Posts Tagged ‘rain’

Last month, I went out for a 24-kilometre run. Specifically, I went out for a 24.1-kilometre run, which meant I would set a new distance record by 0.1 of a kilometre.

It was the day the rains came after the long heatwave. I set off at 7:30am and given it was so early on a Saturday morning and raining heavily, you might think I would have the canal towpath to myself. But other endurance athletes are, of course, as crazy as I am.

The rain continued, including two brief but torrential downpours that left me soaked to the skin. Thankfully, I had lubed in the correct places to stop any chaffing and despite my ankles being a bit sore from driving in Finland, I felt fine in all respects after the run. My 162nd Parkrun featured in the middle of it.

The levels in the Leeds Liverpool canal were shockingly low. You can see some of it from the photo, but it’s not the clearest example. At some points, it was a good half a metre below the usual level.

I could clearly see the bottom for long stretches. No bodies, thank god. I did see several hundred tyres, though. They were every metre for a good hundred-metres. There were so many in there, I wondered whether they were put in there intentionally because it must have been a massive fly-tipping exercise to get them all in.

You can check it out on Strava here. And, while you’re there, why not follow me? Please be my friend, your kudos are the only thing that validates my ego…

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This tree is not supposed to be underwater.

The River Aire had been really high recently though, and moving at an incredible pace. At least for a river that usually meanders along slowly. I took a video. It is difficult to capture the speed at which it is moving, especially once you put it into YouTube’s landscape player. Here it is anyway:

Earlier this month, Norman was kind enough to host us for the weekend at his new flat in Cardiff. It’s a nice place and just round the corner from Cardiff city centre.

On the Friday evening we ended up having a meal at Chapel 1877, which was very good. On Saturday we went to St Fagans National History Museum which was an outdoor museum with some traditional buildings and a large manor house and gardens.

There was also a bird hide where we saw some mice. I should have brought my telephoto lens!

We had lunch at a pub just round the corner from St Fagans. It was a Vintage Inn, and lived up to expectations. Despite it being Cardiff, we actually had lots of glorious sunshine on the Saturday and it didn’t really rain (much) until we got back. In the evening we drove to Cardiff Bay had had dinner at a Turkish restaurant on the peer that I didn’t think much of.

On Sunday we spent the morning looking round Cardiff Castle in very heavy rain before heading to the fish and chip shop. I was very pleased to get fish and chips because I had tried to get them on Friday lunch time (they had run out), Saturday lunch time (their fryer was broken) and Saturday evening (we went to a Turkish restaurant instead) but you can’t go to the seaside and not have a fish and chips, even if it is a highly industrialised port.

The rain swelled the River Aire, so I decided to go out with my camera. It’s quite difficult, but strangely satisfying, to manage to take a photo while holding an umbrella up with your knees.

All the heavy rain last month caused the River Aire to just about reach its banks.

Last week, I took Elina to meet my friends at York Brights. It was a rather strange evening as when I walked in I found them sitting in a whole different corner to the usual one, due to the amount of people at the pub. For creatures of habit, like myself, this simply isn’t cool and I spent a good twenty minutes repeating over and over again “this isn’t where we sit…” ;).

There were also lower numbers than usually turn out, perhaps due to so many people taking holidays at this time of year – which also contributed to a slightly lower than expected turn out to Skeptics this month.

Never the less it was a great night all the same, and we tried the food for the first time which turned out to be average.

On the way back, the heavens opened to what I think was the heaviest rainfall I have ever driven through, possibly even heavier than the torrential downpour I went through on my way to appear on Ummah Channel. We’re talking so heavy that I was driving significantly below the speed limit! Nothing wrong with rain, when you’re inside though ;).

Headed down to London for the AHS meeting on Thursday.

The station car park was full which resulted in me parking literally a mile away. Still cost me £3 as well because the parking ticket machine ate half of my money. I scribbed on the ticket though “I have this machine £3!” and didn’t get a ticket despite it expiring so one way or another I got an almost fair amount of parking (I should have only paid £2 really). Interestingly, if you phone the help number on the parking machine, you get a modem on the other end.

Got the train down fine and found my way to 1 Gower Street which was very irritating as I came from King’s Cross so I started at something like 137 Gower Street. That is one of the very annoying things about London – just because you’ve found the right road doesn’t mean you’re anywhere near where you want to be!

The BHA offices were nice enough, they were very much old converted houses with many small floors over about four different levels. We finished up there and headed round to the College Arms for a pint which again was small but nice enough.

Myself and Andrew were both getting the train back from King’s Cross so we headed off not long after though unfortunately by this point it had started raining. Having already got a coat I offered my umbrella to Andrew who hadn’t brought anything. This turned out to be somewhat of a mistake as the heavens properly opened and it began pelting it down, I was not impressed by the time we finally reached the station. Especially because earlier I had thought to myself “should I switch to my walking boots in case it rains?” and decided against it in the end.

It was also rather irritating how many people were on the train back to Leeds at 9:30 at night though it gradually thinned out as we headed northwards from an almost full carriage to an almost empty one.

It wasn’t the most pleasant journey back, I hadn’t brought a jumper because I was trying to travel light and I thought I could just put my coat on if I was cold but it having been soaked right through that wasn’t really an option so it was rather cold, especially with me not being overly dry. I did manage to get a discounted hot chocolate from the snack cart though which was most welcome.

By the time we reached Leeds I was ready to give up for the night (though I still had to drive to Halifax and back, but that is a whole different story – coming soon) so I gave in and jumped in a taxi back to my car. Well worth not freezing to death on the talk back to my car and more importantly, my beautifully warm Wikipedia hoodie.