Today UpTheStanley and I wanted to do a longer run and decided that after all the rain over the last week we’d avoid the trails and head for Hilsea in the north of Portsea Island, where most of the paths are tarmac.
I looked at NRC for a suitable guided run and found “Run with Joanie”. This is a question and answer podcast with Joanie Samuelson the Marathon runner who was Olympic Gold Medalist and won Boston at the age of 50, chatting with her daughter. She was at school at the time when doctors were saying women should not run further than 800m and she looked on with envy as her 3 brothers could take part in all sports. She was only able to ski, play field hockey and tennis, and was known as a Tomboy as she played with her brothers and their friends. Thank goodness things have changed since then as a result of these trailblazers. The guided run was 65 minutes long so it was great to have something to concentrate on rather than listening to gremlins.
A beautiful morning, and about 11c, I ran along the northern foreshore, past Portsmouth’s athletics track and alongside the wake park. There were ducks and coots swimming along the water, a little egret on the waters edge and a swan sitting on a nest, watched over by her mate. Sadly, lots of plastic waste on the waters edge there too.
I ran past the beautiful murals that have been recently painted by local artists near the Lido (Pictures next time). Children were playing in the scooter park and in the toddlers playground. I had to navigate a few dog walkers and pram pushing mums but gave a friendly warning as I ran. One senior chap running towards me called “that’s 5 of us” as I said good morning. I later heard from UTS, who was running an entirely different route, that he called out “that’s 6 of us”.
I had got to 7.5k I think when I saw UTS ahead and was munching on a few dried apricots while walking for a few minutes (I didn’t want to choke). I then picked it up again and he fell into step with me. The guided run finished in 65 minutes but we kept going until we got to the car. 8.51 km in 1:09:52 and mostly in zone 3 .
We headed for the outdoor cafe for coffee and toastie and while UTS stood in the queue, I was extolling the virtues of c25k to a group of seniors who asked if I’d been for a walk. They were very impressed when I said that I started running at age 60 and had just run 8.5k.
I’d like to dedicate this run to my buddies who aren’t able to run at the moment due to various health issues. Keep on holding in there and I hope we’ll soon see you back on the road again. ❤️
Written by
Dexy5
Graduate10
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Ah, lovely post Dexy5 - sounds like a great run and always makes a nice change to listen to a good podcast ( I should do that more!) and great to hear you are promoting the programme to those you meet along the way!🙌🙂
Hear hear to your last paragraph Dexy5. We all know what it feels like to be IC, which is why we all make so much of the good times.🙂
That sounds like great commentary. It is awful to think that in my life time women were excluded from various pursuits. Your run sounds great; rounded off perfectly.
As noted in my response on the weekly chat, my phone battery case was a big success this morning. Without that bit of kit, I am sure that the longer runs would have been too much for my phone.
It is lovely there Instructor57. It was re-landscaped there as part of building the new sea defences and is used by cyclists walkers and runners . There is also a RunWalkLocal 5k and 2k run on a Sunday, similar to parkrun. We do that if we can’t run parkrun sometimes.
Mrs JP & I were there about 10 this morning Dexy! That's twice in a week we've nearly bumped into a member of the Southsea crew while you're running and we're walking - must be synchronicity!
ha ha , we were meant to start at 10.00 but super faffing delayed that. Can’t have missed you by much though. UTS was training up and down the footbridge over to Foxes Forest . 🤣
lovely post Dexy, I been hearing a lot about listening to podcasts while running (no pun intended). It’s not something I do. I worry that I will become so absorbed in what I am listening to that I will fail to pay attention to my surroundings or I will need to pay attention to my surroundings and will miss what is being said and will lose the thread. I will have to give it a go sometime.
You’d think so wouldn’t you, but I was fully aware of everything around me as well as listening in. Because it’s on NRC, it’s based on the 65 minutes run so they let you know how you are progressing every now and then, and also have breaks when they don’t talk. I found this one very uplifting.
No I think the gentle breeze was coming from the north east today Bluebirdrunner . This map shows where we were, compared to our usual southsea seafront route. It must have been nice along the canal too. One lady sounded very interested in the plan - she knew about parkrun as her daughter does it. So you never know.
I remember listening to this NRC run ages ago. It was fascinating! She sounded like a lovely lady, very down to earth and obviously very gifted. Pleased you had a nice run, sounds like you had a very enjoyable time 😊.
I selected it because it lasted 65 mins cheeky, but it was an interesting listen. I didn’t realise there were so many to listen to. That will keep me busy when training up for the GSR.
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week3run1 ✅. 3 x 17 mins with 1 min walks. 
How did your parkrun or (not)parkrun go?
