The English Armchair Abroad

Bear with me for 26 minutes

A couple of days ago Antoine the physio came for supper.  Whenever I see him he always asks me if I've been running.  I think he is keen to find out what went wrong with my foot and to see if it is better.  The fact is, I've been playing tennis a fair bit and until I've played in the final on Thursday I don't really want to risk hurting my foot again.  All the same, this morning it was just beautiful - the sun was up, not  a cloud in the sky, not a breathe of wind and about 10 degrees.  I had no excuse.  As soon as I pressed the button on my running watch the dogs knew where I was off to and came out with me.

I chose to run down to the river.  It's not far (3.5kms round trip) and it's lovely down there.  The dragon flies aren't out yet but the morning bird song greets me and the cuckoos mock me.  I don't blame them - I'm 5 kilos over weight and puffing every step of the way!

Living in an old house (14th century) with a moat we have our fair share of wild life around us.  We do our best to encourage more but are amply served by birds and animals that have lived here for much longer than we have.  We have several families of moorhens who nest in the banks and each year we are greeted with the sight of Mrs Moorhen swimming along with her chicks behind her.  This year two pairs of Mallard duck have come back so often that we are hopeful they will set up home again.  They get quite noisy in the mating season but we are used to it and it's only our visitors who are disturbed at 5am!  Very occasionally we will be rewarded with a flash of brilliant blue zipping across the water and we'll know that the kingfisher, that most beautiful and elusive of birds, is back. 


(Photo rkarthikeyan)

Herons are abundant and of course they come at any time of day for a quick snack.  Three years ago this area suffered from drought and after a number of dry years the moat all but dried up.  When there was just a large puddle left we removed as many fish as possible and put them in a nearby reservoir.  All the same, just a few days later the remaining large fish were floating, dead, on the surface and soon after the medium sized fish also succumbed.  We did all we could to save the remaining fish.  Desperate to provide them with oxygen, we even put the end of the air compressor in the water.  It sounds desperate but what else could we do?  Anyway, the smallest fish did survive and eventually we had some rain and the moat began to fill up again.  After last year's unbelievably wet summer and autumn we are back to normal levels.  The "small" fish have grown and the fish community is thriving - and the herons are back!

We also have frogs.  A whole generation of children are growing up without the benefit of Jeremy Fisher and his friends, but if any of them come here they soon find out about frogs!  We have all his brothers, sisters, friends and relations.  Thousands of them!  As we walk around the moat you can here the plop, plop, plop as they leap off the bank and into the water.  And the noise...oh boy have they started in earnest again!  You can be sitting outside enjoying the silence of nature - birdsong, woodpeckers, bees - and suddenly the frogs decide they want a part of the action.  The volume of their song depends largely on how lovely Mademoiselle Grenouille is looking that day.  If Mademoiselle has bought along all her girlfriends and is looking for a good time then it can go on for hours and like all teenagers they hold no respect for the time of day - or night.

The French eat frogs of course.  I've eaten them in friends' houses and actually like the taste but I've never thought to eat ours.  I wouldn't be able to catch them for one thing and I really don't think I would like to have to "deal" with them.  Hypocrite or what?

And now the telegraph pole is just a few metres away.  I always walk the last 300 metres to the house and this telegraph pole is my marker.  I no longer have to think about nature in order to keep my mind off my stiff legs and my tired lungs.  I can walk again and cool down.  Thank you for staying with me and all being well I'll be out running again on Monday - although they do say it's going to rain on Monday...

School Run Earns LOTS of Euros!!!

I should have written this post three weeks ago but somehow it kept slipping my mind. 

If you recall from some of my earlier posts I was involved in a project to raise money for our son's school.  We got a school team organised and a total of 22 runners took part in the event, running either 6 kilometres (8 runners) or a half-marathon (14 runners). 

I'd love to say that the day dawned sunny and bright and was a perfect day for the run....but that was far from the case.  It was pouring with rain, cold, windy - in short just about everything you would hope to avoid during a long run.  All the same we had a really good turn out and in actual fact the rain did stop, amazingly, for the two hours of the run.



Sadly, because of the rain we were unable to use the banner during the run but that didn't matter - Marie Laure, our wonderful directrice, had briefed the commentator and each time one of "our" runners came round he gave him/her a mention and we all applauded. 

Marie Laure

All our runners, except one, finished their race and in respectable times.  The wind and the cold slowed people up but that was to be expected. 


The two girls in the 6 ks.  It was very difficult to get photos of most of our runners as they ran faster than my camera could take the photo!

The one non-finisher suffered a knee injury and was seen to by our physio, Antoine, who is a parent at the school and very generously came along with his camping car for the day in order to look after any sore legs.  It also meant we had somewhere to shelter during the downpour (I did mention the rain?).


An appalling photo of Antoine, the physio, but it does show that even in pouring rain and with potentially 22 runners to look after, certain things simply cannot be forgotten - he is after all a Frenchman!

The organisers were very impressed by the school's initiative.  Raising money through sponsorship is a very anglo-saxon idea and definitely NOT something the French do.  They do of course give to charity but it tends to be on a national scale;  sponsoring someone to run a marathon (or half-marathon in this case) is not usual! At the end of the race they announced that they had decided to give our team a prize and we were presented with a trophy.  Sadly by this time the cameras had been put away as once again the heavens opened;  the difference this time was the addition of thunder and gales!

So, how much did we raise?  I was very much aware that a lot of people had trained for and run a race in which I did not take part (injury back in January).  Some of these people had never run before in their lives!  Others were old hands - or legs perhaps.  Bearing this in mind I reckoned nothing short of 1,000 Euros would be enough.  In fact, I was expecting to have a very red face if it was less than that!  So it is with enormous delight and, I have to admit, a small amount of pride that I can tell you we raised

2087,65 EUROS!!!!!

I want to say a huge thank you to all my readers who sent me messages of encouragement.  It was DEFINITELY worth it!

And finally...
I cannot finish this post without a mention of the oldest runner in the 6 kilometres.  He was 86 years old and nothing would stop him.  He ran at the back and you can imagine the cheer he raised from the crowd when he finished.  Quite outstanding and I hope when I'm his age I'll still be able to run that distance.  It's not the best photo but for those of you with a microscope he's the one in a blue top and black leggings.

Caning for the week

My friend Polly from Ireland has left a comment on my recent running post indicating that I might be running  myself.  I am NOT.  I don't want anyone to think that I'll be out there suffering tomorrow because I will be cheering them on from the side line and offering carrot cake when they arrive at the end of their run.

I will be away next week.  I am doing a caning course - you at the back, that's FURNITURE caning - down near La Rochelle.  It will be complementary to the upholstery work and who knows, I may even enjoy it!  I have a feeling that you will all survive without me.  You'll have to as I don't think the hotel has broadband!

Before I go I want to thank Alison from Eleanor Blog  for what I think is an award.  I'm so new at this I'm not sure but whatever it is it's nice to be mentioned!  She has a great link to this Titanic site.   I linked through to it and then spent about an hour just looking at the passenger lists.  Have a look for yourself.

The great School Run - Half Marathon, 9 March

This is the weekend of the half marathon for which I helped motivate a school team to raise money for the school.  Dedicated readers (are there any?!) will know that after running 13ks back in January I had to stop due to a leg injury.  I say "injury" but I never discovered what it was.  It seems to have finally gone away - but enough of me.

This is the weekend and I'll feel a right idiot if we don't raise at least SOME money for the school activity fund.  On Sunday about 30 runners from the school will be running either a half marathon - 21 kilometres - or a 6 kilometre run at La Chapelle sur Oudon in Maine & Loire.  They will be supported by all sorts of family, friends and school reps who will be based around the start/finish line and ably assisted at the end by the kind Antoine Leroux who is a parent at the school and also, so conveniently, a physiotherapist!  All our runners will be wearing the same T-shirt and a banner is being made to publicise our cause.

Photos will be posted in about 10 days time.  I'm away next week and probably without a computer...will I survive?

Wet and Stormy - But I did it!

I had forgotten how much determination and sheer bloody-mindedness you need to run long-distances. 

On Friday I went out for my planned 13ks run well rested and full of self-confidence.  Yes, it was windy - but I'd planned a route that was fairly well sheltered by hedges - yes, it was raining on and off - but I've run in the rain before.  My route involved a fairly long but not difficult hill about 3ks after the start and after that was gently undulating.  Really, not difficult at all.  I got to the top of the hill and felt fantastic.  In fact I got to 8ks and still felt fantastic.  But then at 10ks, just when I was beginning to feel the first signs of tiredness, I realised that either I went one way and ran into the wind for 2ks (not appealing) or I went the other way and risked not having run a full 13ks.  Well, I went the "other way".  I felt worse and worse and all my self-confidence was dripping away all because I knew I would be 1k short.  So what I hear you ask and it is hard to explain.

Long-distance training, for me at least, is all about goals and achieving those goals.  I couldn't possibly not run the full distance.  If I didn't run 13ks on Friday how could I possibly run 21.1ks seven weeks later - I never said anything about logic!  Anyway, I got back to within sight of the car and with totally exhausted legs and soaking wet running kit turned away and did a short loop.  But this loop involved another hill, fairly short but by now I was running on empty.  This is where the determination and bloody mindedness kicked in.  I got to the start of the hill and started on my times tables.  I had to shout out loud to avoid thinking about legs and aching muscles.  I had to really concentrate to get the right answers.  But I did it!  I got to the top of the hill and all the way down and back to the car I felt FANTASTIC.  I had done it and not only had I beaten that hill but I'd run a grand total of 13.6ks.  YES!

Thoughts while training

People have often asked me what I think about when I'm running.  Let's just be clear here - I'm NOT Paula Radcliffe and in fact I've worked out that on a good day (mine, not hers!) she runs exactly twice as fast as me. So, I'm slow and therefore my training runs are LONG!

So, what do I do to stop myself from getting bored?  Well, for a start a lot of time is taken up just working out how I feel - heart rate, breathing, legs and other muscles.  Inevitably at the beginning of the run I'm still cold and slightly stiff but this soon changes.  If it's wet or windy I curse the weather - if it's too hot, likewise. After about 20 minutes I'm usually running easily and start thinking about what's going on at home, how to sort out the problems of the day, what to eat for lunch etc.  Boring really!  The fact is that if I'm running for less than an hour (ie three times a week) I don't really have time to get bored.  It's only over an hour that I find I need to "fill in time" a bit and for this I have various methods, as follows:

First off, I always wear a heart rate monitor and speed/distance indicator when I run.  This way I have an idea of how I'm doing and I find it motivating.  It also means that I can do intervals - ie run faster for a fixed distance and then jog to recover for a couple of minutes and then off again.  I usually do intervals once a week - it's hard work and I'm always exhausted at the end but my average speed on long runs is gradually getting faster (look out Paula!).  The HR monitor I use is made by Polar and can be bought at Amazon  as well as many sports shops.  As well as the watch and band it comes with a pod which you fix to your shoe and it is this which enables you to measure your speed/distance - and it's remarkably accurate!

On long runs I nearly always have a stretch of long straight road, with or without hills but always a struggle.  Somehow if there's a corner to head towards it breaks the run up a bit, but straight road offers nothing but monotony.  That's when I start reciting my times tables.  Thanks to a primary school teacher I can almost do this in my sleep but when I'm running it keeps me focussed on something for long enough to forget I'm tired or going uphill.  If I reach 12x12 before the end of the road I'll then do them again, backwards. 

I find my mind is very clear on a run.  If I have a problem with one of the chairs I'm working on I often find the answer running.  Other people have told me the same.  However grotty I felt when I left the house I always feel better when I get back - tired and stiff, but much better for it!

And of course when I'm running the constant theme in my mind is how long will it take me to finish the race I'm training for - at the moment a half-marathon in early March.  I have my goals:  several in fact.

Goal number one is the Assuming I start and don't get injured I can do it in 2'20"
Goal number two:  The realistic challenge:  under 2'15"
Goal number three: The almost certainly impossible but we can dream can't we?  Under 2 hours.

I always tell people that my goal is "just to finish" and it isn't QUITE a lie!  The fact is I'm fiercely determined (bloody minded some say!) and always do things better if I have a goal to aim for.

If anyone has any other tips for running please feel free to leave a comment. 

People have often asked me what I think about when I'm running.  Let's just be clear here - I'm NOT Paula Radcliffe and in fact I've worked out that on a good day (mine, not hers!) she runs exactly twice as fast as me. So, I'm slow and therefore my training runs are LONG!

So, what do I do to stop myself from getting bored?  Well, for a start a lot of time is taken up just working out how I feel - heart rate, breathing, legs and other muscles.  Inevitably at the beginning of the run I'm still cold and slightly stiff but this soon changes.  If it's wet or windy I curse the weather - if it's too hot, likewise. After about 20 minutes I'm usually running easily and start thinking about what's going on at home, how to sort out the problems of the day, what to eat for lunch etc.  Boring really!  The fact is that if I'm running for less than an hour (ie three times a week) I don't really have time to get bored.  It's only over an hour that I find I need to "fill in time" a bit and for this I have various methods, as follows:

First off, I always wear a heart rate monitor and speed/distance indicator when I run.  This way I have an idea of how I'm doing and I find it motivating.  It also means that I can do intervals - ie run faster for a fixed distance and then jog to recover for a couple of minutes and then off again.  I usually do intervals once a week - it's hard work and I'm always exhausted at the end but my average speed on long runs is gradually getting faster (look out Paula!).  The HR monitor I use is made by Polar and can be bought at Amazon  as well as many sports shops.  As well as the watch and band it comes with a pod which you fix to your shoe and it is this which enables you to measure your speed/distance - and it's remarkably accurate!

On long runs I nearly always have a stretch of long straight road, with or without hills but always a struggle.  Somehow if there's a corner to head towards it breaks the run up a bit, but straight road offers nothing but monotony.  That's when I start reciting my times tables.  Thanks to a primary school teacher I can almost do this in my sleep but when I'm running it keeps me focussed on something for long enough to forget I'm tired or going uphill.  If I reach 12x12 before the end of the road I'll then do them again, backwards. 

I find my mind is very clear on a run.  If I have a problem with one of the chairs I'm working on I often find the answer running.  Other people have told me the same.  However grotty I felt when I left the house I always feel better when I get back - tired and stiff, but much better for it!

And of course when I'm running the constant theme in my mind is how long will it take me to finish the race I'm training for - at the moment a half-marathon in early March.  I have my goals:  several in fact.

Goal number one is the Assuming I start and don't get injured I can do it in 2'20"
Goal number two:  The realistic challenge:  under 2'15"
Goal number three: The almost certainly impossible but we can dream can't we?  Under 2 hours.

I always tell people that my goal is "just to finish" and it isn't QUITE a lie!  The fact is I'm fiercely determined (bloody minded some say!) and always do things better if I have a goal to aim for.

If anyone has any other tips for running please feel free to leave a comment. 

Frost bite season!

During the week I've run three times - twice 8ks and once 3ks.  Today was a run with the group from school and I was very worried that I might not be able to run the full distance - 10ks.

We met as arranged at the church at Chemire-sur-Sarthe and I gave them directions for the run - well they all run faster than me so it was fairly important they knew the way!  I thought I'd made it clear but my French was clearly not quite up to the mark!  They only took one wrong turning and fortunately realised quite quickly and rectified it.

It was a beautiful day for a run.  Very cold (-3 degrees) but sunny and with only a light breeze.  I always start my runs with the wind behind me on the basis that if I'm running a circuit it will be behind me on the way back as well and I'll only be running into the wind in the middle where I just have to grin and bear it!  It was definitely a woolly hat and gloves day - people always assume that running is a hot exercise and of course this is normally the case;  but it's amazing how cold you can get on days like today.  I took my gloves off after 40 minutes but kept my hat on as otherwise I just lose too much heat and am also at risk of earache.

(That's me on the right with the white hat)

As I knew would happen the group quickly ran ahead of me and I was playing catch up all the way.  Last time I ran with them (2 weeks ago) I really struggled.  This time it was GREAT!  I quickly got into a rhythm and just enjoyed myself.  I'd chosen a route with plenty of hills but none of them too steep.  When I'm really fit I attack the hills and jog down them to recuperate but at the moment I do it the other way around. 
In the end I arrived about seven minutes after the rest of the group - which translates into about one kilometre.  Not too bad for me!  I'd run at an average of just about 9.5kph and still felt good at the end.
Now we are into the famous 12 weeks to go before the half-marathon itself.  Suddenly the training schedule is a little more important and of course Christmas and New Year are right in the way!  Still, where there's a will there's a way.

Running in gales

My plan is always to run on a Sunday morning but this morning I woke up with a stinking headache (white wine induced - totally stupid!) and knew it wasn't going to happen.  So instead I watched as the ideal sunny weather disappeared and the squalls moved in becoming more ferocious throughout the morning.  Rain, gales, the lot!  Not good for running.  By lunchtime my headache was gone and I was itching to go.  But by now there was real danger of tiles being blown off roofs - not to mention branches off trees.

Finally at 3pm I could wait no longer.  My wonderful husband drove me 8 kilometres so that my run home would be mostly down wind.  I don't normally do this but I'm no longer 20 (or even 30) and running into 100kph or more winds is not something I'm capable of.  The result was fabulous!  I would be running along at my average 9kph when a gust came and I could literally feel my body being pushed along - and my speedometer increased to 11.5kph.  I can't really claim it as a genuine speed but boy it felt good!

Back home and in front of the fire I had a real feeling of success and delight that I'd finished a difficult run - it wasn't all down wind!

Something about the school

In another life I used to run Marathons - not all that long ago and certainly not especially fast!  It was a case of get the T-shirt...and I got two!  On both occasions I took the opportunity to raise money for good causes.  And now I've been roped in to doing it again...well, almost;  it's a half-marathon this time (so only HALF the distance!)

The school involved - College St Francois  in Chateauneuf-sur-Sarthe, France - needs to raise money in order to subsidise children who cannot otherwise afford to go on the annual school trip - this year to England. 

The French don't "do" fund raising in the same way as the Anglo Saxons do it.  When I suggested that we should organise a team of runners to train and run a half marathon in order to raise money for the school they thought - well, the polite ones amongst them were simply speechless.  Although the parents spend plenty of time running around after their children the idea of running 21 kilometres (13 miles) was mind-boggling.  Adding fund-raising to the equation was too much!

However, I now have a team of between 15-20 parents ready to put in the time to do this half marathon on 9 March 2008.  I say "do" it as some will run it and others will run/walk it.  The great thing is the feeling of participation and teamwork it is encouraging.  The children are not being left idle - they will have the unenviable task of asking friends and neighbours each to donate one euro to the cause.  We are hopeful that if each child can raise 6 euros that alone will be 2000 euros.  In the meantime we are also approaching the local businesses to ask for their support - preferably financial! 

We don't have a target as such;  although when Madame La Directrice started swooning over the possibility of 1000 euros I said I would not run - if she didn't think at least in terms of 5000 euros minimum, then 21 kilometres was just too far!  She looked shocked, astonished and then delighted.  She also signed herself up to train with us even though she's never run further than 6 kilometres before!  That's the spirit!

So that is the reason for the chipin widget in the sidebar here.  If any of my readers are interested in helping us to raise money we would be truly grateful. 

Oh - our next team training session is in 10 days time and I'll try to take my camera!