Bluebells 2026

This morning I walked between The Ford and Eckington once again in my pursuit of traversing all of the local Rights of Way (RoW). I've visited the Eckington Park area several times now as there is a dense network of paths across a relatively small area. 

Today I ascended through Ladybank Wood and was impressed by the bluebells which were in full flower. The colours were far richer than those I saw in the nearby woods a few days ago. 

The woodland carpeted with bluebells

The area seems to be popular with dog walkers although the dogs I met were all well-behaved. There are many paths around field edges and through the woodlands in addition to the RoW so I had to keep my eye on my map to ensure I wasn't tempted to follow the plentiful desire paths.

Plantar fasciitis

For the last five or so weeks I've noticed pain in my left sole. The physio confirmed my suspicion that it's likely to be plantar fasciitis. Unfortunately this has an uncertain origin and more uncertain timecourse of healing! I'm aware of perpetually tight calf and hamstring muscles on that side, which may well be a predisposing factor.

Walking doesn't seem to irritate my foot so I've been off on walks of various lengths to keep my legs moving. It's well recognised that connective tissues heal best with a non-damaging degree of load and hopefully the walks, with occasional slow jogs will provide a suitable load.

I've not been on any new rights of way as I'm conserving fuel (whilst Israel and America bomb Iran) and aren't keen enough to catch the bus out of town.

Sunrise over the trig point at Oxstones

Today I had the opportunity to be at Oxstones for Easter Sunday sunrise. I'm sure I was the only person on that part of the fell and was lucky enough to spot a few Easter bunnies.

Endless pool #3

This morning felt to be a step forwards once I'd settled in after the usual frantic 'warm-up. The focus was on increasing my forearm catch, largely through control of my elbow. After some practice I was aware of increased pressure on my palm. With a paddle, it seemed to be pressed into my hand and not needing stabilisation with my thumb. Without paddles I tried to reproduce that feeling of power on the water, sometimes I could see a 'power stroke' that accelerated me towards the mirror briefly.

Trying to press through my hand

It helped to visualise leading with my hand with my elbows up, rather than the reaching over a beach ball. However, the video shows that I'm still leading with my elbow, although my forearm is in an improved position which will at least be generating more power.

I also needed to be reminded to keep my head steady in the centre, rotating my body around it on the reach. It's helpful to look yourself in the eyes in the mirror! A good reach felt more powerful and seems to encourage a longer stroke before recovery. Reaching forwards with a steady head may be helpful in avoiding crossover too.

My left arm drifts across my midline

In this photograph, crossover is obvious, the video shows that initial entry is inline with my shoulder but then my arm slips. Here there isn't much body rotation, when I was able to do a more forward reach with rotation the crossover was often avoided.

 

Freestyle skill

I've now been able to review the video of my second endless pool session. In 'catch-up' I'm managing to reach further and keep my head more stable, although I still find the snorkel oppressive. There's clearly more power to my stroke even with a habit of dropping my elbow. Observation and video are so important as I really thought that I achieved high elbow catch consistently. In a way it's a positive sign to see that I don't, as this gives me a skill to develop which once (if I can) mastered will surely result in a more efficient stroke.

Dropped elbow evident during catch-up drill

Looking back at video of swims stretching back nearly 10 years I'm saddened to see only slight improvement in technique. I appreciate that my mobility is less than optimum but I also believe, unfortunately, that I haven't always been given effective advice.

Evening swim coaching

At last I've been able to sign-up for a 10 week freestyle coaching block at the local pool. This will hopefully complement my sessions in the endless pool, some supported practice with fewer opportunities to reinforce poor technique.

I was a little nervous beforehand, fearing it would be too intense or that I'd be unable to cope with the drills. We were split into two groups, the known fast and powerful squad and 'the rest'. The latter had a  range of ability from a new freestyle swimmer through a range, perhaps with me being towards the more experienced. We did some classic drills, but not too much, and some observed swims, with individual feedback, all done in a supportive way.

This is quite a budget option, at around 2x a basic pool entry fee, and with a fairly small group size, excellent value for money. This is a far better option than the block I completed recently as we all received technique tips, which in my case, I know to be areas that I need to continue to work on.

I told you I was ill

Fortunately I wasn't as ill as Spike Milligan but I was very much out of action for exercise for almost a week. After last week's recorder lesson (maybe there should be a whole blog on that?) I faded and spent much of the weekend and beginning of this week under a blanket. I postponed Monday's circuit class until yesterday.

Swimming was also out of the question until Wednesday and I took it easy then. The common cold is a trivial illness but feels far worse than it deserves to. I'm still not 100% well but have managed some activity without falling back into bed. I've noticed that my resting heart rate (RHR) mapped my underlying lethargy remarkably well.

RHR from my Garmin's optical wrist sensor 

It's 'well known' that RHR increases by up to 10bpm in mild infections although serious evidence to support this isn't easily found. I spotted that my RHR dipped below its average on recovery and I suspect that this might be due to reduced physiological stress in the absence of medium length runs, aka sitting around at home!

I'm not going to make this into a larger analysis, but if you are thinking of doing that, this report is a great example of the "quantified self" movement (which may well be beyond its apogee).

Incidentally, I submitted heart rate data to my GP this week and the RHR of 40bpm caused some concern as it's a threshold of severe bradycardia. I'm booked in for an ECG next week, no significant NHS waiting list there! Personally I don't believe I've a sinus problem or heart block as my heart rate adapts rapidly and predictably to exertion and rest just as it should do. 

Coal Aston paths

Today has had lovely spring weather, a far cry from the months of rain that characterised the start of 2026. I took the opportunity to complete another small section of my rights of way project, focussing on some paths to the northeast of Coal Aston that I'd missed in previous visits.

A region around Birlehay is now completed

It's a mixed area, mostly arable farm land but interleaved with small woodlands, villages and paddocks. The fields around here accumulate water in wet weather and don't seem to drain at all well, so paths are often wet and muddy. Paths across fields south of Povey Farm seem to be in the process of being lost. There were historical arguments that walkers should walk around crops but nowadays the law is quite clear that cross-field paths should be cleared. In some places even the stiles are lost or the hedgerow unbroken. A wet-weather task might be write to the local highways authority.

Trees in a hedge between two recently-sown arable fields

The terrain could be described as 'rolling countryside', so there aren't any significant hills but even on today's fairly short run there was nearly 500m of ascent. Much of that was slippery mud, so not an easy circuit.

I'm currently troubled by plantar fasciitis in my left foot and the physio has speculated that it may be aggravated running in mud, where forces can be higher and unpredictable than on a well-made path. My habitually tight calf muscles probably don't help either. Some online advice promotes stretching and roller/ball exercises and like many runners I'm aware these can benefit mobility but tend to neglect them.