Poor weather stopped Park Run on Saturday morning.
Bugger.
And so how about… a run instead?
An extremely heavy South Notts frost froze up the car. The short drive to Rushcliffe Park Run was abandoned.
Which wasn’t so bad. I wanted to do a big, big run over the weekend anyway. The weather forecast for Sunday is making this seem unlikely.
Ans so a big, big Saturday run.
I always call this route my Hometown Half Marathon.
That was until Strava came along and told me that it was three miles short of a half marathon.
Who is measuring anyway?
It sounds better if you say 16km.
I started to pound the mean streets of NG12 just as daylight was breaking through. I was a little unsteady on my feet for the start of the frost heavy country lanes.
It was so chuffing cold that the first four miles or so were completed at quite a pace.
Maybe I should run during the winter months only?
It was a magical scene as the sun started to rise as I passed along Flawforth Lane.
A grand old oak stood naked with all to bare. The illuminations from behind revealed centuries of body wear and tare.
My SKY HIGH running mentality led to some hippy shit. I started to talk to the grand old oak and admired the strength of the body.
Never trust a hippy.
Especially not at 7:30am in the morning.
My final time of one hour and 28 minutes was a full five minutes faster than when I last ran the route back in June.
I still reckon I could take a further five minutes off.
But definitely not on Sunday morning.
I showered, and then set off to the Fair City for some Christmas shopping.
Nottingham was full of energy, much as how I had remembered it from 35 years or so previous.
Little Christmas shopping took place. I always end up chasing my shadow and back-tracking on my previous haunts.
Farewell Broad Marsh car park.
You won’t be missed.
I checked in on Brian.
And then did the whole Hockley thing.
I’m a little ashamed to say that only 87p was spent on Christmas presents.
I did buy a couple of thick black rubber swimming hats from a very odd, but very friendly tranny in a budget sports shop.
And I thought Colchester was bloody weird…
It was only when I arrived back at base that I realised that the friendly tranny had sold me a couple of kiddie swimming hats.
Whoops.
It was a little hit and miss on the journey home. I had a work shift starting at 3pm and there was transport delays.
I made it with five minutes to spare.
Work tools were downed, and then I scrubbed up and headed back out to the Fair City.
Saturday night in Nottingham is HOCKEY NIGHT.
Time and tide has kept me away from the Good ‘Ol Hockey Game for far too long.
I had a tickets for Panthers at home to Cardiff.
Once again I was tracing my shadows, working out how the old Ice Stadium fitted into the footprint of the shiny new (ish) National Ice Centre.
Times move on.
I still bloody love ice hockey though. There is no finer place to watch it in this country than in the Fair City.
The final score of 2-1 to the Devils was just about right. Panthers spent most of the game defending the powerplay.
Blimey - it’s bloody cold up here.