Some run stuff. Some expat stuff.

Bad tree!

I do love some of the imaginative signs that you see here in England--this one immediately had my mind racing making up stories about what the tree did to deserve it's outlaw status ;-) I'm also ignoring (or trying to) the fact that "of" was omitted. 

Another 20 mile marathon training run is in the books, this one while not exactly terrible, certainly wasn't the fun-fest of last week's despite having equally excellent company.  It was definitely an interesting one with the weather, I stepped outside and the skies opened up with a heavy enough downpour that I immediately went right back in to grab a water-repellent jacket. Not normally a huge deal but I was already running late so didn't take the time to shed the long-sleeve shirt. 3 layers up top meant that I should have just skipped going back for the jacket because I was soaked from sweat almost as much as I would have been from the rain!  A few miles in and we were treated to the most gorgeously blue skies for the rest of the run so I ended up faffing about with the jacket tied around my waist and it and my spibelt kept slipping around--extremely irritating to the nth degree (not the sunny sky, that was wonderful!).

Interestingly enough despite struggling to keep moving forward, today was only a couple of minutes slower than last week's 20 miler (9:28 versus 9:21 pace per mile).  I'm chalking that up to having people to run with because I'm pretty sure I would have thrown in the towel early on this one if I had been by myself. To keep things honest, I almost did text saying I wasn't going to be there and then thought about calling it good enough at 18.3 miles.  Stuck with it though and these sort of mental fights are as important to marathon training as the great runs are.  Oh yeah, do as I say and not as I do with this bit of advice:  Don't do a more intense than normal strength session the day before a long run!

Probably more excited about it than I should be but after being waylaid with horrible sinus pressure headaches the past few days finding Clarityn rapid melt tabs on markdown for less than half-price at the shop has made me very happy. This in turn made me think of another difference between the US and UK regarding OTC meds--you can't buy in bulk here. Most supermarkets limit you to purchasing 2 packages at a time and each packet usually only contain between 10-16 tablets (the Clarityn were in packs of 10).  However if you go to a pharmacy you can buy in packs of 32 and twice the dosage strength (up to the discretion of the pharmacist) but it is still nowhere near the packs of 50 or more (live large and go for the 500!) that can readily be purchased in the states.  More information about this is on the NHS site.

Thanks to Jennifer Z's post on facebook this is today's earworm! While perhaps Leon Russell's cover of "The Battle of New Orleans" isn't everyone's cup of tea I do quite enjoy the sped-up version.  Check out what History.com has to say about the historic battle if you're like me and all you remember about it is from the song (don't guess I should admit that I'm horrible about recalling history!).