The morning started a little earlier when my husband got up at 5am to do a cycle trip around our Region today. By 6am I was wide awake and instead of waiting for Mr Smooth's invitation to get my trainers on, I was ready and out the door and it was already 25 degrees!
My route means I meet the same people most times - the couple where the lady has had some kind of operation and is on crutches - helped by her husband on what i think is probably gentle physio, there's an old chap wearing 118 ad style running shorts doing a light jog, and a young guy taking a Heinz 57 dog for a walk. Being in Italy, it would be rude not to acknowledge them, so we all do a variation on buongiorno. It does however get difficult because my route is circular and I tend to meet up with them all a second time, so we all do a second acknowledgment - a weird grunt noise - a short version of buongiorno, which ends up sounding like no. In fairness to me, on the last part of the run a grunt is about all I can manage anyway. In Italian - I am known as a straniera (stranger), but it seems odd now - I don't know these guys, they don't know me - but surely we're not strangers any more?
An occupation hazard of living in the country, is no pavements and very windy narrow lanes - think Devon and Cornwall type, coupled with the famed Italian Ferrari driving style and just sometimes you can come a cropper. So this morning's adventure on a blind bend was an unscheduled brush with stinging nettles - oh joy - I am adding that to the already itching mosquito bites from Sunday.
The great bit about this forum, is you learn stuff all the while, so I have been utterly perplexed at a ringing noise going off on my phone during my sessions. I had exhausted all my ideas - mail alerts, WhatsApp alerts, calendar alerts etc - you get the picture, then in one of PrincessBecky's recent posts, Workerbee mentioned the half time alarm bell. Thank you Workerbee for saving my sanity.
Finally, yesterday amongst my usual pile of junk mail - I received an e magazine telling me that anyone wanted to sell their house this Autumn would be advised to redecorate and a coat of paint is just the ticket. Deep rich colours are the in thing, so i checked out Dulux's colour chart and my face post run is either Salsa Red or Monarch. As I get fitter I am aiming for either Sorbet or Raspberry Diva
According to Mr Smooth, my stamina should be increasing - he just doesn't seem to mention face colour though....
a. Annoyed I had to stop: jiggled on the spot a bit.
b. Embarrassed by my difficulty speaking and
c. Amused by his evident alarm when he saw the colour of my face!
Didn't even know the place he was looking for.....
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I know what you mean entirely, it hasn't happened to me so far, but I just know when it does, the minute I open my mouth and gasp the immortal line ' I am sorry I am English', that he/she will beetle off, wondering why they were so unlucky to meet the only person in a very obscure part of Italy, who has no idea where she is!
I was on a run and my phone rang. Had to answer it as I am always on call. It was a work call and the guy at the other end wondered what on earth I was doing!! When I said I had been running he said "you breathe, I'll talk", ha!! Felt like I was attempting a really weird dirty phone call!! 😂😂😂😆😆
These are the war room stories that keep us going - I find if I can laugh at my efforts it's a lot easier than wringing my hands over how crappily unfit I am. Every laugh keeps me on track 😂😂😂
Haha, loved reading about your Italian run. And the matching your face to a paint colour chart is hilarious, near the end of my 5k run this morning I stopped to stroke an adorable 12 week old puppy and then had to point out to his owner that my face matched his fleece - pillar box red, haha!! And it was only 15 degrees 😂
Now I didn't see Pillar Box red in the paint chart - maybe that's a 2018 colour - you're ahead of me in running, so I think for sure you will be ahead on colour matching too...
This is fab! Its odd isnt it if you where to see those people on the street you would recognise them and them you! Ohh that bush sounds nasty! Goo you for doing the run through all of that though! Whoo! #usgirlscan
So I took on the one hour challenge and managed a pathetic 5km walk. But I have to say it is scorchio here and our house is at the top of a hill that is 250m above sea level. My face is even redder than this morning's colour chart, so i think your 10 mile challenge will remain your record at least until the weather chills a little in September and I can at least try a decent challenge... :)So you are the undoubted champion - good luck with your next run
Hey - well we do what we can. Temperature is now 32 degrees so I am doing your walk challenge this evening - its a fine balance between temperature and mosquitoes... So its supposed to be 36 degrees at 5pm and 33 at 8pm, by which time the pesky bloodsuckers are out, so I may not get your 10 miles done, but am aiming as a minimum to do an hours walk! #usgirlscan
Seriously the dark red isn't a colour I am recommending for anyone... Even if you went all posh and looked at Farrow and Ball and came up with African sunset or some nonsense name like that - I was still way too much on the red and puffed out scale. It just occurred to me that in all my life I'd never seen my face that colour before..., so Dulux colour charts here we come. I'm hoping when I hit mid-way point, that I've toned down a little....
Loved this post - thank you for adding a smile to my day. I do love the names of your planned Dulux hues. To be honest, I'm more Lava Beacon than Raspberry Diva!
I live in the south of France and we have the same "hello" ritual when we cross other people's paths. It got painful for me when I did a 17k run a few months back that involved running loops of the same circuit. I think that one couple thought I was stalking them. I am also an "étranger", but in our village, even people from the village next door are considered to be foreigners
Yes I am worried in case 118 shorts man, mistakes my cheery smile as a leery come on! As it is being English is considered strange what with tea drinking and all...
Yup, you have to identify potential weirdos who interpret things in their own sweetly 'retro' (read 'misogynist') way... generally the ones whose longest trip away was to the next town to buy the bread. I have a terrible memory of when I was interviewed on local radio as a language assistant in deepest, darkest France, and a rather unbalanced gentleman listening to the programme took a shine to my accent. He called me every night to tell me that he wanted me to take care of him (I was working in infant and primary schools) and how I should be dressed - right down to the accessories. The police weren't interested, so I finally got rid of him by telling him to give me his name and address so that I could send him a signed photo of me in suspenders, glasses and fishnets with a cane between my teeth. He came a cropper a few months later when he tried the same approach with the school headmistress. 😂
Blimey now that's forward behaviour or more correctly backward. I had a sunbathing incident when a neighbour decided popping around unexpectedly without knocking or asking permission was entirely reasonable. Shortly after we put in gates.
The next step was helping himself to a beer and joining you My neighbor used to hide between partially closed shutters and watch us in the garden, hopefully pointing out from time to time that it was "bikini weather". *Vomit*
I would have got arrested if i'd tried that I think he'd been watching a bit too much TV on dodgy channels. I had problems getting my head around how anyone could find an English accent sexy, I felt like I was putting the French language through the mixer every time I opened my mouth
Haha, love this. have always assumed I was pure beetroot red, but that sounds very boring now. More imaginitive names for beetroot shades .... something to occupy my mind on the next run ....
The Dulux catalogue has a myriad of red/pink shades - even at the dark end of beetroot, but probably a more artistic name - I'm thinking burgundy blush???. It was when I realised my face was pretty much the same shade as my kitchen cabinets, that I needed to give myself a target colour. I don't think Mapmyrun has that as part of its goal setting.....
That all sounds very glamorous & very entertaining. I'm with you on the stinging nettles- a easily of a very narrow overgrown path - they get me every time!! Keep up the good work & keep safe! 🐵👍
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Tonight Matthew I am going to be - Week 9 Run 2
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