On Saturday morning (two weeks ago- I keep thinking I’m catching up but I’m clearly not) I was marshalling at Ellenbrook Fields, so after I’d parked I had a little run around the business park. I changed out of my vest into my volunteer top and then headed to my marshal spot.
It was such a hot day. I’d brought my water bottle with me, but hadn’t filled it up all the way which was a mistake. I ended up marshalling in one of the big fields, with no shade around me at all. Luckily I had my visor on, but it was totally baking.
I was at about the half way point so I had plenty of time before even the front runners came through, so to pass the time I mucked about with the timer on my camera.
I quite liked it when the strands of grass looked gigantic (as I’d propped my phone up in the grass).
I saw so many beautiful wildflowers, and there was a constant buzz of bees and so many butterflies flitting past. The little black bugs (thunder bugs?) loved the high viz- I really should have taken it off and just waved it about instead.
Dad was running so I got to cheer him on, and then walked back to the start once the tail walker had gone through. At the finish area I chatted to a few people from our club for ages- since I don’t go to the evening run any more (they moved from Tuesday to Wednesday evenings so it’s yoga night) I feel like I hardly see anyone apart from at parkrun.
I went around to have breakfast at Mum and Dad’s and then quickly headed home as we were off to the Baseball in the afternoon.
We got the overground train in, and that was very unpleasant as it was so hot and even though the windows were open no air seemed to be coming in. I was so sweaty (this is my “I am so hot and sweaty” face). We had a bit of time before meeting Andy’s brother and his wife, so we went into Westfield to get a picnic dinner and ended up getting some frozen yoghurt to cool down a bit more.
The baseball was really fun. We’ve been to a few games when we’ve been abroad (Toronto Blue Jays, Charleston Riverdogs, somewhere in LA which was the most terrifying thing as we had to get the bus there and that was probably the scariest bus journey I’ve ever been on) and so you know it’s a long game with lots of other thins going on. As it was linked to the Invictus Games, Harry and Megan were there along with someone from the games to do the first pitch. Of course there were flames too- lots of things to hype up the crowd!
We had a great view across the stadium- it was so interesting to see how it had been changed since being an athletics stadium (although the less said the better about it being now a football stadium on the tax payers expense)- they had to put in a load of earth for the mound, and from where we were we could see the warm up areas. I won’t go into details with the scores, but the first innings had 12 runs (6 each)- we have been to games where the final scores isn’t that high. They had loads of funny graphics (First home run in London!!), and loads of facts about the players. There were things like mascot races (Freddie Mercury racing Nessie…), a “beat the freeze” race (a guy had to beat a mystery runner dressed in one of those all in one stretchy suit things) and crowd competitions in between the innings. My favourite was videos of the players being asked to name British people- one of them said “all the Harry Potters”… The 7th Inning Stretch where they all sing that song is always my favourite part (not sure why, I find it really funny).
Although we had a good view, it also meant we were right in the sun for most of it so I was really dripping in sweat- not so nice!
They had a water refill station so at one point we popped down to refill our bottles- the queue was 30 mins long! It was good fun, although to catch our train we missed the final innings (but didn’t miss anything major)- it was the second longest baseball game ever I think.
On Sunday morning I did 10 miles but issues with Strava meant that it just wouldn’t come up- I tried adding walks and things to bump it along, and they would pop up but my run wouldn’t. Eventually I went on my laptop and manually added it that way- if it isn’t on Strava it didn’t happen! (And I just like to keep track of the miles, and as my memory is so terrible it means I can find out what I did last week…).
Breakfast was a croissant and tea, and then I did a bit of pottering in the garden- standard Sunday!
In the afternoon we went to see Apollo 11, which is a film made up of remastered footage and all the original recordings of the moon landings. It was absolutely amazing. To get more into the moon landing, we listened to some of the Public Service Broadcasting album once home.
On Monday I had a package as I’d ordered some end of term gifts from Wideye (I’d bought some things from their Brighton store recently and really liked them), plus I thought I’d give their natural deodorant a go. They came beautifully boxed up, and all the packaging was compostable so that’s always good.
On Tuesday I was home fairly late but needed a run to clear my head- it was a super busy week at work. I did 3.5 miles and attempted to stay in the shade the whole time but didn’t quite manage it.
We’d got these vegan Magnums so I tried one- it was so delicious and really creamy.
On Wednesday yoga was mostly outside- we’ve done hardly any outdoors this year as it just hasn’t been as warm, but it was perfect this week as it was fairly cool.
On Thursday I did another hot run of 4 miles- I did consider getting up early and doing my run first thing instead, but that would mean really getting up close to 5am to give me enough time to wash and dry my hair etc.
On Friday I had another delivery, this time of some t-shirts- annoyingly as they were from the US I had to collect them as I needed to pay the VAT- if only that could be added at checkout it would be so much easier.
I did some baking on Friday evening- peanut butter chocolate chip cookies. It’s a Hummingbird recipe and it was only when I was putting them on the baking trays that I remembered that I usually halve the recipe as it makes so many. I had to cook them in batches!
Have you ever been to a Baseball game? Did you see Apollo 11?
Baseball has never appealed – mainly because of the length! But it sounds like they put on a good show with the added extras.
I’ve been tempted by the vegan Magnum, everyone says it’s very good 🙂
That was an exceptionally long game! It is fun with all the other bits going on though 🙂
You could have tried it in your fortnight of being vegan!
I really want to try one of the vegan Magnums, apparently they are in stock in some places here although getting them from the shop to the car to the freezer will be tough in the heat!
I’ve never seen baseball before. I grew up just watching football and rugby so in my head all sports are over in a couple of hours…!
Baseball does remind me a bit of rugby (having only been to one rugby match)- as it seemed that people were more concerned with the food than the sport at some points!
You’d have to eat the whole pack or bring an ice box with you I’d imagine!
I love that the packaging was compostable on your delivery. More companies need to think about this.
I recently marshaled in the sun too, there’s really no shade at our parkrun
Yes it’s such a simple thing really – our compost bin is happy for things like that too.
I’ve never been to a baseball game. I’ve been to American football and NASCAR, but I think the length of a baseball game has always put me off a bit.
I had that Strava issue too and my run actually did show up eventually, but I think it took about a week,
I bet NASCAR is crazy to watch!