time to reflect

great Saturday morning at parkrun Leeds . . but of all the photos I took this sums up where I am the best . .

changes afoot . .

just whilst I'm changing the title and appearance of my blog, time to add a few words

in the last 10 days or so I've been pleased to have been invited to cover the Arkendale 10k in North Yorkshire, on Sunday 28 March, and the Folkestone 10 mile on Good Friday

both as a result of emails from me which received a positive response . . they're miles apart of course . . one is a fairly new event staged by a team of personal trainers and fitness advisers who have got into organising a couple of races each year . . and the other is an event of long-standing held by a traditional running club

and I think it's great that both approaches to race organisation can flourish in our sport. I'm looking forward to them both as I'm bound to know some of the runners at each event, plus the trip to North Yorkshire will give me an opportunity to catch up with friends at Leeds parkrun . . which is always nice

also this week I passed up a great opportunity to take photos at a 10k race with 4-5,000 entrants. I was thrilled to be offered the chance, of course, and had 2 or 3 people lined up to come and help me with the photography, but the more I thought about it, I came to realise that I wouldn't be able to manage the post-event service of selecting images for display, getting them online and hopefully selling some of them. Well, I could have managed it, but it would have taken a few weeks by which time all the runners would have forgotten about that event and moved on to the next one!

it's all very well hearing that *kerching* sound between your ears but I need to cut my coat according to my cloth, so I'll stick to the kind of smaller event that I can manage on my own for now

that's all for now . . if you've been here before you'll notice I've changed the appearance of this blog, and included one of my favourite photos (taken at the Ferriby 10, by the way, in the East Riding) in the header, and from now on I'll be blogging more often and putting down my thoughts on all sorts of things that are affecting me . . my interests, my job, and my health . . maybe in that order, maybe not . . let's wait and see shall we . . but whatever, I'll try to make it not too run of the mill

goodnight!

Spring Saturday Winter Sunday

Just wanted to bang out a few words whilst working on today's photos. Funny one this morning, the Winslow 10k just along the road from Aylesbury. Had a surprise when half way there the world became a winter wonderland and suddenly I had to switch off the auto pilot and pay attention to my driving . .

Plenty of people turned up for the race despite there being a popular 6 mile off road race about 5 miles away (why? there are 51 other weekends after all!!) . . and all the officials and marshals were friendly and chatty beforehand . .

Once the race was under way I walked along the course towards the runners to find a good spot for my photos, bearing in mind that it was trying to snow and I wanted to stay dry. And Lo! There was a Bus Shelter ahead . . it was on the *wrong* side of the road, but had a good view down the hill, and as the runners passed me there would be a nice big hedge behind them . .

So much for the theory! As the first 3 runners approached someone parked opposite me. I know they're entitled too, but it was frustrating. And it was too late for me to get anywhere else. I'll have to carry bollards around with me in future!! After another 40 minutes, someone parked in front of the car opposite, thus ruining completely the view across the road. Bloomin' great tank it was too. *Sigh* . .

And so some of my photos today are just not good enough, everyone's blurry and that . . but there are a few that are worth displaying and it's those that I'm working on at the moment . .

It was lovely and sunny on Saturday though, wasn't it :-)

Above is the view down the hill from my bus shelter today, at the Winslow 10k . .

I knew it had been a while but . .

Well yes, I knew I hadn't blogged in a while but never dreamt it had been so long since I last reported in . .

But better late than never, I guess. I've spent the past few months enjoying getting out with my camera and photographing races and runners, and getting further involved with parkrun, to the extent that I'm now one of the Volunteer team at the new Milton Keynes parkrun, which started last month . .

I'm pleased to say that I'm still managing to find races that would like me to come along . . but in addition to that I'm proud to have been invited to some . . such as the Whipsnade Zoo 10k in June, an established event in June which I took part in last year . . and the brand new Shiplake Scramble, and exciting 10k multi terrain event that takes place partly along the bank of the River Thames in Oxfordshire in May . .

I keep fiddling with my website, and changed the appearance of the front page slightly last night. Except that it didn't work . . so I've fixed it this morning!

That's enough for now . . here's one of my favourite photos of recent months . . synchronised downhill running at the Box Hill Fell Race, on a dull (but snow free) Saturday in January . .