Thinking of dad...

Do you know, I'm ashamed to say that I forget the actual day and even the year that dad died. We always celebrate his life at the end of June and this weekend we'll be doing it again - heading to Beer for the day, hire a boat, enjoy the sunshine and have a picnic in the bay. He was a great dad (obviously the best) and I miss him every day but I now think about all the great things that he did and how he made me the man that I am (thanks dad).

It's days like this that I think of dad a little more than usual (ignoring the fact that it's the anniversary of his death) as it looks as though Lisa and I are going to have a crack at buying an actual house. We've lived in our little flat for the last 8yrs and I think it's about time that we bought a place with a garden and stairs actually within it.

Dad was great at these sorts of things. I remember buying my first proper car and thought I'd got a great trade-in deal for my car etc. Took my dad the next day and without any effort, he managed to get the price down on the car I wanted and I got to sell my existing car privately .... he saved me about £1,000. He managed the same earlier in my life when I rented my first house at Uni. The man was a bartering legend and I have no idea how. He had a way of listening that just resolved all problems. Full of quiet advice and very worthy tales, he truly was one of a kind. Quietly confident in his own worth and strong beliefs, he made an impression wherever he went (whether you had the same political/social views as him or not).

It's still strange that you can Google Granville Baldwin and you'll find a stack of info about how he was the first Lord Mayor of Exeter (very proud son).

Thanks for being my Dad.....I just wish it had been for a wee-bit longer.

London 2 Brighton....

Bloody hell, I know it's stupid to say but running 100km in one go is hard work. I'd set myself up for a challenge by deciding to run the equivalent to 2.5 x-country marathons in one go but I don't think I'd realised how hard it was going to be. I was hoping to get it done in 15hrs but in the end it took me 17hrs to get the deed done (including a number of check-in/rest points).

Prior to running the full 100km/63miles I think the furthest I'd run would have been one of my regular 1/2 marathons. I'd upped my general fitness/stamina and was running more frequently but I hadn't put in the longer distance work, so I was putting my faith into the fact that I was feeling fit. What I hadn't planned for was how much of the distance was actually proper x-country. Only about 5% was on roads, a whole chunk of it was on bridleway but the vast majority was full on nasty X-country. If any of you have done the Dursley Dozen in the past, much of the route was like that and in some places I really hated it - it was wet and flooded in places and impossible to run through.

The oddest thing to hear me say is that the first full marathon distance was actually OK. I felt pretty good as I crossed what would be a finish line after just over 4hrs of running. Even the second marathon distance wasn't too horrible but the last 1/2 marathon distance was just about slogging-it through to the finishing line. There was nothing pretty about it in the last 20km and very little (if any) running. My left hip had frozen, the sun was going down (it was pitch black for the last hour) and I'd foolishly left my head-torch behind, thinking that I'd have been in the pub for a hour by the time I eventually finished.

In the final push, I teamed up with another runner - he provided the light and I provided the motivation (so glad I caught up with him as with out his light I don't know how I'd have managed some sections) - and together we crossed the line. Both a little bit broken but at a running pace we were cheered into the finish area. I was scanned in, received my finishers t-shirt and slugged-back a glass of bubbles. Lisa ran over and hugged me and she then took me to get my finishers meal....I think I only managed to chew down about 3 chips and a couple of mouthfuls of burger.

Will I be doing it again next year.....I thinking NOT!

Don't forget though, if you still want to sponsor me, check out my justgiving page.

This was at about the 40km stage.

No to the action cam...

Yet again I have been contemplating the possible purchase of an action-cam. Just because I tend to enjoy bucking the main trends I was planning on staying clear of the GoPro and was looking at the ION Air. However, after my usual unnecessary amount of faff I have again decided that I want the lifestyle in-front of the camera (check out the GoPro-Black promo-vid to see what I'm talking about), rather than being the guy with a camera strapped to his head, board, bike or even chest. So..... I bought myself a new wakeboard. Starting to get to grips with the old wake-park milarky (an excellent and underused word) but sooooo not a fan of the way it's trashing my O'Brien Decade! So I have old skool and bought myself an O'Brien R5 - it's an old series and fin-less but should be able to take a beasting from the rails and kickers. The only problem being that it's fin-less and so it'll be an entire new feel for me again.

In other wakeboarding news, I have just spotted an amazing place (via the old t'internet) on the Exe. I was looking at Exewake and then spotted the River Exe Cafe.....it's a floating cafe - how cool is that! Going to have to pay it a visit the next time I'm back home for a weekend.

Finally, it's only a couple of weeks until my London to Brighton run is here. Starting to feel the size of the challenge now and even though the distance is daunting, it's the concept of having to run pretty much non-stop for 12-15hrs that's freaking me out the most. Also, having to leave home at 3am to get to the start line by about 5am is also a tad upsetting.

From this clip, it looks as though these guys are riding fin-less. How hard can it be?

A winding and a popped shoulder....

You can't beat a sport with the added risk of injury. I'm trying to think which (if any) of my chosen sports have a low risk aspect to it....nah, can't think of any!
My wakeboarding session on Wednesday was a good-un but I did hit the water hard off the kicker (and decided that impact vests are a worthy bit of kit) and then a little later some poor guy got it a tad wrong and popped his shoulder - I don't think his wetty will have survived the ambulance trip to hospital (ouch).
From next week my work ethic could take a real kicking as the lake is open 7-days a week. For the last couple of weeks I have been restricted to Wednesdays only but so long as I don't have a meeting I could end up spending far too much time in the water from Monday :)

So....have I made the right decision about switching from boat to cable - I think so :) The only down-side I can think of so far (apart from my kit getting all scratched-up) is that the kit shop has some fab stickers and I might buy so many that my car turns into one big sticker.

Oh yeh.....it's only a matter of weeks until my 100km run. Got my start time and my gun fires off at 6am. That means that I'll have be be at the start-line at 5am and so will have to be on the road to London (thank you Lisa for being my chauffeur) from about 3:30am. It's going to be hard going as that means I'll be working on the Friday, head home, pack, have a bit of food, a kip and then into the car ....it's going to seriously mess with my body-clock.

Going to go for a run in the morning.....

My mind keeps thinking about mountainbiking and Scotland in the summer. OK, this is Wales and not Scotland but I hope I find the balls to even fly half as high as these guys.

It's all gone cable...

After the usual amount of faffing I decided to give cable a go this year and have joined the WMSki guys at the lake. So far I am loving it. It's a different style of wakeboarding (a bit like street-skating v. half-pipe skating) but I'm already hitting two of the sliders/ramps and starting to feel good about the place.

The guys and girls who run the lake seem spot-on and I'm not just waiting for the sun to shine - it almost did this weekend!

In other news, my London to Brighton run is only a month away. Had a dip in the training for the last couple of weeks due to far too much Mount Gay Rum with the guys in Woolly and then a man-cold (possibly due to too much Gay Rum). Back to it again now and with the wakeboarding I'm finding myself to be pretty much stiff from toe-to-head.
Am I getting nervous .... hell yes! It's all starting to feel a tad real. Five 1/2 marathons in one go is really going to be hard work (duh, really!). I know (I think) that I can do it but I'm not too sure of the condition I'll be in as I arrive in Brighton later the same day.

As a final thought. My thoughts are with he guys and girls who were caught up in the Boston Marathon madness yesterday. Sport is historically know as an olive branch across all aspects of the modern world and to find it at the bloody-end of such a horrific act is terribly saddening.

Cable or boat...

Ran the Reading 1/2 marathon the other weekend. Thick with snow on the way down the A34 and then upon arrival in Reading it was wet, windy and flipping cold. Lisa was brave enough to stand in the elements and wait for me (she should have been running but wasn't well) and I crossed the finish-line after 1hr 49mins. Not the fastest of times but a pretty decent one.

Last weekend I headed to WMSki for the first time. The last couple of summers I have been wakeboarding at Hardwick Park behind a boat but that lake doesn't open up for another month and closes quite early in tee year, so I thought I'd give cable a go. Hey, it was quite a bit of fun. Bloody cold, again with snow coming down as I drove there but I quite enjoyed it. Didn't hit any of the obstacles but played around for an hour or so. Eventually I had to give up as my grip and fore-arms eventually gave-up.

The problem now is, do I return to Hardwick later in April or buy and pass and go completely cable this year? A cable pass would allow me to get wet as often as I could get to the park (18+ miles away from work and 35+ miles away from home), while Hardwick would at most be a once per week 15min session (15+ miles away from work and 10+miles from home).....what to do?

Boat or cable, I'd love to be even remotely close to this level.

Feeling crappy...

All sorts of bugs flying about at work (some of them very unpleasant and involve the sufferer being unable to leave the smallest room in the house) but so far I seem to have avoided all of them. Still, I can't help but feel that something is lurking in the background.

The sun came out in the week and so I dashed home from work to go for a run. A nice 6-miler but I am very aware that it's only 1/10th of the distance I'll be running in a couple of months. Still, the Reading 1/2 is next weekend and that should be a decent old run.

The run next weekend and then I'm back at the wakeboarding.....Yay. I'm hoping the weather will have improved as we have more snow on the way this weekend and I don't want to be hitting the lake with -2'C temperatures.

The summer holiday to Scotland is starting to look brilliant. OK, we aren't going to get the sunshine and temperatures that I love but there's a wakepark close to where we're staying and the mountainbiking looks brilliant. By the sounds of things, it is sounding as though I might not survive the 2-weeks north of the wall.

I think in prep, I need to hit Afan a few times...

2 weeks...

Only a couple of weeks to go until its the Reading 1/2 Marathon. Shouldn't be a problem, so long as I have shaken off the last of this man-cold that I've been suffering from. Popped out for a little 6-mile run earlier and it was like running with cotton-wool in my lungs.

Got to get my arse in gear and book a session at the cable-park. Milton-Keynes is open most weekends now (once the ice has either been cleared or melted) and WMSki opens either this weekend or next. Fingers crossed that the sun actually starts to come out and defrosts the water.

My ankle is feeling a lot better (which is why I decided to go for a run) and I have a hotel booked at the Brighton end for my London to Brighton challenge ( www.justgiving.com/nicksrunning100km ). The manager has upgraded us to a family room as it has a bath and HE has decided that I will need a soak when I arrive in Brighton ---- what a really cool guy (www.avalonbrighton.co.uk).

Need to get wet...

Think I'll give WMSki a crack next month. My lake (I know it's not my lake) doesn't open until April and Tom is away on his travels, so I'm not going to get any boat time for another couple of months.

Rather than MiltonKeynes cable park, I have only just realized that WMSki is only about 35-miles away ..... I could be there in less than 60-mins.

In other news, my ankle is still a tad swollen and sore. Been laying-off the old training for the last few days in the hope that when I hit the gym tomorrow it'll feel a load better....it just feels weak and I'm a tad freaked that I'll go-over on it again.

On the running-front, the hotel is booked in Brighton for my London to Brighton Challenge. I'd love to get into Brighton in time for a beer but the closer I get to the 100km challenge I get, the more I fear that a pint might not be on the top of my 'to-do' list .... which is why we have booked a hotel in case I am in serious need of a bed.

Surfers Eye...

How bloody ridiculous; it's been ages since I actually surfed and I managed to have developed a decent case of pterygium (in both eyes). The only up-side is the fact that the other name for pterygium is 'surfers eye'. At the moment and hopefully for the future it isn't affecting my actual sight and it's just a case of something a tad annoying.

What is it....

Repeated exposure to UV, glare, wind, dust, seawater, and sand can cause damage to the conjuctiva (a clear mucous membrane on the eyeball’s surface). Over time, these irritants can result in degeneration of the collagen fibres that make up this conjuctival membrane. To make matters worse, yellowish and thicker fibers grow in its place — not exactly attractive. This new membrane (called a “pterygium”) grows from the bottom, nasal corner of the eye in a triangular or winged shape with the long corner pointing toward the cornea. If allowed to progress, the pterygium can warp the surface of the cornea and even block light from entering the eye.

How does it feel...

Dry and itchy eye (yep)

Burning sensation of the eye (yep)

Persistent redness of the eye (a little)

The feeling of a foreign object in the eye (yep)

Eye inflammation (yep)

Bloody tears (hoping I don't get this one)

Blurred or otherwise impaired vision (this would be annoying)

Hey-ho! There's not a lot I can do about it now. Apparently you can have surgery (yuck) but it's likely to reoccur soon afterwards. Think I'll just get Lisa to train me in the correct way of using eye-drops (that's the best & easiest treatment) as I seem to have real issues using the little plastic bottles - apparently dropping the fluid in from about 20cm away from the eye isn't the way to do it (that would explain why I seem to get more on my face than in the eye).

If you want to know more about it - click here.

Think I'll go wakeboarding asap to get help cheer me up. In the meantime, check this great little vid out - about Surfers Against Sewerage and what they do & why.

A spot of the white stuff...

Sometimes it feels as though Lisa and me are the only ones in the UK that love a spot of snow. After a few days of doom and gloom about 'yellow snow' warning (I don't think they're warning us of the same thing I've always been wary of) and then a few red warning, the amount of snow that actually landed was a bit of an anti-climax. Still, it was enough to create chaos and have a bit of a play in.

In other news I'm just about maintaining some sort of training routine for the London to Brighton 100km I'm doing in May. I need to hit the road and get some miles under my feet but the general training is going well. I have the Dursley Dozen in a couple of weeks and by all account that's a gnarly old run - x-coutry and a lot of hills.

Water-wise....I feel as though I'm actually starting to dry-out. It's been months since I've been either in the lake or in the sea. Aaaaaaaagh!

In order to stay sane I've been bouncing around the web as usual to find the best vids online. Cheers to Billabong for this one ...

No longer required...

Received a letter from the Bone Marrow folk earlier in the week and it looks as though I'm not longer required. Hopefully that simply means that they found a donor closer to the Dutch recipient. To be honest, I'm a little disappointed that I can't do something as cool as donate my marrow to someone (& effectively save a life) but on the up-side, I guess I no longer have to worry about a trip to the hospital and a portion of my hip being chiseled out, getting in the way of my 100km run training.

Also, I can now go back to giving blood - I was not allowed while being on the list to help someone.

If you ca, are able to or willing to give it a try, check out BLOOD and give a bit of time to maybe safe a life.

2013...

I'm sure it's not just me but where the hell did the end of 2012 go? Christmas and New Years have been and gone....thank god. I can't say I'm a huge fan of the entire experience. I like the time off but not the enforced celebrating - yes, I'm a Grinch! Now that it's 2013 I guess I'm going to have to step up my running training. I have managed to get some training in-between the drinking and eating but I just know my next gym session is going to be a painful one. When people question my upcoming 100km run (London to Brighton) they're a little confused about a couple of things - why & will I make it? Why .... needed a challenge for 2013 and 100km for Hospiscare (yep, I'm also raining sponsorship I'm afraid) for seemed like a good idea. Will I make it .... yes I will! To be a running entrant I have to complete the 100km in less than 15 hrs. I'm hoping to get it done in about 12hrs. 100km equates to about 5 1/2 marathons and with a short break for fluids/food every 25km I should be able to get it done in my 12hr target. Although saying that, my 1/2 marathon time is usually just between 1hr 45mins & 1hr 50mins, so maintaining that pace for 5 times the distance is going to be the biggest challenge.

http://www.justgiving.com/nickruns100km

In other news, it seems to have been for-ever since I got wet. No wakeboarding since the end of the summer and even though I took my boards down to my mums over Xmas, I didn't get the chance to get to the surf ... I did get to the beach but on the wrong side of the coast & only to walk the dog. The only thing keeping me sain are my small pile of DVDs and the joys of youtube etc.

So much for snow...

My last update was me going on about the little bit of snow we get and the road system collapses. I was actually thinking or rather hoping that with the first sight of snow, we could end up with a white Christmas. Looking at the weather for the next week and it is looking pretty un-festive (weather-wise). According to the Met-Office we could see temperature in the double figures. What's that all about at the end of December?????

One more week at work and then we'll be heading down to Devon for a few days. It's going to be mostly jammed with family stuff but I'm taking the boards down so that I can sneak off to the beach for a bit of cold water surfing.

 

Talking of boards....just grabbed myself a spot of old-skool skateboard hardware. Oddly, as a kid I didn't have one of these (my mates did) but I instead had something made of a sheet of aluminium. An aluminium deck makes for a very smooth ride but I lost so many chunks from my shins when things went wrong.


The Shaper from Crayfish Films on Vimeo.
As part of my bouncing around the web I came across this classic piece of (modern) surf history. Well worth a watch and I'll let you come to your own conclusion.

First fall of snow...

I love when England gets the slightest hint of snow and there is complete travel chaos. I say England as Scotland in places gets some proper snow and they manage to deal with it. Here it seems that the further South you go, the less able they are of coping with a mm or so of the white stuff. Woke up this morning to a very light covering of snow (resulted in a low level of excitement) and thankfully my journey into work was pretty event-free but check-out the news and look to the South and 2mm of snow closed airports, schools and roads. Apparently you couldn't pass a lamp-post that didn't have a car wrapped around it. Not a rant or a complaint but rather a simple observation.

Not really related to the snow but the cold weather has made we dream about sunshine, water and surfer. Bouncing around the net I came across this beautiful little movie .... very dreamy, cool and beautifully shot.

Crappy weather...

Well I'm now past the half-way point of my week off and I can announce that I have done bugger all. No real surf to speak of (so I'm not going to be driving to the coast) and the wind has picked up, so the cable park is far too choppy to be worth getting wet for.

In tech news, the new GoPro3 came out. I could quite happily pass on the gadget but I soooo want the lifestyle depicted in their promo YouTube clips.

 

Easily distracted...

Finding everything very distracting at the moment. Off to see the bone marrow folk in the morning for the last batch of blood tests to ensure that I'm still all good and healthy. The blood package arrived over the weekend and it looks as though the guy/girl I'll be helping is a Dutchie.... my bloods will head over to a doc in Amsterdam. This is all very cool.

The running and training isn't going so well though. I'm worried about getting a cold and screwing things up but I need to get to grips with things and hit the gym. I'll run that way tonight.

In slightly more random news, I'm starting to become very aware of the fact that this weekend is going to be the last wakeboarding weekend at the lake until April next year. I'm going to have to start hitting the coast again for surf. Oddly I haven't hit Woolly all that often this year and instead have spent more time at the lake. Although I'm loving this river surfing lark ... trying to think of the closest river that could make trying thins actually a possibility.

Don't forget to check my justgiving page out - click here

Bone Marrow match...

Just a quick update to keep you in the loop. As well as deciding to run the equivalent of two and a half marathons in a single day (to raise funds for hospiscare - click here to support me) earlier this week, I have just found out that I am a match for someone who needs a batch of healthy bone marrow. Off to get the final session of blood tests done on Wednesday. Fingers crossed it just confirms the match and then I can get to helping someone out.

Getting my head about the run was distracting me already, so the very cool news that I could help someone with my bone marrow is mind-boggling.

Anyway, need to head over to Hospiscare to collect a training t-shirt and say hi to teh fab folk over there.

100km...

OK, I like to push myself from time to time but I think this is going to be my biggest challenge to date. In May next year I'm going to be running from London to Brighton in under 15hrs. That's 2 and a 1/2 full Marathons or 5 1/2 Marathons in one go.
I've been running 1/2 marathons for a few years now (did the Great West Run about 5yrs ago as a challenge) but 13.1 miles is as far as I have ever run - in training I rarely run over 5 miles.

I'm not just doing this as a challenge but also as a way to help out Hospiscare. Hospiscare are the guys and girls who looked after dad through out his years fighting against cancer(s) and then the people who in his last moments of life helped us let him go. They will always have a place in my heart and an organisation I will always have time for.

My JustGiving site is here - nickruns100km

I'll let you all know how I get on and I'm even thinking of adding a few vlogs.

...end of the Summer.

Bugger, so that'll be the end of the summer then. It's not been the sunniest one but it's definitely had its highlights.

Did the Cotswold Tri this morning, For some reason the weeds freaked me out a tad in the open water swim and it took me a few hundred meters to gain my composure. Still, even taking that faff into account I was pretty pleased with my 1hr 20mins.

Camped over night so I didn't have to rush with the early morning start. My pitch was close to the end of the lake and as a result I have a cracking view of an excellent full (blue) moon (see above). Another

Spotted this great little film on Vimeo the other day....well worth a viewing.

 
'The Strangest Thing'. A film by Nick Marchant & Matthew Wood. from The Strangest Thing on Vimeo.