I finally finished Portal: Revolution on the Steam Deck (with a couple of hints, and after reverting to an earlier save in the final level to give myself a bit more time to get to the last button before the death timer ran out). It’s extremely impressive for a free fan mod. I suppose I have to find something new to play now, although I might also sort out getting some old games on there under an emulator.
This Tuesday was what has become the annual summer club get-together at Paul’s field instead of the usual club session. Basically 40 minutes running round a fairly hilly circuit on grass, followed by some food, beer and chat.
No rest on Wednesday, with a track session in the evening. I’d intended to take it relatively easy, with a race coming up on Friday, but as usual ended up pushing a bit too hard and wearing myself out!
Friday was outrageously warm, and I ended up driving out to Thetford Forest on my own for the Wibbly Wobbly Log Jog after the people I’d been planning to car share with decided they couldn’t face it. Apart from being a bit of a trek to get to, it’s a good event that I haven’t done since 2019 – around five miles on tracks and windy paths through the forest, with the odd bomb hole thrown in. The temperature was still in the high 20s when we started, and I set off at an optimistic pace, given my tired legs. I felt like my speed was slowly reducing to a crawl as the miles passed, but not many people seemed to be passing me, so I think the heat was getting to us all. I ended up finishing 24th out of 300-odd runners, which was a pleasant surprise.
On Saturday I was absolutely convinced I was going to be early for parkrun, right up to the point when I looked at my watch as I cycled across the park and saw that it was 8.57. Then because of the warm weather more people had cycled, so I had to lock my bike a bit further away than usual, and as I got there I heard the dreaded “Are the timekeepers ready?”. I would have made it to the start line (barely) in time, but they accidentally started two minutes early!
My plan had been to run round gently with Holly as usual, but starting from behind the tail runner I picked the pace up a bit, aiming to catch her up. By the time I finished I’d made up 179 places, and also established that she wasn’t actually there.
I decided to give the long run a miss on Sunday, and did a very small amount of house and garden work, including trimming the face of the rather poorly-looking hedge along the driveway. I was going to do at least some of the top too, but my trimmer started misbehaving. I’d been thinking about getting some rechargeable garden tools to replace my increasingly temperamental (and noisy) petrol ones, but last time I started researching online I got sidetracked and accidentally bought a cheap scythe on eBay. I haven’t had much luck trying to use it so far – mainly because it’s not great quality and was extremely blunt. I spent a while trying to sharpen it today (and cut my finger, which I suppose is a mark of some kind of success), but it’s not quite there yet. If nothing else I suppose I can combine it with a black cloak for a somewhat hazardous hallowe’en costume.