Disgraceful, I haven’t updated this blog since last September.
But now I’m back!
Two weeks ago, I had a bit of a shock when I received an email from a friend checking that I was still doing a 10k on 29th March, which I’d signed up for ages ago.
I had not done any training and in fact had only run twice this year just a couple of 5k runouts.
In a panic and before I replied to her. I charged out aiming to run 10k just to see if I still could.
Well, I could! I started off run/walking but by the time I was on the return stretch I was running all the way. I was actually quite astonished with myself that I could go out and run 6 miles without any practice. It was not my fastest time, but I could still do it without any problem. As I was running back one thought flashed into my mind. “I am a runner.”
Looking forward to seeing plustenner , abradypus, and fairweatherrunner on Saturday in Dover for the Buttons for Brathay 10k.
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I must put a lot of the credit for my running legs down to Julia Buckley and her Fat Burn Revolution. I did Julia’s 12 week course last year and her follow-up course and I’ve just been doing the 12 week course again. Never having done any sort of weight work before I was surprised to find how quickly I progressed and my legs are so much stronger now that it has helped my running immensely.
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On a completely different note, we have been having really bad problems with our hot tub for months. I’m writing about it here because I could not find any useful advice that actually worked on the internet but I have finally conquered it myself so if anyone searches for White Water Mould I hope they find this advice.
The problem we had is called……..surprise…. White Water Mould. Sounds horrible doesn’t it?
We had it for ages before we even knew what it was. It starts off looking as if someone has accidentally dropped a tissue in the water and it’s disintegrated so lots of little white bits are floating around.
If its not treated then it progresses rapidly and your spa is full of the stuff which collects round the edges in white curds, and then progresses on to…..Pink Slime!
Information for ridding your hot tub of this stuff available on the internet is generally, clean the filter, balance the water and shock it thoroughly, if that doesn’t work, run pipe cleaner through the spa, drain the tub, scrub it clean, refill , balance the water and shock it thoroughly. Well I did all of that quite a lot of times, and every single time the stuff came back.
It lives in every nook and cranny of the hot tub, including the internal pipework, and if you haven’t killed every speck of it, it just begins to multiply again as soon as the thing is refilled It’s quite resistant to chlorine and any of the usual spa cleaning products.
I know this as I have spent a great deal of money on the proprietary spa cleaning products and on masses of chlorine, and none of them have done the job.
Having left the tub alone all winter I took the lid off recently to find it thick with the mould. It looked vile. the plastic round the nozzles was discoloured and yellow, the inside of the lid had a film of Pink Slime on it and the whole thing was encrusted with the mould. Tempting!
So, I decided to throw away the rule book and clean the thing the way I’d clean anything properly. Domestos and Cillit Bang!
First I cleaned off as much of the slime and mould as I could without draining the water.
Leaving the filter in I poured in a whole bottle of Domestos and set the pumps going, making sure that all the nozzles were activated.
This produced a spectacular amount of foam, and so I don’t advise this method if you have an indoor spa. (Although possibly the addition of some anti-foam might have helped.)
After I’d let it soak in this solution for 24 hours I drained it. I washed the filters thoroughly under the hosepipe then put them to soak in filter cleaner.
I removed all the headrests and took them indoors to scrub with more bleach.
Then I hosed down the inside of the tub and each nozzle and poured neat Domestos everywhere making sure I’d scrubbed it over every nozzle, the inside of the lid and every inch of the surface, I also poured it down the filter hole.
(At this stage, I took the filters out of the cleaning solution and put them to dry thoroughly in front of a radiator.)
Next I refilled the tub, turned it back on and got the pumps going again and put the lid down so the inside got cleaned as well.
Masses more foam ensued.
24 hours later, drained again, hosed again thoroughly, wiped it all down until it was dry and every visible trace of slime or mould was gone and refilled.
Damn and blast, refilled I could still see tiny white flecks in the water. I ran the pump for a while and left it for 24 hours, and there were a lot more visible white bits.
I was v. disheartened, but not beaten…
I drained it all again, and this time, using a whole can of Cillit Bang antibacterial bathroom mousse, sprayed every nozzle with it so the foam would find its way into every crevice. I sprayed it down the filter and poured more Domestos down there and left it all for a couple of hours.
Then I refilled it, added another bottle of Domestos for good measure and ran the pumps on and off for 24 hours.
Drained, wiped down, dried everywhere, the thing was sparkling!
Refilled…………. Bang! and the mould was gone!
High-Fiving Palm Trees 
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