Holiday Run Streak 2019, Week 6: completion and photo dump

Sunday 29 Dec: 3.3 miles to Ivy Bush via Oldbury
Monday 30 Dec: 3.2 to Screwfix and the New Talbot
Tuesday 31 Dec: 6.1 out to Bilston
Wednesday 01 Jan: 4.2 through Dartmouth Park and south West Brom
Thursday 02 Jan: 7.1 on first Commute of the year…in to work
Friday 03 Jan: 8.7 second Commute…home from
Saturday 04 Jan: 4.1 to the Waggon & Horses and Morrisons for decent bread

This was the final week of this nonsense.  I really see why it  doesn’t  come  around  every  year.  The  weekly  tally  is  36.7  miles  with  266.7  for  the  entire  festive  season (quite low in recent history).

Awesome Art Deco facade on factory at the rail border between Oldbury and West Brom

The Blue Plaque at the top of the page was spotted up the street from The Ivy Bush and when I went to inspect I was pleased to find it commemorates a brief tenancy of Malcolm X.

Whilst tidying up the computer after the hols, a few other photos from the streak emerged.  The Christmas feast included roast duck with potatoes, asparagus, cornbread dressing, a sweet potato pie, and the wines seen above.  A run to Bilston revealed a statue of a woman with an anvil instead of a head, laden with rock or coal:

For something more traditional, here’s the WW1 memorial in Dartmouth Park:

On the same New Year’s Day run, the Oak House puts our shack to shame:

On the Friday Commute run, I passed near the water works (the reservoir is just beyond) and assumed this tower was a 70 year old water tower.  Turns out it dates back over 200 years and became the inspiration for one of Tolkien’s “Two Towers.”  See below . . .

 

Holiday Run Streak 2019, Week 5

Sunday 22 Dec: 3.8 mile Wetherspoon breakfast loop
Monday 23 Dec: 9.9 on the canals to the FTICR-MS (cryogen check)
Tuesday 24 Dec: 11.4 miles in two runs with a stopover in Wednesbury
Wednesday 25 Dec: 4.6 roundtrip for breakfast drinks in Wednesbury
Thursday 26 Dec: 7.3 mile rainy final Weoley Castle run
Friday 27 Dec: 4.1 to B’ham Market after checking the labs
Saturday 28 Dec: 6.1 B&Q and the White Swan, Bilston

47.2 this week, 230 so far this streak.

The fox, above, was spotted as you see it on the Black Lake Bridge on my second run of the day on Christmas Eve.  Jackie had finally succumbed to the flu that morning and I was ignoring my own body aches and chest tightness; still, we had a warm home filled with booze and a sumptuous meal for Christmas Day so the fox cadaver was not to be taken as an omen.  In fact, the streak seems to be taking less out of me this year than the last time (London and Oxford, 2017); it is still a lot like taking a beating, to be sure, but the new scenery is keeping things fresh and appealing.

Holiday Run Streak 2019, Week 4

Sunday 15 Dec: 24.1 miles, home/Weoley Castle/Kings Norton/U of B loop
Monday 16 Dec: 5.5 mile lunch and shop run to Pavillion and Toolstation
Tuesday 17 Dec: 5.7 miles Bournville from work via old digs (mail check)
Wednesday 18 Dec: 9.6 mile Run Commute (#4, To via the canals)
Thursday 19 Dec: 3.0 miles from work to the Christmas Market
Friday 20 Dec: 3.4 miles after 6 yard skip filled and a fireplace demolished
Saturday 21 Dec: 6.5 miles after a brief work stopover then back to plastering the fireplace and removing some Artex

57.8 miles this week, 182.8 for the streak so far 29 days into it.

It was the final week of work ahead of the Xmas break and I don’t think I ever completely recovered from the Sunday entry in this list (below).  Friday and Saturday also included heavy lifting and detail plastering around the home.  Hopefully, Christmas week will have more photos to include, but this week was what it was and is what it is.

Sunday…slow with several stops but longest so far this year

Holiday Run Streak 2019, Week 3

 

Sunday 08 Dec: 7.3 mile trip to old house to check mail
Monday 09 Dec: 8.5 mile lunch run lost under King’s Heath
Tuesday 10 Dec: 6.9 mile grocery and hardware trots
Wednesday 11 Dec: 4.6 mile lunch run to old house (mail check)
Thursday 12 Dec: 6.9 mile feverish lunch run to town and back in the rain
Friday 13 Dec: 6.3 miles on Run Commute #3 (from work)
Saturday 14 Dec: 3.4 mile Xmas Tree run to Wednesbury

43.9 miles this week, 125 so far this run streak.

The week was a blur due to fighting a case of the dreaded lurgy until Saturday when both the fever and the rainfall finally broke.  We looked for a Christmas tree all over West Brom but I eventually had to go out for the shortest run of the week to Wednesbury, a village up a hill about 2½ miles away.  The church that dominates the skyline from back at my part of WBrom — seen in the above photo — was still up hill from the pub stop on this jog.

Saving the photos for a ‘home’ themed post sometime hence, we uncovered some Edwardian quarry tiles in the kitchen and the front entranceway and think we may be able to restore them to their former state.  We also examined one of the fugly fireplaces and have started trying to source a period surround for insertion once we destroy the reprehensible excuse for a hearth.  Stay tuned.

 

Holiday Run Streak 2019, Week 2 (as home refurbishment continues)

Down the rabbit hole…

Continued the house refurb by finishing the paintwork (except the trim and ceilings) and removing the last of the carpet save for the box room which will soon be converted to a bath.  We removed doors in the kitchen, on the stairwell (as well as the carpet, there, revealing the old stair runner path), and between the entrance hall between the two receptions and started to repopulate book and music shelves in their temporary homes.  There was a failed radiator valve that was leaking and a section of rain gutter we will need to get someone around to reconnect.  But, it all seems to be going to plan.

Speaking of, “going to plan,” the run streak continued as well.  Here are the dailies for Week 2 (39.5 total, 5.6 average):

Sunday 01 Dec: hardware trot, 3.0 miles
Monday 02 Dec: Digbeth via canals, lunch, 5.6 miles
Tuesday 03 Dec: hardware and old address mail run, 3.1 miles
Wednesday 04 Dec: Run Commute #1, canal, 9.6 miles
Thursday 05 Dec: Malt House/Library lunch run, 6.9 miles
Friday 06 Dec: Run Commute #2, Halfway House, 7.4 miles
Saturday 07 Dec: Rising Sun, Tipton out-and-back, 3.9 miles

Not on a run commute but just a regular one: impromptu primitive art in The Hawthorns Station…every window has at least one representation of cock and balls drawn in the condensate.  I believe the children are the future.

Holiday Run Streak 2019, Week 1

The Holiday Run Streak reared its ugly head again this year.  Starting the Saturday before Thanksgiving and ending the Saturday after New Year’s Day, this time it entails at least 3 miles per day with a weekly update.  Week 1 is not a weak one as it is an 8 day week to cover the extra Saturday at the front end.

 

During the strenuous house refurbishment, I lost a bit of weight (more than 11 pounds/5 kg) despite the work Christmas Do and Thanksgiving.  Some of the runs were in ~7 mile range back to the rental for clean-up and one was over 10 out to make a long-ish effort.  During one of the rental tidying runs I spotted the Lions of the Eat War Memorial somewhere between Oldbury and Smethwick.

The runs were:
3.3 miles: House Day 8, grocery run whilst packing
3.2 : House Day 9: West Brom picking up cleaning gear
3.0 : Day of house move, new neighbourhood and groceries
7.1 : Initial rental tidy trip
3.8 : Loop via Tesco and Red Lion (Thanksgiving provisioning)
6.8 : Final rental tidy trip, early TG morning
3.5 : Xmas Do … had to get it in early
10.9 : Golden Lion Bilston found by running north at sunset
Total Week 1: 41.6 (per day = 5.2 over eight days)

Week 2 arriving soon.

November 2019 Run Review and Excess Photo Dump

On the 9th, the first freeze of the season arrived with sleet during the last 1/4 of a 20 mile trot. The sun graffito mocks me.

All change this month with a house purchase (and move), Thanksgiving (and return of the Holiday Run Streak), Impeachment yonder and a snap General Election here.  First, monthly stats:

Miles: 141
Runs: 19
Avg:  7.4 miles/run
Long: 20.4 miles
Pubs on runs: 8, and total: 14
Best pub: King Edward VII

 

The 2019 Holiday Run Streak is the first in a couple of years (these always seem to fall on odd-number years) but at the end of the 2017 effort my inflamed soft tissue injuries dating back to the Ridgeway Challenge were only a few months away from curtailing ALL running for the entire summer of 2018.  In fact, return to form has never completely occurred albeit this year represents a noble effort for an old man.

The rules are dynamic, and this year include a minimum of 3 miles per day but use the ultramarathon training schedule I recently started as a guide for the days with longer runs.  More at the first weekly update, here.

One nice discovery this month was the Harborne Walkway, an old railbed converted to paved foot/bike path running from Harborne into (at least) Smethwick.  Exits onto busy roads but also tunnels under or uses old rail bridges to fly over them.

“Stand for something,” reads the sign one of the background women is carrying at the Mary Macarthur monument in Cradley Heath honouring the trade unionist suffragette who, among a long list of achievements, led a strike of women chain makers here in 1910.  Spotted on a long run on my way to the Wetherspoons a couple miles away:

Another rainy run turned up this monument to the 2nd Boer War with another towering woman (I reckon this is Brittania) flanked by two artillery men:

 

This was the day after Remembrance Day and the sad, solitary tribute of poppies at the base seems fitting to a war about gold, diamonds, and the Boer’s resentment of their British overlords prohibiting slavery nearly a century earlier.  These ladies’ diaphanous gowns were worth the stop:

The running plummeted after the house purchase led us into a pre-move refurbishment rabbit hole.  This is beginning to recover with aforementioned Holiday Streak…its weekly updates will supercede the monthly ones from today.