Ain't running great?

The half term holiday was fantastic. We finally saw Avatar and we spent a lovely 3 days in Bristol. Neither of us were very well on the Thursday, but it was snowing and raining so we went to see Ponyo (a Miyazaki film) at the cinema. It's bonkers. We wandered up to see Brunel's suspension bridge and the camera obscura, both good geeky entertainment. There was no race on at the weekend, so I took the opportunity to give my legs a bit of a rest.

This weekend I went up to York for Paul's 60th Birthday Marathon. It was a beautiful course, mostly on cycle lanes, but also followed the river for a while, as well as passing by the minster in the city and along the old wall. The other runners were mostly older than me, with several in their 60s and 70s. There were so many inspirational stories - I thoroughly enjoyed chatting away with lots of different folk as we jogged along throughout the day. Some of us got lost, meaning that the marathon became 28 and a half miles, but that was fine in such top company. There was good food and drinks at the start, the checkpoints and the finish, plus a great memento (a York rose, 'engraved' on the back). It was one of those days I'll have fond memories of for a long time.

On Sunday, it was quite a contrast to be with my group of 'enrichment' students from college. 15 teenagers had been training with me for just six weeks to take part in a 10K race. When we woke to persistent rain in the morning, I doubted that many of them would actually show up. But every single one of them (along with our Vice Principal) came to do the South London 10K in Wimbledon and we all completed it. At the fast end, we had a lad at just over 41 minutes, through to one who took well over an hour, but battled on against blisters. They all felt proud of their achievement and were chuffed with their medals.It was a weekend of really enjoying running and being reminded of all sorts of positve effects it has on those who take part. I had quite a spring in my step on Monday.