An eventful week

I hadn't planned to run on Thursday, due to poorly toes, but it turns out that I wouldn't have managed to anyway. My oldest son punched another boy at school, a boy who had attacked him from behind and thrown against a wall and punched and kicked him. Despite the fact that he clearly acted in self defence, he earned himself an exclusion as school policy states that any child who thumps another child must be excluded. From talking to the headmaster, I get the impression that most of the staff would like to pat him on the back for standing up for himself against a known troublemaker, and he reassured us that our boy is doing really well and that the teachers are all really pleased with him.

I did run on Friday, up Brockham Hill and down again - I ran all the way up for the first time in ages without having to stop. My toes seemed OK in my alternative trainers, which is good, because I am still in the mourning period for my beloved purple Asics Kayanos. I've had a quick look around t'internet and can't see any other trainers that look as pretty and as functional! I need to get better at hills. I should probably try to run up Brockham Hill at least once a week, and maybe add in another local hill.

Today I spent most of the morning at the younger children's school open day. During the course of this I managed to break my iPhone. I was chatting away to a friend and put my iPhone in my handbag as I was talking.... but I missed the handbag and the iPhone slipped down onto the tarmac. It is a very poorly 'phone now. I have just about managed to get the photos I need off it. Looks like I will have limited 'phone access until I get the insurance sorted out. I hadn't realised how dependant I was on my 'phone until today. I don't remember anyone's 'phone number anymore because they are all programmed into my contacts, I can access FaceBook while standing in the checkout queue in the supermarket and have my favourite music with me wherever I am.

I have (had?) a running playlist on my iPhone, some of the tracks are favourites of mine, others are from downloaded running playlists from Runners' World. I like the variety of things I know really well and other tracks I wouldn't normally listen to. I bung the playlist on 'shuffle' at the start of a run and then just listen to what ever plays.

This afternoon when I set off for my run I grabbed my husband's old iPod mini. You'd think that two people who have known each other for 21 years would have developed similar taste in music wouldn't you? It seems not to be the case. I will never like The Stone Roses, and The Sex Pistols while running round a rural Hampshire village is a strange juxtaposition! Not sure what I am going to do for tomorrow's run. 10 miles, on my own, with no music doesn't really appeal.

Anyway, back to today's run. I decided to run the route I ran when I started running with Couch to 5k. This is a sort of figure of 8 around the village with the bottom half of the '8' being run twice. I wish I'd kept better records of how far I'd managed to run in given times back then, but I guess I wasn't quite so OCD about running back then! I know that I used to start at a certain point (on the bridge) and finish at the top of Lower Neatham Mill Road, and this took me 30 minutes. I've just been looking at the maps and figure that I ran about 3/4 of a mile further today (different start and end points) and took only 28 minutes. It was nice to run an old route again, but I remembered why I had stopped running it - I bump into far too many people I know!