A positive week. My shoulder having taken a few steps back last week has been playing ball again and allowing me to do the physio once again. I still feel a long way off lifting more than 1kg but I guess rotator cuffs take a while to recover (who knew).

I got out for 3 decent runs this week culminating in a long and hilly trail on Saturday with hubby. This was great fun despite my puffing and blowing going uphill (more to do with the humidity than anything else). Having also bought myself a new running backpack I was able to go out and test this. It’s great. It doesn’t move up and down, it’s easy to sip water whilst running and I had absolutely no chafing. Oh and the bonus is thats another bucket list item ticked off 😁.

I got the Salomon backpack on recommendation after asking a number of other runners. This one is the Adv Skin 12l (12l). I didn’t get a bladder with it but tbh I’m not overly keen on them. I prefer to drink out of bottles and top up where possible. You can get one to put in though. There are plenty of pockets and I had snacks and my phone in front pockets which were easy to get out. The bottles are soft squeeze bottles and you can pull it towards your mouth and squeeze it to take a drink without craning your neck. This is a completely different experience to the one I had a few years ago for the Lakeland Ultra, where I had to practically dislocate my shoulder to reach for a drink tucked into the side of the pack 😆.

Cycling wise other than the turbo earlier in the week I only got one ride outside and that was today. A lovely 65k around Cheshire which included zooming up the Brickworks and down Blaze Hill. Strava tells me I’m trending faster which is great to know. Getting faster on the bike is a long slow process (I’m talking years) so its a real point of mental celebration for me when I see I’m getting better.

In other news I’ve listened to two more albums on the Rolling Stones top 100 albums list. Dusty Springfield ‘Dusty in Memphis’ and Johnny Cash ‘The Wall – Live at Folsom State Prison’. Both are ace and I’ve saved a number of these songs onto my Spotify now.

I’m reading a new book which I’m loving. It’s called Downhill from here and its about a guy that ran from John O Groats to Lands End. It’s very well written and very honest. He initially wanted to run the full length off road in just a month and prebooked all his accommodation on this assumption. He quickly had to rethink this and realised it would take longer so cancelled all his bookings and just made them as he went along instead. Not sure how long he took at this point as I’ve not finished yet. Worth a read though.

So last week I did my first Fitness based interview and added this to my weekly blog. I’ve now got a number of interviews lined up and have decided to do a week of these so should be releasing these daily starting Monday, so look out for those if you are interested. I’ve got people who are into running, dancing, walking, Ultras, fitness classes and everything in between.