Running Again (Again)

Bloody hamstrings.  I was up to running 5km at least three times a week by this time 2013, and 3km on the other days (but weekends off – I’m not a masochist!).  Since then I’ve had to stop running altogether for weeks at a time , sometimes months, because my hamstrings were killing me and I could hardly walk sometimes.

I’m back running again:  I ran twice in the week and felt a slight pulling in the hamstrings, but nothing too drastic. And I felt a lot better for it.  I’m hoping to run 2 to 3 km every weekday next week. I would have started maybe a week or two earlier, but my usual jogging route was under a metre of water, the river Severn had burst its banks.

I really miss not running, plus I was turning into a human-sized lump of lard, which is not a good thing.

Running Shoes

(You might have noticed that this blog post does not mention cameras at all. This does happen fairly frequently, but I’m going through a film phase right now, hence lots of camera-related postings.)

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Pinhole Photography (early attempts)

One of my more recent camera purchases has a neat feature: you can take the lens off and use it as a pinhole camera. Photos taken like this have a dreamy look to them, or sometimes surreal.  These are my first shots to be developed (apart from 2 on a previous roll that didn’t come out that well).

Flooded Park #1

These were taken in the Quarry Park in Shrewsbury, where the river Severn has burst its banks.

Flooded Park #2

I get confused sometimes which shots were pinhole and which were normal, as I can change from shot to shot with this camera. Generally the focus on shots taken with the lens look sharper, but I can’t always tell…

(not) Running

The Quarry Park in Shrewsbury

I have been trying to get back into running this year, after buggering up my hamstrings. Days like this don’t help: I usually run 3 to 5km along the river, and two lines of trees here next to the flooding River Severn are where my usual running route is.  It’ll be days before this goes down enough to run.

It floods a little most years, not usually this much. I’ll just sit here and get fat, then.

My first film is back from Boots

St. Chad’s

I have my 2nd roll of film back, and this time it’s not blank.

The shots are just of things around the town, nothing special. The shots I lost on the blank roll would have been more interesting, I think, lots of flood water (which has now receded).  This is the first camera I have owned with controls for aperture, shutter speed and focus.  It also has a ‘bulb’ mode, where the shutter stays open for as long as the keep the release pressed down, ideal for night shots.

The shot above of St. Chad’s (a round church in the middle of Shrewsbury) was taken at 8PM, with a shutter time of about 3 seconds. Unfortunately, I hadn’t wound the film on enough, so I had a massive over-exposed strip on the left. I’ll learn.

A sculpture in the town centre

The camera I’m using is older than me, a Voigtlander Vitoret D.

Rising Damp, part 2

Some water, yesterday

This is going to get worse before it gets better, and it can get a lot worse than this.  Not so easy to go running through this, or even take a shortcut to Asda.

Cleared out the setting on my old N73, and using that as my camera now. So I am carrying around 3 mobile phones now.

Slightly Wet Out

 Yes, it’s getting slightly damp on my jogging route again. Notice how the railings have almost disappeared underwater at the far end. It is expected to get worse this weekend. Luckily, most of this town is built on a hill, and that is never going to flood.