Rosedawn Ramblings

For the last week, we've been on a small group tour with  Aussie Wanderer on Western Australia's Coral Coast. T his trip was one of the first things we booked when planning our Big Trip, inspired by Neil Oliver on Coast Australia to travel north from Perth up to Exmouth and back, a distance of over 1,200kms each way (excluding all the side trips). We travelled over 500 miles in one day alone and covered over 2,000 miles in total.  We've survived shared bathrooms and travelling with a group, though there were only 6 of us on the tour so that wasn't too bad.  It's been tiring (lots of very early starts and a few late nights too) but worth every moment - we've seen, experienced and learnt about so much more than we'd expected (even if we didn't get to see dugongs and turtles) and laughed a lot too. There hasn't been much time for reading though... I'm slowly working my way through Make My Wish Come True by Fiona Harper on iBooks. Our driver...

When you're travelling for an extended period of time, there are some days when you feel like you're doing something incredibly different from the normal, exotic even. And there are other days where the everyday routines of life take over and it feels just like being at home. We've had a real mix over the last few days... On Saturday, our day was pretty much like most other Saturdays. We started the day with parkrun, lingered in the cafe long after the run was finished, had bacon butties for lunch, did two loads of laundry, read books (The Secret of Chimneys by Agatha Christie), watched some cricket on TV and went to the chip shop for our tea. The only significant differences to home were the location of the parkrun (Canning River instead of Hanley) and the temperature... peaking at about 37C and feeling far too hot to do much of anything. Our accommodation made it feel even more like home; although it was a B&B, we basically had the house to ourselves. Even the TV ...

For the last few days, we've been staying in west Perth, at the Riverview Hotel on Mount Street. We booked this hotel before our trip, based on a good deal for advance booking and its proximity to King's Park, which is a wide expanse of parkland, gardens, sculptures and memorials high above Perth and overlooking the city and Swan River. It is great for escaping the sunshine, with lots of shady areas and a lovely cafe (with free wifi). What we didn't realise is that Mount Street also seems to be the running centre of the city. From our hotel balcony, where this is a view of the river if you peer through the trees, there are a constant stream of runners and walkers going up and down the Mount. If this was Stoke, this was definitely be called a bank and seems to be the sligthly more sunny equivalent of Anchor Road or Milton Road.  And when you get to the top of the bank and into King's Park, there are even more runners going about their training, as well as ...

Running with Rosedawn Designs has gone on holiday... There'll still be a few running stories, as we've got a plan to get to run 3 times a week and visit 9 different parkruns whilst we're away, but there'll be lots of travel adventures too. We've been talking about 'going away for a bit' for the last few years and the time has finally come. We left home on a damp and cold Thursday and about 24 hours later, landed in a warm and sunny Australia. From the airport, we headed via bus and train to the seaside location of Rockingham. We've now been in Australia for just over 48 hours and we already seem to have packed a lot in, most of which are likely to be recurring themes of our holiday...  - We've treated ourselves to a little bit of luxury for our first weekend... No shared bathrooms at the Anchorage Guest House. In fact, I picked this room when booking four months ago because I liked the  look of the bathroom (not disappointed at all). We've...

"It's all gone quiet" said Rhubarb. "Too quiet" said Custard. Three months have gone by since my last blog post and it feels like it might be almost that long since I went for a run. I've dragged myself round cross country courses at Winsford, Stafford Common and Leek without too much enthusiasm, completed a few more parkruns, and been out with my running club much less frequently than usual. It's been a struggle - a combination of work trips, ill health and apathy have seen my trainers abandoned in the hall way and achieving my mileage target for 2014 looking less and less likely. Is this the end? Have I actually lost my running mojo? I wrote a post on the Potters Trotters blog trying to motivate myself as well as my club mates. I concluded the post by deciding I need to get back back to my running roots: I 'm not sure I've quite found the answer yet for getting my mojo back.... But I'm sure that it will come back and I'm hoping it ...

This Saturday (or parkrunday as it has become known over the last three years), I reached a significant parkrun milestone - my 100th run. I spent the week before hoping that freak storms or an unexpected roller coaster ride didn't put Hanley parkrun in jeopardy, and of course, that I remembered my barcode (thanks to Kirsten for the reminders). 100 parkruns. 500km.  For those of you who know me from Hanley parkrun, it might not seem strange or unexpected. You might think I've always been a runner. For those of you who have known me longest, the idea of me completing even one parkrun may seem ridiculous. You knew me when I wouldn't (or couldn't) even run for a bus. At my first parkrun in November 2011 , there were 39 runners and I finished in 26th place in 28:40. I managed a 9-week PB streak at Hanley from December 2011 to March 2012, improving my time to 24:53. For my 50th run, in April 2013 , I ran a very chatty 27:26 alongside Kirsten Owen and we finished in...

Previously on 24... earlier in the year, I was given the opportunity to join Team Write this Run at the London Enduro - a 12 hour team challenge on Wimbledon Common. It was a great experience, a different kind of running and lots of inspiration from my team mates. We decided that one event and 12 hours just weren't enough, so we secured ourselves a place at the 24hr Spitfire Scramble at Hornchurch Country Park  and started preparing to run again. There was one change to the team with Christina joining Lenka , Josie , Hannah and I for team Write This Run part 2. Much of the last few months has been spent preparing for this 24 hour challenge. My goal was to run at least 4 laps of the 5.8 mile course, possibly more. Training went well until the final two weeks where I barely ran a step... my hope as I travelled down to Hornchurch on Friday afternoon via taxi, train, bus and tube was that the enforced rest would help! I was the first of my team mates to arrive and found us a go...