Life and how to live it

I haven’t been a’blogging recently because there’s been a lot of life to live.

First up was the Newport marathon on. The training had been tough. I’d seen my optimistic goal of sub three hours slide out of view in the training, so decided to just enjoy it. Well as much as you can enjoy running 26+ miles around Newport, My running pal Tom gave me a lift cause the earliest train got in fifteen minutes before the marathon was due to start. With pretty much every marathon I get a mystery ache in the days leading up to it. It was the turn of my right knee to start playing up. The pain came and went for five weeks before the marathon, and come race day I had a twinge in the first mile, then nuthin!

Run4Wales say that the course is the flatest in the UK, which may be true, but boy, it’s also one of the dullest. There were parts of it which just seemed to go on and on, but that’s marathons for you, relentless. I’d also forgotten just how much of it is on tarmac and concrete, though I didn’t feel any ill effects, well not much. i decided to chose a different tactic for this marathon by not setting off all guns blazing, and keeping something in reserve, the idea being that I would run the second 13 miles faster, a negative split. It didn’t. Mile 14 and 15 were quicker than the preceding miles but I soon began to calcify at the end, and just had to grind out the final miles,

I had been telling everyone who would listen that this might be my last marathon, but I crossed the finished line strong and enjoyed it, so much so that I’ve decided to do the London marathon night year one last time!

The other annual event which happened recently was Record Store Day, myself and my bonzo pals headed down to Carmarthan to vist Tangled Parrot. I had a pretty heafty list this time round, and boy did it end up being spicey. Nick at Flipside sorted me out for a chunk of vinyl, but I like to spread the love round so reserved some for The Parrot.

Steve Dixon and headed down the night before and had a few in the fantastic Crw (just below The Parrot) and got talking to some lovely people, then got a takeaway and met up with Mike back at Steve’s chalet. We were up bright and early the next day to stand in the queue with only around 12 people in front of us. Steve Ford arrived with coffee, which completed the usual RSD crew. We got talking about what we were after and of RSDs gone by. I had huge fun yabbering and comparing lists. We got talking to the people behind us and there was a lot of people keen on the Taylor Swift album, for me top of the list were the two Pixies releases (demos and Doolittle live in Brussels) I got both! We were all pretty happy with what we’d got and then went for breakfast to compare notes.

I’ve listened to most of what I’ve bought, and the Bill Evans ‘Treasures’ album is a notable winner at the moment, but there isn’t a duff disc amongst any that i bought, the ‘Nuggets’ boxset is also worth of note. i resolved not to buy anymore vinyl for awhile, which I completely didn’t stick to when I bought an album at a Jeffrey Lewis gig soon after, but hell, I’m happy with my life choices.