Monday, September 08, 2008

Running in Sheffield and a short cruise to Stenson

We had an afternoon at Dad’s in Sileby on Friday. I picked up the car from Enterprise in Burton on Friday morning, moved the boat down to the green in Willington then we set off for a visit. It only took 35 minutes.
We went out for lunch, then at teatime Kay, Paul and my god-daughter Samantha, and Andy, Nyree and children Megan and Luke all turned up to say hello. So we had a good old chinwag, catching up with all the news.

I had a look at Andy’s new business unit in Wymeswold. Much better than the last place. He runs a steel fabrication company, so if you ever need anything doing – A-Weld – it’s in the book.

We got back to Willington about 21:00, after a very pleasant afternoon. On Saturday we just chilled, watching the rain and getting ready for going up to Sheffield Sunday morning.
There was a lot of to-ing and fro-ing on the canal. Mercia Marina opened it’s doors? today, so quite a few of the boats that were hanging about made a beeline for their new berths.
The official opening is next weekend, but there’s still quite a bit of groundwork to do to make the place look presentable.

Mercia Marina.































Mags made friends with a young moorhen. He (or she) came for breakfast most mornings.


We arrived in the Sheffield in plenty of time and had a gentle walk to the finish point of the race, where I left Mags and Meg and jogged the short distance to the start line. The weather was kind, the bit of drizzle we drove through on the way had cleared and we even had a bit of sun towards the end of the race. I was a bit disappointed with my time, last year I got a PB of 44:43 for the 10 km distance, and fully intended beating that this year. But they’d changed the course a little, and the last 1 km was uphill. I got my strategy wrong, leaving it too late to push for the finish, and came in 7 seconds slower than last year. Ah well, there’s always next year…
A very enjoyable event, though. As with all the Great Run series, well organised and a worthwhile goody bag at the end. We even managed to park just 10 minutes from the finish, but at a price! £7.40 for 3 hours! Ouch!

Getting back to Willington, we timed it nicely for me to have a shower then settle down to watch Lewis Hamilton snatch victory at Spa, only to have it taken away again after the event following a controversial stewards decision. I hope McLaren’s appeal is upheld, Hamilton did all he could to stay within the rules, even conceding the lead after gaining the advantage over Raikkonen by being forced to take a shortcut to avoid a collision. Giving a 25 second penalty meant he effectively was placed 3rd, after out-driving everyone else on the track. He must be gutted.

Today we moved the couple of miles down to Stenson, to meet up with Carol. Not much traffic about, we did the trip at just above tick-over, enjoying being on the move again, if only briefly. No rain, and even some sunshine in the afternoon.

Sunny (for a change) Stenson.

The weather is set to turn bad again tomorrow, and then brighter Wednesday. So we’ll stay here till then, and then make a decision. We may move down to Shardlow on Wednesday, but we can’t get any further than that anyway. The Trent, not surprisingly, is in flood, and closed to boats.

Locks 0, miles 3 or so.

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