Borders League Pensby

It was time for another Borders League race! This one organised by the Pensby running club. That meant going to the far end of the Wirral. That's quite far! I was really hoping someone would be willing to car share with me. I find driving 1.5 hours in order to run for 35 minutes, and then driving back another 1.5 hours, a bit frustrating; especially when I am highly inefficiently only transporting one person in my car, and on the other hand, not getting the advantages of good company. Unfortunately; I was not in luck. They weren't that many of us going, and it is not unusual for people to tag on some additional activity at the end before they go home.

The good news was that I got there without problems, that it was dry when I got there, and that I found a tiny little parking space for my modestly sized car. The bad news was that my legs felt a bit wobbly when I got out of the car. I wondered if that had something to do with my fatigue the day before. But I was going to be ok!

I soon I bumped into other Harriers. Most of them were men! I figured we, as the ladies, were probably going to incur a lot of penalty points for not fielding enough athletes. But so be it.

I did a little warmup run scouted start was. It seemed to have been in a different location from the previous time. And then it was time for the race briefing, and lining up for the start. I was on my new running shoes for the first time. So far they felt good.

I wanted to take it quite easy in the beginning. I clearly wasn't at my best. And I wasn't chasing anything like a category win or something like that; firstly, they don't exist in the Borders League, and secondly, if they did; I wouldn't stand a chance. The field is so strong! And also; we only had three ladies running. That meant 600 penalty points! That basically meant that how fast we would be going to make any difference whatsoever.

We first ran land-inwards, and then turned right onto the main road that had got me there. I had seen it from the car. We weren't on the actual road; we had to run on the cycle path annex pavement on the side. That was basically only one runner wide. And next to it was grass. So if you wanted to overtake anyone, you had to get onto the grass. And I was in hybrid shoes! A lot more grip on muddy grass than proper road shoes. So I did a fair bit of overtaking.

After a while, we turned right again, to head back in the direction of what undoubtedly was an old railway line. That road was in a bad state. I had already seen that on Google Maps. I was being careful! I saw a bloke misstep a bit in one of the potholes, and hurt himself. He did decide to continue, but his face looked pained. I did not want to share his fate.

Then we came off that road, and hit what was the home stretch. I tried to keep my speed up and overtake people. And I was keeping an eye on my watch. To the best of my knowledge, this route was exactly 8 km. I need to last to the end! But then suddenly the finish was there. The route was 150 m shorter than I thought. Not a problem! I suppose I could have had a go at overtaking one more woman if I would have known. But as I said before; it didn't matter.

After I finished I went to get my jumper from one of the Harriers support team, and went to cheer on remaining club members. I was just on time to shout Arwel over the finish. And I shouted at everyone else as well while I was at it. And then it was time for a picture. And then we could go home. Another long drive!

When the results came in I saw I had done it in just under 35 minutes. That's not very fast, but I think this was just not a very fast day for me. The one thing that struck me was that I was only 30 seconds slower than Anna, our star runner. By now she was quite obviously pregnant, and it must be slowing her down! There was only one woman between her and me, and I would've had a chance of outsprinting her. Crikey we were almost consecutive. And I had come in as 29th woman overall; I was happy with that. 

Im not sure what the situation is regarding the next fixture! But first things first: the next race will be Nick Beer. Just after a blood donation! That will be hard…

Club pic

Almost at the finish

Even closer

Leisurely walk to Deganwy Castle

It had been a tiring week. On Monday I had a bit of an intense night with Neil, and on Tuesday I was on the track, in rather awful weather. That makes the track running a bit trying, and the biking home as well. Then on Wednesday we had the underground trip, and on Thursday I was back on the hills. And, of course, I work too. By Friday I was really glad I didn't have anything on in the evening. And then on Saturday I went to Neil. 

We had decided we were going to do something not awfully strenuous, hadn't made up our mind on what exactly. But on the day we decided we were going to walk to Deganwy Castle. I was aware of its existence, and I also know there wasn't an awful load left of it. But that was about all I knew!

We descended the Orme, and walked to Deganwy over the beach. That was very scenic. And we had lunch in a structure that was probably designed exactly for that: it was basically a highly decorative bus stop where there was no bus route. Just benches and a roof. But this is greater Llandudno, so there were pillars. 

On the beach

We crossed through Deganwy and ascended a hill. Immediately, it was very peaceful! And soon we so the first remnants of a stone wall. The castle!

Reaching the remnants of the castle 

View from the castle over the estuary 

The ruins span two hillocks

I read up about it a bit afterwards. On this site, there definitely had been Roman activity, but it is quite possible the strategic location of this volcanic plug had been used by people before that time. There had been an actual castle there from the 7th century. In the 13th century, it had been seriously rebuilt, and later equally seriously destroyed.  And that is why there is so little of it left now. It was actually the Welsh who destroyed it; they didn't want to fall into the hands of the English.

After that we just walked back home. I thought it was enough for the day. When we sat on the sofa for a bit later on, I dozed off on Neil’s shoulder. It is highly unusual for me to sleep during the day! If I do there is something wrong. I am either ill or really exhausted. That week had taken it out of me more than I had even realised. But I had still managed to see remnants of a mediaeval castle I have never seen before!

Update frustrates show runners

I wanted to have a look at how the Thursday Night Hill run had gone. It didn't appear on my Strava. Or even the Garmin app itself. What was that? And then I noticed a notification on my Garmin app. There had been an update, and I might have lost the connection between my watch and my phone in that update. What? That is a bit of a blunder. How can Garmin accidentally disconnect all the Garmin watches from the Garmin app? Don't they know that people with Garmins love looking at the stats? Don't they know that people with Strava love broadcasting what they have been doing? I'm sure they know it. I'm sure there has been a lot of facepalming going on at their headquarters. 

Since I stopped my project Strava, where I put a picture on every activity, I haven't been looking at it as much. I don't look at my commute. I tend not to look too closely at the Thursday Night Hill. But one thing I always look at is the Track Tuesday. I record the laps,  and of course you have an idea of how consistent you are while you're on the track, but I always like having a bit of an overview at the end of it. But now I couldn’t. 

If I'm doing a race, I am highly likely to look at how it went. How did my speed develop throughout the course? And all of that was now lost. Oh no! I tried to reconnect phone and watch just like that, but that didn't work. I really had to take a few minutes by my computer, and do it properly. The notification on the app please provided a link to instructions of how to undo this screw-up. You had to really go far in and properly, properly disconnect them, Bluetooth and all, and then start from scratch. And I admit I am such a technology runner I thought that was important to do.

Two days later I would have a race. It would have been really annoying if I would not have been able to look at that in some app of  sorts! But I'm sorted again…

Tree coming down

In summer, I ended up talking with a neighbour. Our gardens border each other. His garden is higher than mine. And there is a tree standing on the edge; the southern edge of his garden. You can imagine that takes away a lot of light. And he said he wanted to remove it. Was I ok with that? It’s his tree, but inevitably the sawn off bits would end up in my garden. I didn’t mind. And then he said he would let me have the firewood. Even better! 

He said the best time to fell trees is winter. You only have to deal with the trunks and branches; not with leaves. 

He has started now! He’s doing it himself, with a battery-operated chainsaw. And it's a tree with very many trunks, and he is just doing one at a time. And he very kindly chopped up the wood into more or less stove-sized bits. It's great!

He has done two days’ worth of work now, and I have so far quite easily been able to remove the cut bits and put them in the garage I have some old garden wood there; by now it has seasoned long enough so that I can burn it, and thus make way for the new wood. I could imagine that at some point I will struggle to keep up, but I'm sure I'll find a way. And I'm curious to see how the garden feels without that tree towering above it!

The tree in question after the work had just started

Spoils below

Ladies’ trip in Llandudno

There was another ladies’ trip! In the west. And it concerned a mine I hadn’t been to. Exciting! It didn’t seem big, but I was keen to see new ground in good company. So after work I drove to the meeting point, where I already saw some caving-suited ladies. I changed too. 

This mine falls under the responsibility of a local caving club, and there were some members of that club there to show us around. They stood out a bit, because they were men. One of them showed us a map, and told us what to expect. And then we went in. One guy, Rich, stayed with us. There was a good group of us! I didn't know everybody's name.

Most of the mine is basically just an adit. It still has some rails in, but also a fair amount of mud, so your best bet is balancing on these rails. We went down the ladder and did just that. And I noticed Hydrobia and leeches in the adit! I don’t think they intended to be there. But the place is tidal and all sorts can wash in. 

The main adit

Leech and Hydrobia 

It also struck me that whole adit so far was through glacial sediments. I thought it would be bedrock. And we did read bedrock at some point, but I was quite amazed how much of the infrastructure was in loose(ish) material. And that was one point where the ceiling had come down. That was right underneath the road, and you could look at the road surface from below. A bit spooky!

Adit with good stone work

Beautiful Victorian trash

We went into a rather nice bit that went dead, and then went towards the far end of the main adit. We got to a collapse. It was quite muddy. Liz was at the front. Rich, who seemed to know her, ushered her on. She wasn’t keen! That should have been a hint. The rest of us pushed on. Gwyneth ahead, me third. 

In the sticky mud

It got a bit cartoonesque. We slithered over a mound, and ended up in really sticky mud. At every step you risked losing a welly. And Gwyneth vanished into the next collapse. It was a crawling jobby. In the sticky mud! But she didn’t see a way on. Rich insisted it was there. She asked if I wanted to have a look, so I slithered past her and the other lady and did. Nothing! We retreated. 

I suppose Rich had just been playing with us a bit. We now understood Liz. She probably knew! We were very muddy now. And we joined the rest for an explore of the rest of the mine. 

The highlight of the trip was a flooded shaft. Spectacular! And otherwise it was nice to see the whole mine at that level, but nothing could touch that shaft. And there was a little bit of workings in the level below, but we didn't go there as Liz checked it out and said the water was up to her knees, and nobody really fancied that. So after a group picture we headed back to the entrance.

Once out we did another group picture. There was the option of going to the pub afterwards, but I did not take that. It was a tiring week! I went straight home. It wasn't even far; not much more than half an hour. But I needed my sleep.

Surface group pic

It's always nice to be out with the ladies. And to see new ground. I did both! And I just dumped my dirty kit in a big bucket in the conservatory to worry about later. Work called again, and then running, and then more work, so it would be a while before I would be in the position to clean it, and check if I accidentally would have brought any leeches with me in my boots!

Sceptical composting

It's great that people are trying to use less plastic. But not all endeavours are without their own challenges. In the past years, I've been getting an increasing number of bags that looks like they are plastic, but that claim they are compostable. 

If they are the potato starch bags from the WholeFoods Co-op, I shred them and put them in the food bin. But I only just about produce enough food waste to accommodate that. And then there the other bags in which you can buy things like vegetables or clothes or coffee. No way these fit in too! So what to do with them? 

They are compostable, but does that mean you can home-compost them? Or do you need an industrial composter for that? And if you do, doesn’t that render the entire concept futile? Nobody has one of those, and no council collects compostable-in-industrial-composters waste. 

Maybe, though, you can actually compost them just like you would compost garden waste. I have a compost heap; I can at least give it a chance. So I shredded a pile of these bags and mixed them into the weeds and grass clippings that make up my heap. 

The bags

They’re in there now! 

I must admit I am sceptical at how successful this will be! I could easily imagine that the next time I turn this thing over, I will come across all these pieces in pretty much the same shape they have now. But I won’t know until I try. 

So what if it doesn’t work? Maybe I’ll have to pull them out again and burn them. Sounds tedious! But I’m not sure what else to do. And as well. If it doesn’t work, then what to do with future bags like that? I suppose there are two options: bin them or burn them. Binning them will have them slowly decompose in landfill: that creates greenhouse gases like methane, but a half-decent landfill will catch those. Burning them would create CO2, which is a weaker GHG, but it will go straight into the atmosphere. Which is worse? Not sure! 

I suppose this is a long term experiment. Compost isn’t made in a day. I should give it years! But then I’ll know. Although, of course, the materials evolve. I might be in it for the long run! 

Trophy shelf

When I started racing I started getting medals. Initially, I just put them in a box. Last year I put them up. I liked the result! But in Wales you often get a slate coaster instead, and it seemed wrong to not have these there as well. 

In 2024 I won my first traditional trophy, in the Pwllheli 10k. Or rather, two of them, as they gave me both the overall female winner’s and the category prize.  I wasn’t sure where to put them! I settled on the office; I have a narrow shelf there, and that would do the job. And since then I won another one in Llanberis and one in Holyhead. 

It irked me I didn’t have everything together, so a dedicated trophy shelf near the medal rack made sense. The cat added her voice to that; I came back with two trophies from the Twin Piers race. I didn’t have a shelf, and I just temporarily put them on my chest of drawers. And the cat knocked one of them off. The glass tile. It now was glass shards. Bummer!  

I had a shelf I had taken down when I was doing up the house. That fit underneath the medals and next to the bike! So I put it up. And put my trophies on. Including the glued tile. I was chuffed with the results! Later I added all slate coasters. 

As it’s right by my bike, I see the trophies every time I get the bike in the morning or put it back when I get home. And that makes me smile. Success all around! Running trinkets tidily concentrated, and me glad. What’s not to like!