Filed under: walking | Tags: Brasher, Feet First, Freesole, glue, hiking boots, Lancashire Sports Repairs, leather, sole, walking
At around 10.30pm last night, I wrote this note to Brasher, outlining a problem with my hiking boots:
I wonder if you can help? I have a fantastic pair of Brasher leather hiking boots – at least ten years old. They fit perfectly, and have done many miles of happy hiking.
I’ve looked after them with regular cleaning and waxing – with Nikwax type products. But leather is just beginning to crack and the sole is starting to come away from the base of one of the boots. Whilst I accept I will need to replace them in the next few months – hopefully with another pair of Brashers – I am planning a five-day trek in the High Atlas mountains within the next few weeks and don’t want to have to break in new boots before then.
What do you suggest in terms of repairing at least the sole to see me through the trip? Can a high street shoe repairer simply re-glue them, or should I consult some sort of specialist?
At 8.57 this morning, I received the following response:
Thank you for your recent e-mail.
You can purchase Freesole glue which is a high viscosity urethane repair system. Freesole cures to a flexible rubber product providing superior adhesion, wear resistance, flexibility and water resistance. Freesole is the ideal repair adhesive for footwear and soles on shoes, hiking boots and walking footwear.
Or alternatively my advise would be to contact our brasher repair/resole specialists. They will advise you of costs involved in repairing your footwear.
Feet First Lancashire Sports Repairs
Unit 4 & 5 19 Athletic Street
Foundry Street Industrial Estate Burnley
Whittington Moor Lancashire
Chesterfield BB10 4LP
Tel: 01246 260795 Tel: 01282 439109
Email:info@resoles.co.uk Email: info@lsr.gb.com
Website: www.feetfirst.co.uk Website: www.lsr.gb.comI do hope the above is of assistance to you.
Enjoy your trek.
Regards
Carol
How good is that?
We all have a tendency to rant about crap online experiences, so it’s nice to see some good old fashioned customer service delivered at speed. Well done Brasher.
Filed under: British Military Fitness | Tags: British Military Fitness, Mansion House, prospect park, Reading
For those who missed the announcement on Wednesday or newbies who are interested in signing up to British Military Fitness, there will be a new class starting next week on Tuesday, 1 September at 7pm. We don’t bite – not even the instructors – so why not come along for your free trial session?
Classes now take place in Prospect Park, every Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday evening at 7pm and on Saturday morning at 9am. We meet in the car park, and are easily identifiable by our blue, red and green bibs and instructors wearing camouflage trousers.
We’ve also instigated a monthly social at the pub, which takes place on the final Wednesday of every month (after the fitness assessment) at The Mansion House pub inside the park.
Check out all of my posts about BMF classes by clicking here.
Filed under: food, walking | Tags: Beacon Cottage campsite, Cardiff, Millennium Stadium, Perranporth, Porthtowan, Portreath, South West Coast Path, St Agnes, U2, walking
My parents have taken on an almighty challenge since my Dad retired, and that’s to walk the complete South West Coast Path from Minehead in Devon to Poole Harbour in Dorset – 630 miles of coastal paths in total. They’re doing it in chunks of about eight to ten days, twice a year.
I’ve only seen tiny bits of the Path when I’ve been in Devon and Cornwall so, in preparation for our “proper” holiday trekking around Morocco’s High Atlas mountains later this year, Phil and I decided to spend a few days down in Pastyland. We stayed at a lovely campsite near St Agnes – the Beacon Cottage Farm campsite, complete with chickens. I was probably more excited about the mother hen and her four chicks being let out of their coop each morning than the children on the site.
Chickens at Beacon Cottage campsite
We managed two reasonable walks – one from Perranporth to St Agnes; the other from St Agnes to Portreath and back to Porthtowan (where we got on the bus back to St Agnes). On the third day, the weather was a bit gruesome, so we pottered around the galleries in St Ives (nice) and the Tate (complete crap – don’t bother), and did just a short stroll for an hour or two towards Zennor. It actually took 45 minutes to escape St Ives without a map, so that really was only a cursory attempt to walk off the lunchtime Cornish pasty.
Chapel Porth beach overlooked by Wheal Coates
Anyway, big round of applause to Noddy and Big Ears (my Mum and Dad), as the walking is quite strenuous in places – particularly up and down the steep steps between Porthtowan and Portreath! Still, it has the effect of making you feel like you deserve the Cornish pasties (the best ones we had were from the little bakery in St Agnes), ice cream, wild blackberries snatched from bushes along the way, sausages from the local butcher BBQ’d next to the tent, wine, port and a really quite lovely meal at The Railway Inn one night…
During the course of our stay, I pondered why everyone tells you to steer clear of Cornwall in August. The trip down mid-week was fine, the Coast Path was deserted in places and the campsite showers were always hot.
Then we tried to leave.
Oh. My. God. Evidently, everyone in Cornwall was trying to do the same thing, and the A3o was jammed. So was the M5. And the M4, as we turned left towards the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff for the U2 gig on Saturday night.
It took seven and a half flipping hours to get from St Agnes to Cardiff.
Then we couldn’t get out of Cardiff. Two and a half hours it took to get moving on the M4. By that time, my eyes had stopped working and I couldn’t focus on the road. Into Cardiff Services we went, so I could have a snooze. Forty minutes later, and I’d recharged my batteries sufficiently to get back home.
All credit to Phil for staying awake for the whole twelve and a half hour journey, using his Blackberry to establish a fairly creative route into Cardiff via Newport docks (without which we would have surely missed our date with Bono and co.) and never losing his rag – not even when I hit the steering wheel in sheer frustration and nearly cried with tiredness.
U2 were good though.
Filed under: running gear
I was told off by a number of my fellow BMF-ers last night over our monthly pint of shandy for not blogging much lately. In my defence, I was away for a few days last week, and prior to that hadn’t been doing very much what with the back/bottom/hip niggle. Thanks to my dedication to my stretching regime the osteopath, that seems to be on the mend – and I’ve done a couple of runs.
The first was two Saturdays ago when – after an afternoon of drinking and an evening of Singstar at a friend’s approximately five miles away – I decided it wasn’t wise to drive home. So we left the car there, got a cab home at the extortionate cost of £15, and ran over to get the car the following morning. It wasn’t the most pleasant of runs – along fairly busy roads, some of which did not have pavements. It was also a bit on the warm side. We got there, and my friend’s two-year-old stared at me for a moment and said quite matter-of-factly: “Oh, you’re all sweaty.” Thanks for that Ellie. Phil actually looked considerably more damp, but no similar judgement was made.
Monday was my first day off work and I decided to head out for a river run – down to Dinton Pastures, round the top lake and back for the normal 5-mile(ish) route. I completed this in 47:53, which I think might be a PB. This may have been because I barely saw a soul while I was out, and was consequently a bit scared. But it’s probably because it’s a route I normally do with Phil – not on my own. One thing I’ve realised lately is that we actually run faster when we run apart, perhaps because we both use music when on our tods.
Which reminds me of another thing I need to do, and that’s sort out my offer from the lovely man at AudioFuel to download some running-specific tracks according to your desired beats per minute. My lack of time, not his inclination to help, has held things up so far…
Filed under: British Military Fitness, running gear | Tags: British Military Fitness, kitlist, winter, Big Ears
This may be an odd subject for a blog during August, but bear with me. I was thinking back to the cold, dark nights of midwinter for three reasons during a British Military Fitness class this evening. Firstly, I was talking to a fellow BMF-er who’s been coming for a few months, who was asking what the class is like in the winter; secondly, I was talking to someone else who was attending their second session after coming along for the first time on Monday, so I was thinking back to My First Time; and thirdly, Hayley the instructor said we’d done “really well tonight, considering the weather isn’t great”.
Sorry? It was still 21ºC when I got in the car afterwards. And I was wearing a vest. That was soaked with sweat. Granted, there were a few mossies doing that erratic flying thing they do when they sniff sweat and blood, but it was still infinitely more pleasurable than BMF on a dark December night. So, for those who have yet to experience this delightful scenario, I’m publishing my winter kitlist.
British Military Fitness in winter – what to bring with you:
- A sense of humour. Seriously. You need a good one in order to do press-ups when it’s snowing and leopard-crawl in torrential rain.
- Grippy shoes. I fell over several times during my first few classes on slippy wet grass, but I’m confident my Inov8 shoes will see me through the winter months.
- Black socks – if, like me, you’re rather fussy about whites being white. Mine are USA Pro ones.
- Running tights – a must if you want to avoid the ankle-flapping caused by jogging bottoms becoming soaking wet.
- A close-fitting and (listen up ladies) longer-length top – ideally one that’s fleecy on the inside. You really want a warm layer, with no draughts around the midriff area. Mine’s a Craft one.
- Lightweight jacket – to keep out the wind. An old running one is ideal. Don’t be tempted to invest in anything too pretty or expensive.
- Gloves – to protect your hands and retain some circulation in your fingers. It’s surprising how painful it is doing press-ups on frozen ground.
- Hat – to keep your extremities warm. Particularly if your Dad is nicknamed Big Ears and you didn’ take after your Mum.
- A seat cover for the car, to stop it from getting covered in mud when you clamber back into it after the class. About a tenner from Halfords – for something along the lines of this.
Brrr – makes me shiver just thinking about it. Having written this, I’m going to appreciate every single summer class a whole lot more.
Filed under: running | Tags: ice bath, osteopath, running stretches, static stretching
Ice baths - not pleasant (source: www.smh.com.au)
During my follow-up appointment with the osteopath on Monday, we started talking about the merits of stretching before running. The perceived wisdom seems to be that it could be damaging, or at the very least has no beneficial effect, to do static stretches – though Simon says this is mostly based on one small study carried out in Australia.
His advice – and he acknowledges most people don’t have time to do this – is to warm up the body’s core temperature with a warm bath. Dress, and start walking, progress gradually to a slow run, stop and stretch out all the major muscle groups – then start running proper. Hmmm, I’d have to get up about 4.30am to fit that all in before work.
More important, Simon says, is the cool-down process and he was trying to convince me of the benefits of a post-run ice bath after thorough stretching. He’s cycled 120 miles in eight hours from Normandy down to Le Mans one day last week, and took an ice bath afterwards in a local spring whose water temperature was around 4°C. He reckoned he sprang out of bed the next day withouth a single twinge.
I’m not sure I can think of anything worse. I hate being cold – particularly after running when I cool down quite rapidly anyway. However, I may do as he suggests, and try turning down the shower temperature from hot-tepid-cool and running that down my legs next time. Brrr.
Anyway – good news is, after a good massage on Monday, back/bum/hip feeling really good. Need to keep up the stretching and do more core stability work – but I’m definitely on the mend.
Filed under: British Military Fitness, running, spinning | Tags: British Military Fitness, GRIM Challenge, hampstead heath, running, spinning, Hellrunner
I’ve managed to restore some semblance of normality to my exercise regime again, after a couple of weeks of doing not a lot. I’ve been much better at doing the exercises the osteopath gave me – primarily aimed at stretching out the hip flexors and glutes – over the past week, so hopefully won’t get told off when I go back this evening.
As per my promise to the world last Tuesday evening, I did go to British Military Fitness the following day. I grabbed a blue bib when I got there, joining a slightly slower group than usual, so I didn’t overdo it. Lovely new chap called Tom took the class – he introduced us to some new forms of torture games, including one where we had to get into two teams and take turns to leopard-crawl underneath the rest of our team who were lined up in the plank position. My bum kept getting in the way – though I’m hoping that was more to do with me not doing the leopard-crawling quite right, rather than purely having a humungous arse.
Back/bottom/hip actually felt ok during and after the class, certainly no worse, so I also went spinning on Friday – fairly uneventful class, which I won’t bother elaborating on.
On Saturday, decided to run with Phil around the regular 4.5-mile circuit encompassing part of Hampstead Heath. Neither of us have done a lot of running lately, so were expecting to feel crap, but we felt surprisingly good. So on Sunday, we did the circuit again – but backwards, (as in we ran the route the other way around, rather than physically running backwards). It’s quite weird how you see things that you don’t normally see when you view them from a different perspective.
Encouraged by such progress, we’ve signed up for Hellrunner South on 15 November and GRIM Challenge on 6 December along with my much-faster-even-though-he’s-only-just-taken-up-running brother. We have been warned about the Hellrunner “Bog of Doom”, but I’m more concerned by the lack of accuracy in the phrase “10-12 miles of challenging off-road running”. It is 10 or 12 miles then? That’s a fairly significant difference on a road in good conditions, let alone when you’re carrying half your bodyweight in mud along for the ride.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: back pain, British Military Fitness, osteopath
Seems like a good idea to me (www.plainlazy.com)
Despite spending half the weekend hoofing furniture from Leicester, via Reading, to London, my back’s feeling a lot better. I haven’t been terribly good at doing the exercises the osteopath gave me – partly because I didn’t remember the details and was waiting for them to arrive through the post, and partly because I just didn’t quite get around to it. I should really have attempted a short run too, but didn’t get around to that either. OK, so I was a bit lazy. But why can’t weekends be longer?
So, after several (excellent) meals out over the past few days, and no exercise at all for a week, I’m feeling fat. I’m going to publicly say now that I’m going to go to British Military Fitness tomorrow – even if I tread a bit more carefully than usual with the blues. There, I shall embarrass myself if I don’t go now.
