New HR peak, not to be repeated

This weekend I was in Cambridge for my mum's boyfriend's 70th birthday. If it seems odd to be calling a 70 year old man, a 'boyfriend', then hold that thought, cause I'm coming back to it.

The Cambridge Park Run wasn't on, so I went to the Wimpole Estate one. The loveliest location for a run, through fields, beside a lake and up some fairly steep hills. I felt pretty good, although my time was one of my worst, nearly 3 minutes. But about halfway I suddenly realised my Garmin was registering a heart rate of 212 BPM. This didn't feel like a very good idea, although I also didn't feel like I was working that hard. I tried to slow it down without walking, unsuccessfully, and at one point it went up to 217.

After the run - which as I say didn't feel too hard, certainly no harder than last week, I kept an eye on my heart rate. I went to the University Library to get some books out and then went back to my mum's house to change for the party, and it hovered around 90-100, which is high for me. I was also feeling nervous and agitated, although how far this was feedback from the fact that my heart was feeling odd and I was worrying about it, I don't know. I was also nervous about the party, as I was on my own (W was away for his grandmother's 93rd birthday) and knew I would have to be making a lot of small talk, which I don't really like doing.

The party was quite fun, although as there were about 60 people there, it felt quite full-on and as ever there was very little opportunity to talk to the people I really care about, i.e. my mother and my siblings and their families. I was sitting next to some quite interesting people however, and the food was absolutely delicious (this was at Hotel Felix, which I would recommend). Anyway, the highlight of the evening, which unfortunately happened while I was out of the room, was that mu mother and her partner announced that the previous Thursday they had got married! Cue a combination of disbelief and congratulations. I am still in a sort of shock, although obviously very happy for them.

Sunday morning, I went for a 4 mile run, which went without wierd heartbeats and was very enjoyable. So I managed 9 miles this week, which wasn't too bad, although not at all according to plan.

A weekend of running, construction and canoeing

This week I hit 40. Two days in and it feels ok, although weird when I think about it. In my head I age much slower than this, so I'm probably just exiting my twenties mentally.

I celebrated by spending some time with a friend who was co-incidentally over from Australia, whom I haven't seen in about 3 years. We went to the British Museum exhibition on Vikings together and then went for pizza with W at Rosso Pomodoro, which is my new favourite pizza place. I decided to throw dietary caution to the winds and had the Quattro formaggi, which was heavenly. So much smokey mozzarella...

On Saturday, W and I went to do the local parkrun. This was a deal made a long time ago as he is surprisingly non-competitive and doesn't really like things like races. However, I asked him to come to it as part of my birthday present, and he agreed. I'm not sure he was too grateful first thing in the morning - I am a much more morning person than he is... And he tried to sabotage us arriving on time by eating breakfast! Eating is cheating!

We arrived in the nick of time, and he decided to coach me through the run. I did nearly run a PR, and hit an all time high heartbeat of 196, which I'm not sure was too smart. As ever, afterwards, the sense of 'why on earth do I do this?' left quite fast and I felt like doing the whole thing again.

Then we went home, had a proper breakfast, and packed up our new inflatable canoe. This was our present to ourselves for going on holiday later in the year to Sweden to go canoeing. I think I might publish a full-on review, so I'll save the description for another time, but for now, I'll share with you that this took us 3 hours to put up for one hour of canoeing...

London coffee update, plus crabs!

I've been quiet for a while because life got in the way. Last week I'm not sure why, but this week it was because I was taking a training course that took over my life. W went off on a diving trip from Wednesday and honestly, thank goodness he did because I had my usual 2 hour commute there and back, plus course 9 to 5, plus 2-3 hours homework and revision in the evening. I don't mean to whine, cause I know that other people may have to work longer hours than this in more difficult jobs, but this was a bit of a shock for me!

The course was Prince 2 project management, something that I had been meaning to do for ages. I passed the Foundation exam on Wednesday and I took the Practitioner exam yesterday. I'm feeling reasonably confident, although not 100% confident, that I passed. I should hear in a few weeks.

The unexpected highlight of the week was the coffee and food. We were based in a building in Moorgate and walking from Moorgate tube station to the course, I had to pass the Harris + Hoole coffee shop on London Wall. I've written before about finding good coffee, and honestly words cannot praise too highly how good these guys are! I loved the little shop, I loved the staff (so friendly and welcoming, without being fake), I loved the chalk menu and drawings, I loved the cookies, I loved the lemonade, and above all I loved the soya flat white.

The menu: who wouldn't feel better about their day looking at this? 

The other highlight was the small food fair that we found under the Gherkin building on Thursday. Deciding what to have was really difficult.

This was basically one third of the choice. And indicates how many people were getting lunch there. 

I finally made my choice. 

I never had a soft shell crab before. I had the one with fennel, and it was excellent!

This is going to sound Pollyanna-ish of me, but I love finding the things that make an otherwise not particularly interesting week great. Prince 2 is pretty dry, so although I wanted to learn it and I'm glad I have, it was never going to be an exciting week. But the new location, the coffee, the food and some of the people on the course made it a really fun and interesting week, surprising even me!