Saturday

~ e.v. ~ Leave a comment

Saturday is Parkrun day after I missed it last week with my stomach bug. I was pleased today as I went sub-21 for the first time in quite a while, or at least, my Garmin time was sub-21, my official Parkrun time was slightly over, but whatever, Garmin is more accurate for me. Hooray, I’m getting fitter again.

In total I ran a bit more than 14km this morning at an overall speedy pace, but my hip was a bit achy when I got home. I have been neglecting the stretching and foam rolling this week, so I need to get back to that, but I also need to start building some more glute strength so hopefully I won’t need to keep stretching so much.

But let’s keep it in perspective – six weeks ago I couldn’t run a few kilometres without hip discomfort, now it only happens after 14km at an intense pace.

I found out this morning that the half marathon I had planned for early April has been cancelled. I was worried about this when they started mentioning curtailing “large scale gatherings” due to the coronavirus, but actually it was cancelled for the opposite reason: not many people have signed up.

I can’t help but be slightly irritated by this because the organisers didn’t advertise it and they were holding it on the same day as the Coventry half. The only reason I even knew this one existed was because this time last year someone mentioned it at Parkrun and I thought “I’d better make a note of that for next year”.

So I could do Coventry, but, let’s be honest, nobody wants to go to Coventry. Also, I’m just not really feeling well prepared. I’ve had injury and two illnesses sideline me when I should have been training. I’m not as fit as I was in October and I’m not sure I’d be happy with the result. So… I’ve signed up for a different one at the end of April instead. That gives me an extra three weeks.

Corona hysteria

~ e.v. ~ 8 Comments

What confuses me, fundamentally, about the Corona virus, is this:

Either it will become so widespread that we just won’t practically be able to avoid it, or, like seasonal flu, it will affect so few people that most of us just won’t ever come into contact with it.

All the reporting and even statements from the PM (since when is Boris Johnson considered an authority?) are going more towards the first option, but China seems to have managed to keep it under control.

It’s probably a good thing that people are hyper aware, because it will limit the spread, but… I don’t know, it just seems like there’s a lot of missing information. I think the confusion worsens my anxieties over the situation because it feels like the people in charge know something I don’t. Although I don’t think they really do…

Corona

~ e.v. ~ 6 Comments

My stomach bug seems to have mostly gone now. I tried running yesterday and it was dreadful. I managed 4k before I went home and collapsed in a sweaty mess, reminding myself that I have been ill and maybe I should have just had a quiet morning in. But I tried again today at lunch and it was good.

Thing is though… after having contracted a cold and a stomach bug already this year (and it’s only March)…

I’m kind of worried about the coronavirus. With exponential growth, things look underwhelming, until they’re not. I’m worried about getting it myself (probably from the train), but I’m more worried about passing it on to my 65 year old parents. If there are 39 confirmed cases in the UK there are probably hundreds of actual cases already, walking around and infecting others. The problem here isn’t so much the virus itself but the risk of the health service becoming overwhelmed. I find it scary, anyway.

Saturday!

~ e.v. ~ Leave a comment

It’s been a very long week with my upset stomach and I’m glad to finally get to the weekend. I had a quiet day today except for a trip to the bank to pay in my paycheque (my employer, a software development company, pays by cheque… in 2020). I don’t really know how I am. I’m definitely not as tired or generally ill as I have been, but I am still getting a bit of nausea, a lot of heartburn and my toileting is definitely not back to normal. Too much information.

I don’t know how this kind of thing is supposed to progress. I guess I’m over the virus but my insides are still inflamed.

I am eating a bit more though so that’s good.

I am very pleased with myself today because I phoned up the student loans company this morning and paid off my debt. It would have taken about 5 more years if I’d continued paying the minimum per month, which doesn’t make sense given that it accrues interest faster than my savings. So there we go. It’ll be nice to get my next payslip and not see a student loan deduction (assuming HMRC don’t mess it up, which is a big assumption!).

Bleurgh

~ e.v. ~ 3 Comments

After writing on Monday evening about how happy I was…

I woke up on Tuesday with an upset stomach. Tuesday was horrible. Wednesday was better in as much as everything hurt but at least I didn’t feel nauseous anymore. I slept about 10 and a half hours and thought I felt a lot better this morning, but I’ve felt quite nauseous again today. At least things don’t really hurt anymore though.

I know I must be ill because I don’t want to eat and I don’t want to run.

Happy?

~ e.v. ~ Leave a comment

It’s taken a while but over the last week or so it’s occurred to me that I am actually feeling happy.

I’m enjoying my new job. Today I was invited to a meeting by the managing director on the next phase of the project. We’re looking at NLP (natural language processing) but we’re not really sure what it can do for us, or even how to use it. It’s a research thing. But being invited to that meeting is an important milestone.

On Wednesday I have a GP appointment to get more anti-depressants. I feel like I’m going to discuss the apparently contradictory concerns of 1. Please can I have these on repeat now, and 2. Do I actually need to be on them? I think it’s time to start solidifying a medium term idea of how to come off them even if I don’t want to change anything just yet.

So anyway, I’ve had a nice evening lying in bed listening to Lady Gaga.

Dreams

~ e.v. ~ 10 Comments

The bees were huge and for some reason the only way to fend them off was to shoot them in their knees. Unfortunately, try as I did, I just couldn’t hit the stupid bee in the knee. And there was a serial killer. He was bald and he had an evil face. I think he was controlling the bees. I think the bees may have started off as horses but changed into bees part way through the dream, which might explain why they were so big. Horse sized evil bees!

I was not a happy bunny when I woke up at 1:34 this morning.

I was also not a happy bunny when I woke up at 5:15, because I was having another dream about fucking Becky from my old job. Please note that that was an adjective, not a verb. I can’t actually remember now what she was doing in my dream, but I remember being displeased when I woke up. Less displeased than about the bees though.

Neon

~ e.v. ~ 3 Comments

I started taking a multivitamin a few days ago.

Of all the effects I was expecting from taking vitamins, neon yellow pee was not one of them.

Interesting times

~ e.v. ~ Leave a comment

Today a colleague resigned. Or that’s the official story anyway. We’ll call him L. Whether he resigned or was pushed I don’t know. He was a senior developer who started in August (I started in November), but it was obvious to me that he was struggling with the work and the job in general. Last Friday my manager had a one to one meeting with him because he’d caught him sleeping at his desk twice. He was an odd person. L told me that he left his previous job without giving any notice because it was a bad environment, and also mentioned that they used to “watch them like hawks” in case anyone fell asleep. That seemed like a strange comment at the time, which gained a lot of context in the last few days.

I had a look at his LinkedIn profile, which is detailed to the point that he documents his activities from years ago during periods of unemployment. He’s in his 60s but hasn’t held a job for longer than two years in the past ten. It’s an odd CV and actually I’m a bit surprised he was hired.

Today L finished some work (a report/document), and my manager asked to go through it with him in a meeting room. After a little while, another manager turned up and removed his coat and bag from the room.

Eventually my manager came back and announced he’d resigned. I’m not sure I believe it, but equally, if he was given a warning on Friday it would be odd if the company terminated him only two days later. It’s probably more likely that he did quit, but it doesn’t entirely add up, because it looked like he was making an extra effort yesterday and this morning. On the other hand, he was an odd guy.

I felt a bit unsettled about it anyway. I don’t know if or how it may affect me. I think I’m doing OK. I think I’m doing a lot better than he was, and he was nominally of a much more senior level than me.

I’m still on my probation period and it’s a bit unsettling for someone to suddenly disappear, but on the other hand, I’m also contractually promised a salary review after six months of employment, and their budget just got looser.

I live in interesting times.

Sunday

~ e.v. ~ Leave a comment

First, I have to mention it: I was quite upset by the news of Caroline Flack’s death yesterday, which is surprising since I don’t think I had heard of her before she was arrested in December. I suppose that it’s just because I almost did what she did; I know roughly how she must have felt, and it brings back those memories for me. I think it’s incredibly sad. I also think that from the details that have been revealed so far, the case is a bit of a mess and it’s not at all clear why the Crown Prosecution Service were pushing ahead with prosecution. I hope that an appropriate level of scrutiny will be applied here. It is in the public interest to determine whether the CPS acted responsibly and to ensure they are held to account if they did not.

So… weekend. Storm Dennis followed Storm Ciara, but I was having none of it this weekend. This is England, if you react to a bit of moisture by staying inside then you’re in the wrong country.

Most nearby Parkruns were cancelled due to fears over the weather, but ours was on and saw a good turnout (probably because it was the only one on…). My run was terrible at 22 minutes. I have a half marathon in seven weeks and I feel so unprepared and unfit. But I did about 12k total on Saturday.

I ran another 12k this morning, bringing my weekly mileage to 55km (mixing units, sorry not sorry). The run this morning was actually a lot better, my heart rate stayed low and I kept a comfortable pace pretty easily. Unfortunately, Dennis had brought lots and lots of water, so I ended up getting my feet wet at one point when I happened across a huge lake standing between me and the bridge over the motorway. I tried to edge around it but my feet became submerged. I squelched along for a couple of minutes afterwards before deciding to take my socks off, which improved things marginally. 

I got back into the park and found that it was a little bit wet. I’ve never seen it anywhere near as flooded as this before. Yes that is a bench mostly underwater in the background. Yes you are supposed to be able to sit on it.

IMG_20200216_104036 - Copy

Then I came home and ate a croissant.

My hip felt a bit uncomfortable this afternoon, but some stretching and foam rolling sorted it out. I’ll have to stay diligent about stretching it as I start to get back into serious mileage.