Day 15 – non-running but high impact exercise day
So I gave myself a day off running. Not a day off, just off running. And there were three reasons for this:
1. Yesterday’s mmmph was a sign that I’m getting bored. Boredom has killed the runner in me many a time and I don’t want to get so sick of running that I get to the end of January and then don’t run again until September
2. I had a packed day planned for today and the only run I could have fitted in would have been a rubbishy rushed and pointless one
3. Tomorrow I am taking a nice long ralk (run/walk) with a friend, weather permitting, so my legs were about due a rest day.
Sort of a rest day, anyway. Instead of running OH and I tackled the thing at the top of the blog post. It was once an elder tree, then the stump of an elder tree on our allotment. We cut it down in June and have been lighting fires over it from November to kill it off properly. Now it was time to make it part of the grand design!
The grand design is circular, mainly because said elder is just one of five trees that we’ve had to remove from the allotment, and that means that planting in rows is impossible: just about every inch of soil has at least one tree root in it, and some areas will be unplantable for years, until we’ve managed to dig out the huge roots that spider across the ground. Planting in the areas that can be used is going to be a little haphazard, but now this elder is an ex-tree, I’m going to use it space between the roots to plant strawberries and herbs in this round planter thingy.
The circles can’t be concentric because of the roots, so they will have this eccentric pattern that’s hopefully making the best use of the available soil but also interesting to look at. The execution of this particular project required five barrowloads of topsoil, two of manure and a bag of sand, plus a lot of heavy digging. In between bouts of digging and barrowing we moved one old incinerator, some sheet metal and a rotten old carpet up to the skips in the centre of the site, and then went for a little walk with an allotment neighbour to see a plot that he’s working on. We spent two hours on site, with one break for tea, so I’d say 100 minutes of intense load-bearing, cardiovascular exercise. Sorry, dear stat checker, not sure how to bullet point that!
1 Comment
Helen W
15th January 2011Wow I’m impressed! definitely beats my doing-it-cos-i-had-to measly effort out of the (non-concentric) ring!