Abergele 10k

I was a bit tired after the 5k! And I looked forward to a leisurely 10k. I wasn't going to be ambitious about this one, but, of course, I did hope for a category win. And the sun was a lot higher in the sky, which made it a lot less cold, but I was still a bit shivery by the start. A lady in a pink vest was next to me and was also cold. Richie was starting somewhere in front of me, as well as Anna, who I thought would win. Sion and Katie, Cybies like Richie, were also running, but I wasn't sure where they were. 

We started and I took it easy. That turned out to suit the lady in the pink vest totally fine! We ended up running together all the way to the turning around point. Before we got there I saw that Anna was indeed in the lead. She is like lightning! Richie and Sion and Katie were all in front of me.

Knowing that I was halfway there made me speed up a little bit. I only had to run back! And that made me overtake Katie and Sion. I managed to overtake a few more people. I like that even after a fast 5k, I can do that. Close to the finish line I started overtaking a lady in black, but she was not having that. She accelerated away. Then I finished a bit behind her. I managed to cross the line at exactly 45 minutes. Not a fast time for me, but still faster than the Felinheli 10k! Then I found Richie already having a sip of water. He had beaten me again, and it was about time.

Looking more relaxed coming over the finish this time

I stayed to cheer Katie and Sion on. Then it was time to go and get something to drink again. I also picked up my jumper. And then I went to ask how I had done. I had indeed managed another category win! By some four minutes. I was proud of that.

I hung out with the Cybies until the presentation. Anna had indeed won! With the Second Lady also having come second in the 5k. Impressive! And Steffan had a category win (he had come 4th by only a few seconds!). And I had been the second fastest woman to run both. And when the presentation was over, it was time to go home. I had enjoyed that! But I now was tired and looking forward to lunch and a shower. Maybe next year again!

Hanging out with running friends (Katie far right)

 

Getting my second category win

Abergele 5k

Last year I had noticed there is such a thing as the Abergele double: a 5k and a 10k in close succession. I hadn’t registered then, maybe because I was busy, or felt guilty about racing so much and not seeing Neil so much. But this year I figured I should go for it. When do you get the chance to do two races on one morning? 

I also hoped that a cool morning 5k would be just what I would need for a PB. I was still on a mission to break as many of my PBs as I could. I had managed the 10 miles and the half marathon. The 5 mile and the 10k would be difficult as I had already done these very fast, but I thought I should be able to improve on my 5k. That was my anomalously slow PB, set at 4:18/km pace. My 10k PB was done at 4:15 pace...

I wanted to be there quite early so I could do a good warm-up, so after breakfast I headed straight for Abergele. I parked right by race HQ. I got my number, did a stretch, drank some and went for that warm-up. It was cold! And I was wearing my new belt. I love it! 

Pre-warmup chat with Sion

 

The photographer (who later said he struggled to imagine a Run Wales race without me) caught me warming up. Notice the belt!

There weren’t many Eryri Harriers. I saw Gruff, the 17-year-old lad, and a guy called John I didn’t know yet. Gruff’s dad took a club pic. Then Iolo, one of the WCR runners, suddenly appeared. Too late for the pic! We would almost start. 

Gruff, me and John. Pic by Jason

I wanted to run 4:19 outward and 4:16 back. But I was feeling good! Most of the time I was going considerably faster than that. I got to the turnaround point without issues, and then managed to run less than 4:10 on the way back. That PB was in the bag! I crossed the line in 20:35. My old PB had been 21:29. Success! My average pace had been 4:07. And I had a category win. By some five and a half minutes. 

Near the start

About to finish

 

I went to drink something, and chatted with fellow runners, and then attended the presentation. The bloke who had won it had also won the Bangor 10k. He is from the University athletics club. Iolo had come 10th, which is amazing, but he hadn't won anything. Gruff, John and I all had category wins! A good race for Eryri. And I, as the only one out of us four, could look forward to another one, an hour and ten minutes after finishing the first race of the day! 

Loot! Pic by Jason

Getting a gardener to visit

 

I have been trying to find a gardener for years! Without success. But then I marshalled in the Moel Siabod race, and met a gardener. She wasn't available to do anything with my garden, but she knew someone who might be. This person, Ruth, turned out to also be quite busy, and it was a bit difficult to pin her down. But at some point I got her to suggest a few dates, and one of them was at 17:30 on the last day of the period of my jury duty. And the court ends at about 16:30. I could make that!

In the end I ended up released from my duties the day before, so I was in work. And I had a meeting until 16:30, which made it a bit tight, but possible. I just made sure I could go home straight after the meeting, and I didn't hang around. Something went quite wrong with my bicycle along the way, but fortunately, I was only about 100 m from home by then. So I made it!

I just had time to feed the cat and then I heard a knock on the door. It was Ruth, with a colleague. I recognised her; she had been involved in a project to make our little Ocean Sciences campus look better, with big planters. Our workshop technician can build planters like the best of them, but for the next step, a gardener is more suitable. And I showed them my entire garden, and specifically the problematic raised beds.

They are now going to come up with a planting schedule. I look forward to that! And closer to the time I will have to decide whether I'm going to see if I can pay them to implement it, or whether I want to do it myself. They still sound quite busy, but they do say they are part of a larger community of gardeners, and could probably find someone else to do it if they can’t. 

I am excited. I hope this was the first step in the direction of  really making my garden look better. If you leave it to me unaided, it is never going to look really good. Or fairly good. My sister once had a good walk around, and she did give a lot of useful tips, but I found them difficult to implement. Someone who actually makes a schedule of what plant to put exactly where is something I can work with better. Let someone else do the thinking. I might do the digging!

One of my problem beds (not the worst)

More race loot (and a demo event)

A long time ago, I think it was when I lived in Plymouth, I bought myself a running belt. It has three pockets; one big enough for a key, one big enough for a modest wallet, and one designed to hold a small bottle. I have used it a lot over the years. I often have key, phone and water bottle in it. But it has some issues. The first one is: the wallet pocket will allow for a phone, but it's not very secure. The phone sticks out, and even if it didn't; the zip has broken. My phone has fallen out on several occasions.

Running with my old belt

 

The second thing is: because it has a water bottle- shaped compartment, it is a bit bulky. That matters for instance when you are travelling. And that's in spite of it not having much space. Apart from these three pockets, that is it!

Altogether I figured I wanted a better way of at least carrying my phone with me. This could be a safety issue! Remember the time I had to phone Mountain Rescue because Tim had broken his ankle. And I did have a running vest, but that is quite committing. I don't want to have to wear that if the only thing I really need is a phone and a key. It is great if you carry water, a head torch, an extra layer, and jelly babies, but most of the time, you don't need all of that.

You can buy running shorts with built-in phone pockets. I don't own any of them. There also is a new generation of running belts on the market. I had seen one lady during a Thursday Night Hill run wear one. I know she works in a local outdoor shop. And I also knew I still had a voucher for that shop, that I had won in the Felinheli 10k. 

In the second week of my jury duty, there would be another demo event at that very outdoor shop. And as I had been released from my duties in the afternoon, I figured I could make that. And I decided to show up quite early so I had time to do a bit of shopping.

I didn't see any running shorts, but I did see some running belts. Jude, the lady who I had seen wear one of them, was there, and she let me try a few. One of them really did the job. It is all soft fabric, and the pockets are such that you would put your phone horizontally in one of them, close to your skin. Not in some rigid pocket it can bounce out of. And even if you buy a bigger model of phone, it would still fit. And you would have the other pocket for putting your keys in, and potentially some gels, or even an extra layer if you want to. It has pockets all around.

I bought it. Thanks to my voucher, it only cost me a few quid. I didn't quite wear it on that very run, as I had already prepared my running vest.

New belt! 

The demo event went fine! We were wearing Inov8 Trailfly pros. They were lovely! They fall a bit large, so I was running in a size 4.5. And we were running in the woods above Llyn Padarn. It was a big group.

The shoes

I also had a reason to remember it for something other than the shoes; at some point I wanted to sneak off for a convenience break. It was raining, and I was wearing a hat with a cap. That means you can't look above you. And after I had done what I need to do, I hurried back to the group, watching my feet, and I managed to walk straight into an overhanging branch. It got me straight in the nose! It immediately swelled up. My right eye had to look past a sizeable bump. But as nobody else quite has that perspective, other people didn't even notice anything was wrong. Good.

My temporarily asymmetric nose

When we got back, there was Dr Pepper, and chips, and a raffle. And then it was time to go home. With my new treasure! And a sore nose… 

Second day of second case

We were due in at 10 am again. I picked up my usual passenger, and by 10 almost all 12 of us were gathered. By 10:30 we were called into the courtroom, and we could continue on our case. We had two more witnesses to hear the testimony of. And one of them came with a bunch of photographs that had been taken at the location of the incident this was all about. It didn't take very long. Well before lunchtime, the judge sent us on our way to deliberate.

This time we had to come to a verdict on three different charges. And after some discussion, we decided we were convinced beyond reasonable doubt the defendant being guilty of two of them. Of the third one, we could not say that. So that had to be a ‘not guilty’. 

We let the bailiff know, and soon we were back in the courtroom to deliver our verdict. And then we were free to go! The end of this jury service for all of us. The next Monday, a whole new crowd would start queueing up at that back door.

Before I could leave, I needed to get a little key hanger torch back, that I hadn't been allowed to take into the building. I have no idea what sort of harm they thought I would do with that. The week before no one had objected to it. They had also taken my utili key, but I wasn't going to get that one back. I would have to write a letter to court to request it back in writing. Sounds a bit archaic, but well, if that is what it takes. The previous week, nobody had minded that had been on my keychain, where it lives. Or made an issue of the torch.

My other set of keys also has a utili key (on the left)

I dropped my passenger off, went home, I had lunch, and then went upstairs get as much work done as I could before going running. Given that I did not have to come to court on Friday, I allowed myself that luxury.

It was interesting to see how this all works, but I do hope that I don't have to do this again. It is quite disruptive! And it does involve a frustrating amount of waiting around. And even when you come into action you sometimes get frustrated, because one of the sides doesn't call a witness, doesn't provide a particular piece of evidence, or doesn't ask a particular question when you really think they should have. Oh well. I’ve done my duty! Now I can refuse if they call me back within two years. But if they call me back after that, I will just have to show up again!

Back in court

We managed an entire court case in three days in my first week of jury duty. I knew they could make us do another one in the second week. But on Monday, we didn’t have to come in. On Tuesday, we didn’t have to come in. I was starting to think the chances they would actually call me back in at all were looking slim. But then, on Tuesday afternoon, I got the dreaded email after all. I had to be back on Wednesday morning. 

I picked up my nearby fellow juror again, and we went through the by now very familiar security check. And we were back in the jury room, surrounded by familiar faces. We heard there were two cases scheduled for the day. They had called up thirty people for two juries. 

After a while, we were given the eligibility questionnaire for the first case. I recognised a name on the list of relevant people, so I figured I was out for that one. And I was glad, as that case was expected to take up Monday as well. I was timetabled from 9 to 5 that day. 

Then nothing happened until close to noon. Then the usher came in and called a number of names. These could go now, but would have to come in the next day. These had been put on that first case. She said she would find out if the rest of us would be put on the other one. But somehow, there were only 12 of us left. No room to manoeuvre! If any of us knew anyone on the list, they wouldn't have a jury. Had they sent too many people away? But this was not ours to figure out.

The usher came back and told us we were dismissed until 2 pm. Not enough time to go anywhere. I went to my car where my lunch was, and had that. I had brought some reading so I decided to do that.

Back at 2 pm, we were asked to fill out the questionnaire for the second case. They thought it would take some three days. Somehow, there were 16 of us now. It turned out that a court employee had phoned the people who were not on the other jury but who had been sent away anyway, and were already on their way home, whether they could possibly come back.

I declared that I really didn't want to be on a case that could run into Monday. And at about 3:15, another court official pulled some names out of a hat. My name was among them. I was back on a case. Oh no. And immediately afterwards, we went into the courtroom to start it.

This case did not have a defendant present. The judge explained what the situation was, and the barrister for the prosecution set out what the case was. Immediately afterwards, she started questioning the main witness. But as it was already quite late in the day, when she and the barrister for the defence had no more questions for the main witness, we adjourned for the day and could go home.

By then I did have faith that we would manage to round this case off before the week would be over. Phew! managing to somehow juggle court and work had been difficult. It would get a lot worse if our case would bleed into the totally crammed week after…

There was a walnut tree next to the court building! I foraged some snacks...

Not in court; in the field

I knew I might not know before Monday 5 pm whether or not I would be going on the annual field trip to Llyn Llydaw in Eryri. I had made sure my colleague Lynda was well-prepared to do it without me. And I had organised a demonstrator. And given all necessary documents to Drew, the technician who would join as a first aider. 

By 5 pm on Monday, there had been no message from the court, so I could go myself. And all preparations had been done! I only had to rock up. 

I went to campus, where a coach would pick us up. There were about five trips going from the same location at the same time. The last coach to arrive, and squeeze itself a place, was for our trip. 

We got to Pen y Pass, divided the students into groups, handed them the necessary materials, gave them (and us) an opportunity to go to the loo, and set off. We did the usual thing of passing all sorts of rocks along the way, with which the students could practice their skill in recognising striations. And the we got to the lake. It was a gorgeous day! We were very lucky. 

Look at the little student groups dotted around 

Picture with fewer students but more sun

After a bit more talk they went on their way, looking for, and then measuring, glacial striations. And that meant that Lynda, Kate the demonstrator, and me had to walk around and check all groups were indeed measuring striations. And that paid off, as not all were. The vast majority was, though. 

At some point I sat down with Drew and had my lunch. I had brought my stocky solid food flask, which had been part of race loot. It was Tuesday, so I didn’t want to have my main meal in the early evening, as that would interfere with track training. 

When the students were done I got them all together for a debrief. Everyone was confident in their results, and in what to do with them. We could go back to the road. 

I thought it had been a success. It had been great weather, nothing went wrong, we had a great group of people, there were no indications the data wouldn’t be fine. Couldn’t wish for more!