Week 26 - An International Space Station and a Harvest Moon

Sunday 1 October 2017. The start of my 26th week of "The Long Run Back to Fitness". I did hope to go for a walk early today, but the weather wasn't great and I have done a lot over the last two weeks, so I decided to just go for a run later.

One of my cousins from England arrived mid-afternoon with her two children and her young grandson. He was amazed I was getting an apple ready as a treat for the horse.

I had showered and stretched and set off at 4.30 pm. The horse was on top of the old railway embankment as I walked passed and he watched me all the way. I didn't call him as I didn't want him to get hurt running down the embankment. I left the apple close to the gate and walked on.

I jogged down into The Glen and completed six laps on the upper paths. On the fifth lap I done an extra lap of the old reservoir and on the sixth done ten extra laps of the reservoir. I finished the interval at the waterfall, but as a young girl in a Parker Jacket, was sitting happily and peacefully on the bench, I walked a few yards away before stretching. I felt tired and had a break for well over a minute.

The long flat path past the entrance footbridge and towards the waterfall.

I started jogging again, climbing up out of The Glen and along the pavement until almost the old railway bridge. I walked on and, as I passed the gate of the field, I picked up the two halves of the apple. The horse was at the other side of the field and was soon by the fence, waiting for me. As usual he enjoyed his apple. I walked home, changed and walked to the local shop and back, then put out roast chicken, veg, Yorkshire Pudding and gravy for my parents. Soon afterwards one of my younger brothers and his two young girls arrived.

Today I ran 7.5 km then 0.7 km, a total of 8.2 km (or 5.1 miles) and also walked a mile. It was a good start to a new week.

When I was out running today the sky was mostly covered in clouds, but dry and the sun broke through a few times. During the first four laps it was still and humid, but on the fifth lap a cool breeze started to blow and it was more pleasant for running. The couple with the three dogs were playing with them in the car park. A granny and her four young daughters were playing in the undergrowth - they were very young and all shouting "granny" at her. A young couple were walking hand in hand and a middle age woman was power-walking as I passed he just before the old reservoir.

Monday 2 October 2017. I've had an email from NASA saying the International Space Station is coming over tonight at 8.36 pm and will be visible for four minutes. If the sky's clear, I'll try later, for my third time, to get a video of it. However, as I found out before, it's not easy.

I went for a walk at 4.15 pm. It was a lovely, sunny afternoon when I set off, but that wouldn't last for very long. As usual, the horse had his apple and it was just as I called him that a few rain drops started to fall. This wouldn't be his only apple of the day.

Horse has his apple.

As I walked on towards The Glen the rain was starting to get more consistent. I was glad to get in under the trees as inside The Glen the shelter you unless the rain is persistent. As I crossed over the entrance footbridge a tall slim woman came jogging past me. I have never seen her here before.

I walked to the waterfall and by the time I got there the rain was heavier. I wasn't wearing a coat as I thought I wouldn't need one. You can see my complaint in the video below.

Raining by the waterfall in The Glen, and I'm complaining.

I walked swiftly around the different paths as I wanted to see how tired I was after my workouts from the last few days. All the time I was in The Glen it rained, but the tree coverage nullifies it. As you can see, I took a few videos, and I did collect the odd piece of litter which was obvious and east to get to. Overall, everything looked really clean. One video was of the largest fungi I have seen to date. It was in the bed of the old relief channel, just next to the old reservoir. Near the end of the video you can hear me say hello to two identical dressed women, in track suits, out on a fast walk.

Large fungus in relief channel in The Glen.

As I started to climb out of The Glen the rain stopped and the sun started to break through. It was a pleasant walk home and not the soaking I was expecting.

I felt really good on my walk and as soon as I got home, I had a short rest, then changed and stretched to go for a run. When I set out again, at 5.45 pm, the sun was out and the sky was blue. I only intended to do about three miles this evening as I was still worried about all the miles in my legs over the last few weeks.

I walked most of the way, then jogged down into The Glen. I felt good as I climbed to the upper path on my first lap. I was surprised at how good I felt and how much I was enjoying myself as the laps passed. I kept passing a tall, slim, blond, young woman running in the opposite direction to me. Again, I've never seen her here before, but it's always so lovely to see others trying to get fitter.

On finishing my fifth lap I decided to continue and do another few. Eight laps would take me up to just over five miles. After climbing up the steep hill, towards the old reservoir, I decided to do a few laps of the reservoir - each one is just over 120 m. I done seven laps of the reservoir and felt like I could keep going and going. On my earlier walk I took a video of walking down the steep hill from the reservoir.

 Walking down the steep hill from the old reservoir. I usually run up this.

As I approached the end of the lap, I decided to do a ninth lap. I still felt good all the way around and the extra 100 m to the waterfall. Considering I was only intending to do three miles today, I was so pleased as this took me up to just over 10 km for my first interval.

It was still beautiful weather, the moon was in the sky and it was beginning to get dark. I stretched and enjoyed the peacefulness of the place for about two minutes. I then started jogging again, back to the exit footbridge and up out of The Glen, continued up to the road junction and along the pavement to the old railway bridge. I doubled back on myself and back again to make this up to 1 km.

Overall, today I walked 3 miles and ran / jogged 11.1 km (or 6.9 miles) - what a result?

After, rubbing myself down, I walked to and back from the local shop, poured myself a glass of Guinness and served my mother her dinner. By now it was 8 pm and only 36 minutes until the International Space Station was about to appear in the sky. It was partly cloudy and not looking good for a sighting, never mind a video.

At 8.30 pm I set out with my camcorder, my tripod and my phone as my clock. I walked to a short distance to an elevated area and set up my camcorder on one of my cousins' cars - she'd already gave me permission. Come 8.36 pm, when the International Space Station (ISS) was about to appear, it wasn't looking great. A thin cloud cover was starting to stream across the moon and I could not see the small bright dot, I was looking for, moving across the sky. This is the third time I have tried and I was prepared for failure again. The ISS is 220 miles up, it moves at almost 20,000 miles an hour and to capture it, my camcorder needs to be on full zoom (50x optical - see tomorrow's write up). Tonight, it was supposed to be visible for four minutes. At 8.38 pm it suddenly appeared, high in the night sky and moving swiftly across it. You can tell the ISS from an aeroplane as it makes no noise, does not have flashing lights and moves much quicker. In my panic, I took three short videos. On the first I couldn't find it on my camcorder screen, on the second I believed I had found it, and on the third I just couldn't.

I went straight home and checked, on my laptop, what I had recorded. I was so pleased with the second short video. Please don't get excited as it's only short and won't win an Oscar. It's just a tiny light moving fast across the night sky. You may need to visit YouTube and put to full-screen on your computer, laptop or PC to see it.

  International Space Station moves across night sky, from Co. Armagh, Ireland on 2 October 2017

To watch this for real is such a hair-tingling experience. To think you are watching the most scientific and most expensive thing ever made by man pass over your head, in space and with astronauts on-board is something special. If you want to see it for yourself, all you have to do is sign up with NASA at Spot the Station and they will send you an email about 12 hours before it is visible from where you live. The link is below, just copy and paste.

https://spotthestation.nasa.gov/

Before I finish tonight, another awful shooting happened today in Los Vegas in the USA. Latest reports claim at least 59 people are dead and another 527 are injured. My condolences go out to the families of all those killed and I really hope all the injured make a full recovery. You can only feel for all the people and families involved. So many innocent people die every day as no fault of their own. It happens all around the world, yet governments continue to allow arms to be sold to individuals and countries who sponsor terrorism. They continue to be selfish and give support to the wrong people and corporations as money is king. With Trump, Brexit, North Korea, the rise of the Nazi Right, the selfishness of some super-rich, and the biased reporting in many press outlets, I really don't know what this world has become. It's obviously not a world for the ordinary people anymore and it's not a world of building bridges, equality and fairness. Anyway, that's enough of my rant on that.

Tuesday 3 October 2017. A three-quarter moon was lighting up the whole village in the early hours, so I decided to go out and take a video. I also realised that I had pushed the zoom button, on the camcorder, the wrong way when I was videoing the ISS - I'm a fool. But at least I got something - I'll try to do better soon. Here's the moon at 1.20 am this morning. I love taking videos of the moon and I had an opportunity to take one of the ISS pass straight across it a few weeks ago, but I messed up.

Moon over County Armagh, Ireland at 1.20 am on Tuesday 3 October 2017.

I decided today would be a step down, no separate walk and just a shorter run. I showered stretched and was off at 5.35 pm. I walked towards The Glen. On the way the horse was hiding in his little hut so I left the apple at the gate for the way back.

I jogged down into The Glen, completed five laps on the upper paths and finished at the waterfall. This was all I intended to do. It was cloudy, cool and dry. Perfect conditions for running. However, my legs were feeling weary. It looks at though the step up in miles, over the last two weeks, has eventually caught up with me. The shorter run today will hopefully be beneficial.

There were three cars in the car park today, but I didn't see all the inhabitants. I saw two men walking dogs and on my second lap a tall, slim, young dark-haired woman appeared from the road next to the old reservoir. She seemed to be running faster than me, but stayed behind me, for a few yards, before I told her to go ahead. In the next 350 yards she pulled over 100 yards away from me. She seemed to be doing a loop that took in all three paths. We passed each other quite a few times.

I stretched, for a minute, by the waterfall and then started jogging again. As I was approaching the exit bridge, the girl came running over the river and stopped in front of me. She was checking her watch, by the exit bridge, and I had to run around her to cross over the bridge.

The exit / entrance footbridge.

I jogged up out of The Glen and back along the pavement to the gate of the horse's field. I picked up the apple and the horse was by the small wall when I reached it.

As I stretched, on arriving home, another jogger passed me. He was a bit more of my pace than the quicker young woman in The Glen. I quickly changed and walked to and back from the local shop.

Although it was my shortest workout in a while, it also felt like my toughest in that time. But it was another few miles in the bank. I ran 5.3 km and 0.7 km today. A total of 6 km (or 3.7 miles) and I walked a mile.

Wednesday 4 October 2017. I decided to have a break from running today and was just going to have a walk. I cooked a chicken curry for tonight's meal and got an apple ready for the horse. However, it was bucketing down outside and didn't give up before it was almost time to take my mother to bingo. I wasn't too displeased in having to have a whole break, as I have done a lot recently.

At the bingo, my sister won £30, I won £30, but my mother didn't win anything. The big looser tonight was the poor horse, as he missed out on his apple.

Thursday 5 October 2017. I went for a lunchtime walk today. The horse had his "larger apple" on my way back. It was a beautiful sunny day. I was out just after 2 pm. The Glen was basking in sunshine today. I was out for around 90 minutes and managed to fill three carrier bags and emptied them all in the litter bin.

The sun was lovely on the waterfall and the river above it. I also took a few videos on my way and went to places in the "jungle" I have never visited before.

 River, waterfall and fields at the end of an Irish Glen.

I emptied my first full carrier bag into the litter bin by the car park, then I filled another by walking around the car park. I went into the old reservoir to pick up a bottle and I came close to filling another. However, I climbed down from the long straight path to the river bank, just before I reached the exit bridge, and I completely filled the carrier bag. I found it really hard to climb back up to the path. I continued over the river and along the top path. The mushrooms (or fungi) were getting more frequent and some were getting really large.

I dumped the over-filled carrier bag in the litter bin and headed home along the river path. Here's a video I took on the river beach, just 70 yards into The Glen. It shows the river and the footbridge from the car park into the western part of The Glen.

River and footbridge from car park in Irish Glen in sunlight

It was so quiet in The Glen today. I could not hear ravens arguing today, but I heard a few small birds singing. I saw no one until I was walking along the river path, in the direction of home. I was taking the video below of a quiet glen, when I heard people walking on the path above me. They probably didn't know I was there and I didn't really care.

In the middle of an Irish Glen.

When I got home I cooked Bolognaise and prepared to go for a run. However, I got a call from one of my cousins asking if I could install MS Office on her young daughter's laptop. I expected to do it in minutes, but the download link and laptop gave me problems and by the time I had finished, it was too late to go for a run. But, what the hell, it could be a plus.

My mother's sister and friend were soon due so I walked to the local shop to get some wine. I was already stocked up on cheese, biscuits and crisps.

Tonight, was also a full harvest moon. I love space - it's really big, and I love taking videos of the moon. I took this one at 48 minutes after midnight.

Harvest moon over Ireland 12.48 am 6 October 2017.

I know it's tomorrow already, but tomorrow is always another day. I did manage to walk 3 miles today, so it wasn't a wasted day, and a young girl's laptop working for her is more important to me than going for a run.

Friday 6 October 2017. Ireland beat Moldova 2 - 0 in Dublin and Ulster beat Connacht 16 - 8 in Belfast. I watched both at the same time - the football on my TV and the rugby on my laptop. My mother's sister came around later and I was doing butler again. I didn't go for a run or a walk today.

Saturday 7 October 2017. I set off for a run at 5.30 pm. It was good to get my legs working again. I couldn't see the horse anywhere, so I left the apple by the gate, then walked on towards The Glen. I jogged down into The Glen and set off on my laps, It was cloudy, but it was dry.

I ran five laps and finished by the waterfall. Surprising, The Glen was almost empty today, just one man and his dog. As I entered The Glen I passed a man followed by his son pulling a cart up the hill and by the entrance footbridge four youngsters were walking into the woods. I haven't seen the cattle in almost a week.

After a short stretch I jogged back to the exit footbridge, up out of The Glen and along the road to the gate to the horse's field. I picked up the apple and walked on, but there was still no sign of the horse. I stopped by the small wall and shouted "horse". A head appeared from his stable and he was soon on the way towards me. Apple eaten and I headed home. I changed quickly and made my nightly visit to the local shop.

I ran 5.3 km and 0.7 km (total of 6 km or 3.7 miles). I also walked a mile. It brings my total for the week to 19.4 miles running and 6 miles walking.