this was one exciting race.

It's over.

Lewis spent a bit of time at the start in 7th, but managed to hold on to 4th for most of the race. Then came the rain and with two laps to go, Hamilton lost his place dropping to 6th behind Sebastian Vettel after the leaders pitted to switch to wet weather tyres. As Massa crossed the line Hamilton was in 6th position – meaning Felippe Massa would have taken the championship.

Would have.

In the last corner of the race, German driver Timo Glock, who was in fourth because he hadn't changed his tyres, came a cropper – the rain got too much for him. Vettel sped past, followed by Lewis Hamilton, putting him back, in the very last few moments of the race, in fifth position, and making him the 2008 F1 World Champion. Unbelievable.

Pictures from the Stevenage Half Marathon, free from FV Spartans.

Spirito Di Rachel

2008-10-30T16:05:00.000-07:00

I didn't realise this, but one of my earlier blogs is listed and accessible through my profile!I abandoned the earlier blog because I didn't like the way it was going: there was too much of myself in there, and there were some bad things going on in my life which I didn't want to dwell on anymore, hence the new blog here. Luckily, the last post I wrote on it was about a happy weekend - I didn't ditch the blog until the awful weekend which came after that. The entry there was from a weekend where I ran my fastest race to date, and it details my race preperation for the event. Check it out:

Friday night in London at Trash Palace/ Popstarz nightclub partying, leaving at 3am totally trolleyed, getting home at about 5 or 6 in the morning.
A late night at home Saturday night, having a small amount to drink and then suddenly spotting that there was a race in my home forest the next day.
Cycling to the race, signing up, expecting to do really badly but not actually caring.

From this, I decided that I should inject a bit more of the humanness back into my blog (i.e. not 100% sports), but not spend hours working on it. Likewise, I shouldn't put too much work into race preperation either. I don't need to meditate for a week before a run, and I don't need to lock myself away to rest etc.

So, with that in mind, I thought I'd mention what happened on my way back from the Birmingham Half Marathon.

I think travelling through London is a real drag, especially at the weekends, so I either try to avoid it or I stop round at some pub for a drink. Last Sunday I stopped at the Candy Bar in Soho for a couple of Britneys, and got chatting to the bartender's girlfriend. It turns out that she was a former professional footballer from the Republic of Finland, which was a chance to practice my Finnish and talk about soccer, so that was nice. I got chatted up as well, so I have a date for the weekend after the Stevenage Half. So there's a reason to run a little bit faster :)

I did not take this picture.

Last night I went to this Ani Difranco concert at the Forum in Kentish Town, London. It was a total blast and I've been smiling about it all day. A few more beers, hanging out with a lot of lady-loving-ladies, and we had music by Ani D as well!! What more could a woman want?

I now feel completely ready to run 13.1 miles. :)

Links:
Ani Difranco
San Miguel - a well loved beer.
That blog entry, in which I discuss partying and running fast. I think that the blog sucks.

6793

2008-10-28T01:20:00.000-07:00

The Inaugural EDF Energy Birmingham Half Marathon

aka the Race Against Climate Change

Race Report and pictures of the author, Rachel of Crawley.

Who ran the race in a time of 2 hours, 2 minutes and 20 seconds

Birmingham UK is an awesome city. It is England's second largest city after London, with a population of about 1,000,000. The city is located in the centre of England and really grew up in the Industrial Revolution. With more canals than Venice and all of the land in the city actually designated as 'industrial area', the city is truly the Industrial Heart of England. I am proud to say that I have a strong connection to the city: my mother is from Birmingham, my brother lives there now, and I went to University there, graduating from Aston University with an MSc a few years ago.

The inaugural Birmingham City "Race against climate change" Half Marathon took place on the 26th October 2008. 8,927 runners gathered at the Alexander Stadium in Perry Barr, Birmingham, for the run. I entered the race with my brother Dave. There was really light rain when we got to the stadium at 8.30, but luckily that had cleared up by the time the run was due to start. Well, it was late October in the English Midlands! The run started 10 minutes late, but that was the only glitch in an otherwise excellently run race, and we were soon on a course which took us through a lot of the sites of Brum, including Aston University (yay Aston!!), Birmingham City University (Booo!), the Mailbox, Victoria Square and Digbeth (OK. Digbeth is not exactly the most amazing part of town), before heading out through Edgbaston and back through Lozells, along Broad Street and into Centenary Square. Broad Street is the party area of Birmingham, and it felt a bit strange to be running down Broad Street sober :o)

Birmingham City Council really managed the event well, with plenty of marshals and water stations, and a really good, challenging course. The first water station was manned by a Muslim group from a local mosque - in the UK at the moment there is a certain amount of mistrust aimed (unfairly) at our Muslim community so to see someone making such a pro-active move was good. It put me in a good frame of mind for the rest of the run.

Me and my brother celebrate finishing the EDF Birmingham Half Marathon. The fountain is known locally as the Floozie in the Jacuzzi - named after a statue in Dublin of the same name.

I was hoping for a time of under 2 hours, but the run was harder than I expected (winner was only 1 hour 6). A lot of the time I felt that I was running uphill and there were a lot of bridges, underpasses, and tunnels - Birmingham City Centre has a lot of major roads going round it. Also, I'd noticed that in the last week I've had less energy than I had leading up to the GNR, so given all of that I am pretty happy with 2.02. It's a PB anyway, so I can't complain - I'm still improving as a runner and there will be plenty of other chances to break the 2 hour mark.

The medals were cool. I'm not hung up on medals - sure they are fun but I have enough already and don't race because I need any more. But the medals we got were pretty cool: a solid, heavy bit of metal with a nice bit of printing on the front and back. Tyylikäs :)

Links

The EDF Birmingham Half Marathon
Birmingham City Council
The Floozie in the Jacuzzi has her own website too!

Trebišov

2008-10-14T15:51:00.000-07:00

I'm not long back from a wedding out in Slovakia. First time I've been to Slovakia, so it was an experience for me - these people really know how to have a wedding!!

I was in Trebišov, near the Hungarian and Ukranian borders, and of course, went out running. On the Friday I made about 10km somewhere in this area (I'm too tired to plot the route out). I'd had a few drinks the night before and slept on the overnight train, so the run was pretty hard to get going on. There were gypsies in the wood gathering sticks (no shit - there are loads of gypsies in East Slovakia!), and on the way back I got barked at by a stray dog. I did wonder if I was going to get bitten, but I carried on and the dog ran away. Obviously not a British dog.

View Larger Map

In the above map, if it works, I ran from somewhere in town and went along the wooded area and back. Gypsies, I tell you. Real life gypsies.

I got even drunker on Friday night, so my 5ish k run on Saturday was EVEN HARDER. I took a different route out across the fields, and saw a farmer with a horse-drawn cart - so quaint! I'm reliably informed that most farmers there don't use horses, but I saw one. Lucky me.

The town museum of Trebišov. I ran past it, so I did.

36345

2008-10-07T15:20:00.000-07:00

The Great North Run

I have to admit, I was pretty ambivalent before about the Great North Run (GNR) before I ran it. I'm fond of smaller, less crowded races, preferably run on a shoestring, medals/mementoes optional - and the Great North Run, as the world's largest half-marathon, is certainly not like one of those.

We were staying in nearby Hexham, about 25 miles out of town. The GNR is now so large that almost all of the accommodation in a 30 mile radius of the city is booked up weeks in advance by runners - thousands upon thousands of runners. It was pretty cold at the start of the race, about 7°C. I stood in a shivering crowd of runners for about 30 minutes waiting for the start of the run. When it finally started, at 10.30, it took us 14 minutes to get to the start line. And then for us, the race proper began.

I love running. I can happily run for no reason. I can push myself on training runs, through tiny events, and round forests with no other reason than the sheer joy of running. But this was something else - this was running in an endless crowd, all of us running together, and surrounded on other side by an enormous cheering audience. There were radio presenters, there were bands, there were people giving out free drinks, and there were children holding up their hands for you to hit them as you go past. There were endless supporters, buses with charity teams, all sorts of free things being given out by the audience (cakes, ice-pops, water - there is even a now legendary stall giving out free beer to runners at mile 10). The Red Arrows, the display team of the RAF and therefore the best in the world also put in an appearance at the start of the run and two hours later again at the end. Amazing!

This is the canonical picture of the GNR, with runners crossing the Tyne Bridge about a mile and a half in, with the Red Arrows flying overhead. I thought that the Red Arrows would be cheesy, but when you are running in a big crowd across a major landmark of the North East with a modern British icon flying noisily overhead - wow!

I had such an amazing time at the GNR that I'm already planning on doing it again. I made a time of 2.04.32, which is passable. I was aiming for 2 hours, but the crowds were so thick that I spent a massive amount of time just weaving round people. I had a really good run though, and was running just as strong at mile 12 as I was at mile 1. Probably because this comes right after two other half-marathons =)

It took the bus nearly four hours to get us out of South Shields right after the race. I think that next year I'm going to leave a bike near the finish line the night before, so that I can nip through the traffic and get away at the end. Cunning :)

I ran the GNR for the charity Epilepsy Action, and my brother and I raised about £1,000 between the two of us. EA made about £40,000 altogether, out of their team of 90 runners. I'd definitely run for EA again - it's a small charity and I'm always behind the small guy. I have a family connection to it as well, and they are nice people - EA gave all their runners a sit-down and a nice cup of tea afterwards. What more could you want from a team?

The Great Runs website - quite a big corporate sports franchise by now.
Epilepsy Action.
The Red Arrows, the world's finest aeroplane acrobatics team bar none.

We're going to Finland!!

2008-10-02T14:17:00.000-07:00

I'm absolutely bowled over by this - England have just booked a place in the Euro 2009 women's football finals, taking place next year in Finland.

I'm delighted mostly because I'm an England fan, but also because as a Suomephile*I've been really really hoping to go.

It was a tense match. This was the last match of the first-round of qualifying. England were on 19 points, Spain were on 16, meaning that a draw would see us through. Losing would see the group tied, but England have a couple of goals in hand, so we could afford to lose by 1 and we'd still have gone through on goal differences. Losing by 2 would mean that Spain qualify and we have to try our luck in the play-offs.

42 minutes into the match and the Spanish were leading 2-0. Things were not looking good, and one can imagine the choice words that Hope Powell would have had for the team during the break.

10 minutes into the second half and Karen Carney put the first England goal in, followed 22 minutes later by a second from Kelly Smith, making it 2-all.

There followed a tense 15 minutes (13+2 minutes overtime) in the Rachel household as we waited for the final whistle to blow.

It's way too soon for many pictures for the match to come through yet, but this is cadged off of the FA website - Ms Karney celebrating her goal.

I'm doing the Great North Run on Sunday, and that is the reason why I didn't go to Spain to watch the match. I really wish that I wasn't doing the GNR now, because I would really love to be out in Zamora right now!!

The FA women's site

*Suomephile: one who loves Finland.

5-1

2008-09-28T23:18:00.001-07:00

First of all, I did not come last in the Firle20k. I didn't come in with an amazing result, but I've only been running for a year! I'm happy to finish half-marathong races at all, and my time of 2 hours 10 wasn't a bad time by any measure. I did last week's half-marathon quicker while I was somewhat frakked, but the two courses don't compare. Look at the profile:

Firle 20k Profile

After the race, I happened to get chatting to the guy who finished in 8th position. He runs in the South Downs regularly and is used to that kind of hill. Whereas I come from flatlands - I can manage hills which aren't steep and don't go on too long!!

All in all it was an awesome run, and I'd definitely do it again. The scenery was pretty impressive, and I'd been conisdering going round again afterwards on my butch and taking a few shots, but when I got back I just didn't fancy the idea so much. If I wasn't there all by myself then maybe I would have. I took a couple of shots at ground level:

The lodge at Firle Place.

Part of Firle Beacon from a distance. It still looks terrifying.

:)

The last picture isn't from Firle, it's Rachel Brown, the England goalkeeper. England were playing the Czech Republic in Prague. I saw the home match in Doncaster earlier this year - it wasn't the best match, but I'm pleased to say this time we came away with a 5-1 result. Little Karen Carney, Mad Kelly Smith and Tall Jill Scott all scored in what must have been a painful five minutes for the Czechs right at the end of the match. We are sooooooo close to Euro 2009!!

Saw the end of the stupid "world's first night time F1 race." Not desperatly exciting race - disappointed by the lack of headlights on the cars. Good result for Lewis, bad result for Massa, stupid time for a race and track a bit crappy.

England Women
Firle Place, very pretty.

59

2008-09-24T15:54:00.000-07:00

I'm entering a cross-country 20km race this weekend. It's a week before the Great North Run, and a week after the Kettering Half Marathon, so I want to take it a bit easy - I did a lot last weekend and the GNR is going to be kinda hard - it has a lot of travel before and after! So I decided that I would take the upcoming race pretty easy.

The race is the Firle 20k, near Lewes on the south coast of England. It's on a hilly and scenic course, and it isn't a big race - good off-road races with a small number of people are what I should be doing, and frak the bigger races like the GNR.

I got my race number today. I'm number 59, which means it really isn't a big race. There are probably only going to be 59 people in it, and I'm probably going to come in 59th. But even if I do, I'm going to love this race.

More details to follow......

The event organisers are Raw Energy Pursuits

A Change of Plan

2008-09-21T14:42:00.000-07:00

This weekend I was supposed to be doing the Woodstock 12 run with my brother. It is a 12 mile run through the grounds of Sir Winston Churchill's old home Blenheim Palace in the village of Woodstock, in Oxfordshire. Blenheim Palace is a beautiful venue for running - the grounds are a UNSECO World Heritage Site, which would have been fantastic to run around. Unfortunately, the race was cancelled because the grounds were waterlogged from the heavy rain we had last month. Oh well. Such is life.

We also had a family gathering on that weekend - it was originally going to be at Woodstock, but instead we met up at my parents home. I got there on the Friday and spent Saturday morning on a 10 mile training run around the fields where I grew up. It was a good run, and as it was 10 miles round tracks I know well, I had a bit of time for thinking. The good weather we had last week has given our farmers the chance to finally get their harvests in. The fields are all stubble, but still mostly golden stubble. A few years ago I lived in Finland, and one year I went to the Pori Jazz festival with the girl called Saija. That weekend Sting was playing, and he played the song "Fields of Gold". It reminded me of the fields were I spent my childhood, and as I was running on Saturday I got that same feeling again - these fields remind me of the fields which I grew up in. It's a strange feeling being as they are the fields which I grew up in, but both myself and the fields have changed so much since then that we no longer recognise one another. If this was a podcast and not a blog I'd play Fields of Gold, but it's a blog and not a podcast so I have to link in from YouTube here:

My brother arrived in the afternoon. He was going to be running the Woodstock 12 with me, and had found a run in Kettering, Northamptonshire to do - the Kettering Half Marathon.

"Why don't you run it with me?" he asked.

"I've just done a 10 mile training run. I'm not sure that I want to do a half tomorrow, being as I've a 12 mile run next weekend. I've only got cross-country shoes anyway, but I'm happy to come along to support you."

"You can do it just fine in those cross-country shoes. There is also a 10k you could do.... and, you get a medal."

A medal?? I've got enough medals, but it's always neat to have a new one I can dazzle my clubmates with.

"OK," I said. "I'll do it," and with that I went to look at the prices. They wanted £16 to enter the half-marathon!! I've just moved house so I don't think I can spare £16. So I had a look at the price for the 10k. The 10k was also £16!! So might as well do the half marathon.... right??

True Rachel logic.

Quaint Olde English houses. I ran past them today. The picture is dull though and I think that

this picture of my brother pointing across the car park has more life in it. He finished the half-marathon in 1 hour 39.

The Half Marathon was really nice - gently undulating hills, fabulously quaint Olde English scenery, cracking weather and lovely marshals. My legs were aching from one of the hills I'd pushed it a bit hard on on Saturday, so they had that wholesome "working hard" feeling by the time I'd got to mile 13. As I was approaching the finish line I heard a couple of guys coming up behind me loudly. My mother was cheering for me madly at the finish line - I couldn't let these guys take me!! SO I pushed it just a tiny bit harder than I should have done. I was almost sick on the poor girl giving out medals, but she was very nice about it.

My legs are pretty sore now, but it's not like I actually need to walk upstairs for a couple of days anyway. Just hope I'm good for next weekend!!

Links

My run on Saturday
1.42 - not a bad time considering a lot of the track was really overgrown, and couldn't really be run.
Kettering Town Harriers Website. 2.05.08 - out of 11 senior women entrants, I came sixth: a good result, especially when one is frakked from the day before.
The Woodstock Harriers - do the Woodstock 12 next year.
Blenheim Palace - I've never been there.

Getting Oriented

2008-09-14T10:22:00.000-07:00

I was keeping a more insular blog elsewhere, but I got sick of doing that - it was too much about me, and I'm at a stage where I don't want to write about me anymore. So I decided to start again with another blog where I only write about the things which I want to share.

Inspired by a couple of other blogs and podcasts, I present to you the Crawley Sports and Social Club Blog, where I shall witter on about he sports I follow and the sports I do; and maybe a bit of social stuff, every now and then.

Here's what I follow at the moment:

Women's soccer
Women's cricket
Ice Hockey
Men's Formula1 racing

and anything else cool which comes along at the time.
Here's what I do, although not always very well:

Swimming
Skiing, downhill
Skiing, cross country
Pilates,
Yoga,
Running,
Mountain Biking, cross country

Oh, and there is a new pasttime this weekend:

Orienteering

I've been running a lot lately in preperation for a couple of Half-Marathongs in October - the Great North Run and the Birmingham Half-Marathon. To help improve my technique and focus my mind I've also been reading Runner's World, which I pore over monthly for any events near to where I live. As I don't have (or want to have) a car, this means events in or close to Crawley - Crawley is an unexciting new town which has some really nice bits of forest around it, and I have entered some cracking forest races this year in the town. My event for this week was orienteering in the park around The Hawth Theatre. In Orienteering you are given a map and a series of checkpoints which you have to go round. You check in at each point with a 'dibber', this little electronic token which records the time you got there. How hard can that be?

We've had a lot of rain recently so the forest was pretty muddy, the place was ovegrown and I found it quite tough working out where I was some of the time. One of the checkpoints was down at the bottom of this pit, which I had a pretty tough time actually getting out of! I came back muddy and scratched from the brambles, but I got every checkpoint. My placing at the end was pretty rubbish: I came 54th out of 57, but I don't feel bad about that, as a rookie on a course they said was technically challenging, I was happy to finish at all :)

Actually I was also lucky to have started at all! I spent the night before partying with my landlady and her friend. We were all pretty sloshed when we finally got to bed at about 3.30. My landlady is a golfer, and a pretty good one, and she had some golf thing on for Saturday as well. Not the best preparation for a sporting event, and needless to say, neither of us performed to the best of our ability.

A couple of deer in Tilgate Forest. I took this picture in Tilgate Forest in July and not while orienteering - you wouldn't take a camera orienteering now, would you?

I finished the weekend with the Italian Grand Prix and a 10 mile run around Crawley on Sunday (1:32:09 - I can do better, but not this year). It didn't rain in Crawley but it did rain in Monza: the cars started off behind the safety car in clouds of spray! Pretty good race, with Sebastian Vettel getting Scuderia Toro Rosso's first ever win. Excellent :D Lewis Hamilton also had a race first, starting from the back of the grid for the first time in his career. The boy from Stevanage bravely managed to fight his way up to 7th place - leaving him with a 1 point lead for the driver's championship. Four races until the end of the season!

Credits
Confessions of a runner - you can't say bad things about Jodi.
Phedippidations the goofy little podcast that is an inspiration to us all.
Tri to be funny - she "tris", and occasionally she is....
Southdown Orienteers - very nice people.