Race review: Portsmouth Coastal Waterside Marathon, 22 December 2013

I completed this race this morning and only realised when I got home that it is the first full marathon I've done for a few years. I'm sure that there is an unwritten rule that says you can't describe yourself as a marathon runner if you haven't done one in the last twelve months.

The Portsmouth Coastal Waterside Marathon is an annual event in support of the RNLI. The use of both "Coastal" and "Waterside" in the title should give you a clue as to what the course was like; alongside the Solent and occasionally in it! It was also pancake flat which should have made for a good time. Unfortunately the conditions underfoot plus the wind didn't help with that.

A run in the dark

…Of course, about 50% of my runs at this time of year are in the dark. Tuesday and Thursday morning I rise at 05:00 with varying degrees of enthusiasm and head out to log some miles before work.

Review: Philips SHQ2200/10 ActionFit Washable Ultra Light Sports Headphones

@bardelletta bought me these headphones for my birthday (I may have done a little research and steered her gently in the right direction).

Ready for Christmas

Have stocked up the cellar (cupboard under the stairs) so we are ready to go. Probably need to stock up on Paracetamol too!



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St. Pancras Station

Look! Look! A Christmas tree made completely out of Lego. But it's a tree! A Christmas tree! Made of Lego!

Took three months to build apparently.


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Location:St. Pancras Station

London Book Barge

This made me look twice as I walked through Paddington basin. It's always a treat to walk along the canal in a morning on the way to either of our Paddington clients, especially when it isn't chucking-it down with rain. The sight of the floating bookshop really made my morning though as it is such a beautifully bonkers, brilliant, British thing to do. By lunchtime he had quite a crowd round the gangplank; good luck to him.


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Location:Paddington

Children in Need II

And this just made me chuckle. Pudsey at Paddington

Children in Need

R has been busy making cakes for J to sell in work.

I know I said "composition" and "lighting" but this one is about me being inspired by a very determined nine year-old!

A-picture-a-day (ish)

It's not often that I'm inspired by a programme on Channel 5. To be honest it's bloody rare for me to actually watch Channel 5 as I have never been particularly impressed with its mixture of low-quality, lifestyle magazine programming and old films that I carefully avoided when they were in the cinema.

Still, a programme on how to take better photographs (I think they may have had loftier aspirations for it) caught my eye so I gave it a go. It didn't greatly change my opinion of Channel 5 but something that the presenter said has stuck in my mind.

He was making the point that we all have cameras with us, pretty much all the time, in our phones. In addition the fact that it is "only a camera phone" a) isn't true because it's probably at least half-way decent and b) shouldn't be an excuse for not thinking about composition, lighting, etc. As a serial chopper-off of heads and as someone who's subjects are often a dot in the distance this rang a bell.

So I'm going to have a go at a bit of a photo diary. I can't guarantee that every shot will be inspirational (or even interesting to anyone other than me) but I will attempt to capture things that seemed important or amusing at the time. Target will be more than one per month but less than one per day.

Let's see how it goes.


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Childrey 10k 2012: the countdown starts here

Went for a great run on Sunday - sun just coming up, not a cloud in the sky, birds singing, blah, blah, blah - and so I was tempted to push on when I got to one of my usual turn-around points.

I spotted a track up, onto the Ridgeway that I hadn't used before and (after a continuous 2k climb) I found myself looking down onto the Vale of the White Horse and perspiring heavily. In the mood to explore I hacked along for a bit and then found another new (to me) track that Jeremy had told me about, back to the village.

As I got home I was delighted to find that the route was almost exactly 10k and would therefore (with a little manipulation) make a perfect, more challenging version of the Childrey 10k.

It's much more off-road than the existing route but shouldn't be too weather dependent. I'm going to try it a few more times over the next couple of months and then get a notice in the village newsletter before Christmas so that we can get the race on people's New Year's resolution list.

If anyone fancies joining me to try it out, drop me a Tweet or leave a comment below.


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Location:On a train