A rest day.

In the push towards my first marathon in October I got plenty of miles done this week with assorted runs- the longest of which was 24km. None of the running was particularly scenic and the long run (alongside the busy A6 road -because it’s flat) was actually horrible. The highlight of  the run was when some strange tatooed and bearded guy stood in his front garden with no shirt on, winked at me as I passed and said, ‘It’s too hot for all this. We should be lying down somewhere.’ 
I’m not sure what he was getting at but it made me run a bit quicker. Anyway, have a look at these pictures from my active rest day which was a quick walk to stretch my legs around the terraced gardens in Rivington. They’re a bit easier on the eye than photos of traffic, litter and strange men. 

Rivington Terraced Gardens (known locally as ‘The Chinese Gardens’ were built between 1900 and 1925 by the local industrialist Lord Leverhulme (founder of Lever Brothers which eventually became Unilever). Lever made an inordinate amount of money manufacturing soap. He purchased a steeply-sloped patch of moorland above the town of Bolton and set about creating his own ornate Japanese and Italian style landscape- as you do. 

Leverhulme died in 1925 and another local business magnate bought the park. After World War II the gardens were opened to the public but left to be swallowed by nature and eventually covered in woodland.  

Today it’s a great place to walk or run although there are hundreds of steps and it’s pretty steep. It feels like the lungs of the town – an easily accessible wild space in an otherwise over-crowded, post-industrial landscape. 

This is currently somewhere that I drive to -but as my longer runs get longer this area is somewhere I could run to from home. I’m not sure whether I’m ready yet for the combined challenge of the run out to here and getting to the top!

Although the views at the top make all the climbing worth it. 

And then it’s just a short climb to the beacon on Rivington Pike and even better views. 

So it looks like I’d better invest in some trail trainers as I head to the hills. 

Do I look like I’m playing Pokemon!?

I stopped to take this photo today. I like how our lovely local council have helpfully added a ‘pedestrians’ sign with a handy little arrow. Gosh if that sign wasn’t there pointing me in the right direction I might have scaled that orange fence and crawled through that trench. Anyway…

Whilst I was taking the photo a passing car slowed down and some guy shouted from the passenger seat,’Aren’t you a bit old for that!’

I was a bit confused at first as I’m not aware of any age limit regarding taking photographs of road works until I realised that he probably mistook my use of the phone for Pokemon hunting. 

Either that or he was commenting on my lycra shorts. 

Building up the miles.

I work in a school and the end of the academic year is ridiculously busy and hectic so I haven’t had much time for blogging as of late. However I have been running  pretty regularly and slowly increasing my distances. This morning I managed 23 km which is the furthest I’ve ever covered. I can’t say I ran all the way but I more or less  plodded the bulk of it. Considering I only managed to run a measly 65km in the whole of 2015 I’m pretty pleased with my progress this year as I’ve run well over 550km since mid-January when I first started my regular runs. One of the joys of longer runs is that they take me out of the urban/suburban environment and into the countryside. In the photo you can just see the hills which is where I aim to do a bit of running soon.  Hopefully now that I’ve got a break from work I’ll be able to post the resulting pics on here. 

I planted this tree…

I ran past this tree today. I often run past it. It’s in the grounds of the school that I attended until the age of eleven.  I planted this tree when I was about eight or nine years old when I was in Mrs Butler’s class and I was completing a class project …on trees. I didn’t plant it as a seed. Some bloke from the council turned up with some saplings and we dug holes and plonked the saplings in. It’s kind of satisfying to see that it’s still there but seeing as the tree is now MASSIVE it also makes me feel ridiculously ancient. 

Actually I planted two trees during my project but about five years ago the school extended the playground and chopped my other tree down! That was my tree damn you. 

Weekly total : 33.29km