US/UK words and the BDL blues

Autumn colours

I don't think I've had any word difference conversations lately but I did get to help out at a pub quiz by correctly spelling "Massachusetts" for the group during a running club member's leaving do last night. Score one for the 'murican! I love pub quizzes, we should attend them more often but they do get quite competitive.  I do want to share the following infographic though.

Image via Anglotopia facebook page

A few of these are interchangeable in the states, ie taxi/cab are both used as is fall/autumn.  The picture of drapes/curtains is most definitely showing curtains, the closet/wardrobe is representing a standalone unit so that would also be called a wardrobe or alternatively, armoire.  They also left out a third option for gasoline/petrol--those of us who are or were truck drivers (lorry drivers) across the pond commonly refer to both gasoline and diesel as fuel, granted that's a smaller segment of the population but I am throwing it in there anyways.

It's funny how my use of words are changing, yard and garden are both used equally now and I had to laugh at myself today when I was explaining to my partner that the only working pay and display machine was the one with the long queue.  Still having trouble with the whole pants and trousers bit though!  

Today was the first cross country race of the winter for the BDL (Booth Decorators' League) and quite frankly I was not ready for it.  I'm still not feeling back to normal, the only running I did this past week were the club run nights and they were both short but hard effort runs. The weather was beautiful though, so nice having a XC race where we weren't freezing and covered with mud!  

Yes, I'm suffering!

I can tell you that watching a calf muscle twitch while it's trying to decide whether or not to cramp up provides a bit of morbid entertainment as does my cursing about it! My left leg decided to let me know it wasn't one bit happy with what we were doing just a little before halfway through today's race, the last time I had this happen so severely was at the Malta half marathon when it looked like I had a fist sized knot on the backside of my left calf.  The cause that time was dehydration as well so it's time to get my act together when it comes to drinking enough water.

Current status: reeking of bio-freeze, wearing Mary Kay pink leg compression sleeves, chugging tea, and suffering the BDL blues. 

More cross country

Ahhhhhh, cross country racing. I'm not sure if I love or hate you, today was a bit of both. It was cold, muddy, hilly, muddy, did I mention muddy? Nearly lost my left shoe, walked way too much, slid around like I was a drifting extra in Fast and the Furious, flew down the hills like a bowling ball headed for the gutter, and gasped like a fish flopping about just out of reach of the water. Oh did I mention the mud?????

Before the mud and before the sun disappeared

And we are off! 

Suffering, attempting to sprint for the finish line

stats are a bit meh

yep, muddy. Soaked through my shoes and socks

Water hose and newspaper:  xc runner's necessities 

Unfortunately we were one female short of fielding a team for today but the men were well represented and I think they all had great races. Having that camaraderie and support is AWESOME, especially when you are struggling to keep trying to go UP what amounted to be a slide made of mud (thanks again guys!) . The coffee provided by one of the members afterwards was soooooooo good as were the biscuits (the cake was almost gone by the time I finished and I was heaving too much to grab a piece of it). Today was also the other lady's first ever cross country race and she did fantastic, think she's hooked as well now :-).  

Run Britain had a great article this evening about cross country racing. I had to chuckle about the "event" style races and how much they cost. Loving the fact that I get to do what is essentially the same thing several times a year for the £20 annual club membership fee, I'm not much of a medal or t-shirt collector anyways so not getting them isn't a big deal for me.