Get Settled, Get Curtains Drawn

Another weekend is coming to an end.  Dinner's been eaten and the night is drawing in.  The clocks go back in two weeks as we say goodbye to BST and welcome back GMT for the winter.  The central heating has been on in the flat for the past couple nights, autumn is here and winter is on its way.

I actually don't mind winter.  Cold, crisp and sunny mornings are a joy to wake up to and help make up for the grey wet days we get more and more used to at this time of year.

Saying that it really doesn't rain that much in London not compared to Sarah's beloved North West anyway.  In the four and a half years that we've been going out it's only not rained in Bury once when I've been up there.  It was even raining the first time I went to Bury, Easter Monday 2002.  That really was a miserable day!

It was 1st April and the joke certainly was on Adam, Gabs, Paul and me.  Traipsing up to the relegation threatened Shakers expecting a nice Bees win to help us on our way to promotion.  Nothing ever goes to plan as we were well beaten on surface that was almost totally bereft of grass.  End of season came around, Bury did indeed go down while we finished third, made it to the play-off final and lost without even mustering a whimper to Stoke. MIS-ER-Y!!

Eight and a half years later I'm going out with a Bury lass and looking out for the Bury scores.  They had a nice 4-3 win away at Torquay yesterday having been 2-0 down in 20 minutes.  Hopefully they can join the Bees and near neighbours Rochdale in League One next season.  We're up to fourth bottom after the 3-0 win at Tranmere yesterday, still in the relegation zone but at least we're showing signs of life with two wins in three October games.

Yesterday I did my third straight Parkrun, something I've only managed once before.  I went round in 21:14, my best time since July, and finished 36th out of 197.  I finished 36th last week as well and 35th the week before.  If I'd have finished 35th this week I would have won a prize, damn the bloke who managed to keep me at bay in the final 100m ;)

As my number of Parkuns increase I'm becoming more and more interested in how and why my times change from week to week.  I was 57 seconds quicker this week than last, a pretty dramatic increase.

At Richmond there is quite frequently a noticeable headwind as the course climbs and then flattens just after halfway.  Last week however there was a pretty strong headwind over the first half of the course as we undulated our way down Sawyers Hill to Sheen Roundabout.  As soon as I felt it my time was done for.  My mind was confused, annoyed and resigned to defeat after about 750m.  I wanted to stop but you just can't, can you?!?  No, especially not having got my arse out of bed earlier than on a weekday and cycled to Richmond.

The number of runners varies from week to week so I'm also interested in my finishing positions and times.  As I mentioned earlier I've finished 35th, 36th and 36th in the past three runs.  In the Summer I did three runs in a month and had times of 21:06 (32nd), my PB of 21:05 (33rd) and 21:06 (22nd).  I don't wear a watch so three consecutive runs within a second of each other was pretty cool.  Now I have three consecutive runs within a place of each other, also pretty cool.