Back to reality

It’s always nasty getting back to work after a holiday. Particularly so this time around as I had a 5:30 am start my first day back and a presentation to deliver to fifty people. England is cold and wet and particularly dark at that time of the morning, nasty!

Tonight was Wing Chun night and I really did need to train. I felt tired and jet lagged most of the day but after an hour and a half of fitness, pad drills and a bit of Chi Sao I feel a million times better. I found out today that I can now apply to start training for my brown sash grading which is quality news and will be a good focus for next year. It was cool a couple of weeks ago that I got to take my first Wing Chun class, it was a real experience and maybe something to consider for the future. It’s amazing how much you have to examine your own Kung Fu when trying to teach others.

I need to get back out on the road now for a run, I didn’t manage much on holiday only about 15 miles over the two weeks but it’s time to start building up some long slow distance towards the end of the year and get some quality speed and hill sessions built in to the program. I am lucky enough next year to be joining the Project Jericho team for the 24 hour Adidas Thunder Run so lots of goals to aim for next year.

I bought myself a little present while on holiday; I replaced my trusty old Garmin Forerunner 201 with a nice new 405 so I am looking forward to taking it for a test run tomorrow night!

Virginia Trails

I don’t have a lot of time for long blog posts on holiday but very briefly my early morning trail run in Prince William Forest Park on Tuesday morning was lovely. The drive down was amazing about 10 miles on winding forest roads lined each side with dense forest and truly stunning autumn colours. 

The park itself is an unspoilt protected area with over 30 miles of accessible trails and you could run all day without seeing another person although I only had an hour.

I set off down a trail and spent probably the first five minutes going downhill, which I knew would make for fun on the way back. If I had more time I would have tried to find a circular route as I hate retracing my steps.

A couple of other Virginia running pics below.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Too tired to sleep

I am so very tired and I should be sleeping. After an eight hour flight that left London Heathrow after six pm on which I slept for about 20 minutes, I can’t sleep on planes, we arrived at Dulles around 20:30 local (my 1.30 am) and had the pleasure of waiting over an hour to clear passport control.

It is ridiculous that there are 50 desks for customs officers and only 5 are manned and most of them are dealing with US citizens only. Then to add insult to injury when you get to the front of the queue the guy just gets up and walks off… ‘I’m closed’.

With two kids (and all my wife’s clothes) we don’t exactly travel light. Four large suitcases plus pushchair, car seat and hand luggage were piled up on the trolley as we approached the customs area. I was pretty disappointed when the CBP officer stopped us and sent us to ‘Desk B’. The sign above the desk refers to ‘inadmissibility’ and ‘impounding of goods and persons’ and once the officer took our passports and told us to take a seat you start thinking this could be a long night. It was now approaching my 3am and tiredness was setting in and tempers were fraying. To be fair to the CBP guys they were pretty cool and didn’t keep us waiting too long. It turns out that the ESTA authorisation for my eldest daughter had been expired early because we had to renew her passport this year and that set alarm bells ringing in their system. I mean come on she’s a 5-year-old travelling with her parents. It all got sorted with a good old-fashioned green visa waiver form and we were finally on our way.

Cut a long story short we finally got to bed at about 1 am (my 6) and I was awake again by 06:30, wide awake. It happens every time. I feel tired but there is no chance of any more sleep this morning.

I’m getting restless and I need to go for a run, looking forward to getting a few US miles under my belt. We are staying with in-laws (outlaws) for a couple of days in Manassas, Va so we have the luxury of people to look after the kids, which means the Mrs and I get to run together which does not happen often. I think I might try to take a visit to Prince William Forest Park early on Monday morning and get a trail run in, I hear it’s nice.

This holiday will also be a good opportunity to catch up and spend a bit of time each day practising my Wing Chun forms, maybe I’ll post a bit more about that later.