October 2019 Run Review and Excess Photo Dump

On the back side of the run through Yardley and Acocks Green I passed a pond with at least a hundred geese on it. I stopped to marvel at the vast collection of my spirit animal and they, in turn, came marching deliberately my way. They may have just wanted bread, but I felt a sense of communion.

First, the stats…

Miles: 173.6 miles
Runs: 21
Avg:  8.3 miles
Long: 22.3 miles
Pubs on runs: 15, and total: 21
Best pub: Big Bull’s Head in Digbeth but this was a good month
Worst:  No, none of them were so bad I wouldn’t want to go back.  Next question!

As the world tumbles toward the end of the human race, England is also rapidly becoming a post-race society.  Not sure which will happen first, but I’m sure the term “high yellow” will not be used to indicate the inheritors of one or the other … not due to any level of wokeness but simply because no one of my generation who has ever used the term (at either end of the monochrome spectrum) will have survived the coming environmental apocalypse.  So, one morning commute run when I passed Saffron House, the name on the building which probably houses substantial numbers of last-tick-box-on-the-census-citizens amused me in a way that I should probably be ashamed of (but I’m not, relic of bygone days that I am — clues to the guilt behind the joke are provided in this Nina Simone track I’ve had rattling around my head since then).

This time a year ago I had just come out of a deep, dark tunnel.  Metaphors abound.  The Ashted Tunnel, above, is near Birmingham City University and was on my “Journey’s End Run.”  The Brandwood Tunnel is on the Stratford-upon-Avon Canal not too far east of where it connects to the Worcs-and-Brum Canal (photo from the “Crown Lunch Run”).

Managed to run through one of the smallest parks in Brum (Redhill Pocket Park) and several larger ones:

This fantastic water fountain had run dry on the Smethwick Abbey run but was still worth a wee investigation:

Before a train ride to a pub on a non-running day, this sign appeared before me on the platform:

The longest run of the month was also the longest since 9 December 2017: 22.3 miles lost in the cold, torrential rains of 26 October (19-20 miles were intended but soggy maps proved useless).  Felt good to go long for a change even with the knee deep wading through ice cold standing waters. The four pub stops (run write-up is more complete there at White Swan, Red Lion, P of F, and the Drawbridge)  helped recover the core temperature on this one, as well.

Another month in the books, this one ending NOT with Brexit but with Halloween.  I returned from Sheffield the evening before Halloween and spotted the #666 bus to Ghoulsville (via Hell and Back) passing my stop.  Someone at West Midlands Transport has a sense of humour.