And just like that it’s back to work! And the final GNR countdown

After my last few rather long posts I will try to keep it shorter….

(Two weeks ago …) Monday we were back to work, with a training day. Even though I had been in in the holidays, I still had so many bags of things to carry in with me, I had to do two trips to the car! After work I walked around to the bike shop to pick it up, and even had a little cycle on the way home. I haven’t ridden a bike in years (at least 3, as it’s been in the shed since we moved here) and I actually felt a little nervous getting on it to cycle back. But, that is why the saying goes “it’s like riding a bike” I suppose. Just need to get a helmet and then I can pop into town and maybe cycle to parkrun.

Tuesday night was time for a run (4 miles), and then doing a lot of work prep (again, even though I did lots in the holidays there is always more to do- crack out the laminator) and having some left over brownie in front of Bake Off.

On Wednesday I popped to Starbucks to pick up my free drink, and then once home my tea club had arrived- pumpkin spice season baby! I had a walk (no yoga this week) and the air felt distinctly autumnal. Andy’s parents and auntie popped over for a catch up later on which was lovely.

Thursday was a 3 mile run, and tea in my new Canada mug- I love the little maple leaf on the inside of the mug. The evening was spent packing and sorting because we were off to Durham on the Friday.

Friday was a bit of a rush to get home, and finish up the packing. Pip& Nut emailed to say that their new limited edition flavour is pumpkin spice almond butter- let’s go pumpkin spice crazy! Our GNR whatsapp group was pinging like mad as all 20 people were working out the logistics. I am not sure if I have mentioned it before, but the reason why I was running it was for MND. My Uncle Ken, in the picture above, loved the GNR and wanted to run it 20 times. Sadly when he was training, he felt some twinges and was ultimately diagnosed with MND, and sadly passed away a couple of years ago. This year a team of 20 family and friends are running his 20th for him (20 for 20 for Ken)- I only knew a few people in the team- one of them was my lovely Uncle Brian (Ken’s brother in law)- the last time I ran the GNR back in 2012, Brian and Ken ran it together. More recently we introduced Brian to parkrun (a few years ago) and he’s well on his way to his 100 t-shirt now and totally loves it. The aim was to raise £10,000 between us and we were well on the way.

After dinner we drove to Stevenage to catch the train up to Durham, arriving just after midnight and having a shortish walk to the hotel.

I shall save the weekend for another post.

Are you a pumpkin spice fan? I saw on John Oliver that there is now pumpkin spice spam- I think that’s a step too far!