JogBlog running blog

I used to hate alliteration before doing my OU course. But then I started to quite like it as it was used quite often and now I think it’s quite the bees’ bollocks (sorry for the mixed metaphor but I was also taught to avoid clichés like the plague).

I did do a run last week that I should have blogged but didn’t. I was going to blog about it, but got side-tracked and I haven’t even got my list of prompts/memory guides so you could at least have had a kind of join-the-dots blog instead.

Still, today I ran and now I’m blogging it.

Some time ago, I received an email about a new range of running tops. Being a blatantly brazen blagging blogger, I emailed back and said thank you for your spam email, the tops look cool. Can I have one to review on my blog please? and they say yes, of course you can. And so I was sent a lovely stripy top from Rainbow Running.

Not cheap at £35, I was also a bit perturbed to look at the label and see they’re 100% polyester. I WILL BOIL AND DIE I thought but on investigating properly the blurb I was sent like I should have done in the first place and not just been greedy and grabbing my freebie, it says they’re made with wickable Intera fabric, which rapidly transports water molecules to the surface of the fibres where they can quickly evaporate, the garments offer a cooler and more comfortable running experience.

And after trying the running top, I can say that that’s not just marketing bollocks, as it did keep me cool and dry and I didn’t get home with it sticking to me (and that’s not just because I run [or jog, as I’ve recently been told I do, as I go really slowly, bah] really slowly. Slow joggers runners sweat too, you know. And it fitted nicely and it was comfy and all that other stuff. (Yeah, ok, I’m not very good at reviews. Random stream of consciousnesses are more my thing.)

Another thing I tried out today was my new iPhone 4. I was a bit hesitant to get one as I thought it’s just a phone, isn’t it? And I don’t even use the phone. BUT I FUCKING LOVE IT. I love it. I love it. I love it. I was very scared to take it out with me as I didn’t want to put it in my back pocket with my door key but the protective covers are still on it (although they’re getting a bit manky so I think I’ll have to take them off soon – anyone recommend a case?), so I thought it’d be ok. I downloaded the Runkeeper app, although everyone says it’s shit and loaded up my phone with Audiofuel, Kate Bush and Knifeworld. Runkeeper found my location within seconds (unlike my N95 which found my location once in the two years I had it) and I wondered if it would still go when I pressed the home button and started up the music player. I didn’t really care though as I had my Garmin with me. Everything seemed to be going ok and I shoved the phone in my back pocket. Next time though, I’ll start the music off first as Runkeeper had been going for a while while I was sorting the music out and then for even longer while I put it in my pocket. What do other runners do, if you run with your phone? Can you recommend an armband that gives easy access to everything?

After all that faffing around, I start my run. I decide to go through the fields up to the road one and a half miles away and turn round and get back. BUT I’M SCUPPERED. Some flipping farmer has furrowed his field and I can’t see the path.

Bastard farmer scum. (Yeah, ok, that’s a bit harsh but I was a bit miffed.) This is what it looked like before.

See, a proper path and everything.

I can’t see where to go and it’s all muddy and lumpy and bumpy and I can’t run on it and so I walk and I’m really pissed off and I go a bit further and I can’t see where the next stile is and so when I get even more pissed off, I turn round and go back the way I came and go to the closed off road and run up there and back down again and because of all the walking I did on the PUBLIC FOOTPATH WHICH IS NO LONGER A PATH BUT JUST A LOAD OF MUD BECAUSE OF BASTARD FARMER SCUM, my miles per minute are really really slow and maybe I should be called whatever one below a jogger is (a Race for Lifer perhaps) and then I get home and look at the Runkeeper stats which, because of the time taken to run after starting it and the time taken to take it out of my pocket to stop it, is pretty much the same as my Garmin.

Stats (Runkeeper):
Distance: 3.07 miles
Time: 42:56
Pace: 13:59 m/m
Calories: 311

Garmin:
Distance: 3.05 miles
Time: 40:27
Pace: 13:16 m/m
Calories: 260

New running tops: 1
New iphones: 1
Bastard farmer scums: 1

Music:
Audiofuel
Knifeworld
Kate Bush

A few weeks (or was it months?) ago, I was invited to try out the new Adidas miCoach. But I didn’t go. And then I found out that Warriorwoman and Highway Kind went and I was gutted as it would have been great to meet Highway Kind and see Warriorwoman again and then on telly the other night I saw an advert for it and I said to Shaun, that’s that thing I was invited to and he said but it’s an app and you haven’t got an iPhone and I thought oh yeah but I think they got given a gadget or something but anyway, if the O2 man rings back after getting cut off yesterday by my crappy Samsung Tocco, maybe he’ll do me a good deal and I can get an iPhone after all and then I can get the miCoach thingybob.

I think I just made a word up. ‘Uncoordination’ has got a red squiggle under it. Oh well, I don’t care.

It’s intervals day and so I get my ipod and skip forward 98 tracks and I don’t get Courtney Love this time, which is a bit of a shame, as I like a bit of Courtney, although not the skanky, lipstick-smeared, falling-out-of-taxis, please-keep-your-clothes-on-when-you’re-on-stage-you’re-over-40-now, heroin addict bit, but the cool rock chick bit and especially the shagged-Noel-Fielding bit and I land on Audiofuel and go outside and I’ve got a stitch before I’ve even got past the gate and the warm up bit starts and I can’t keep my feet to the beat no matter how hard I try to keep in time with the 1, 2, 3, 4s and as it gets to the first interval bit, a car comes and I have to get out of the way and by the time the car’s gone, I’m halfway through the interval, well, the track is anyway, I’m still standing on the side of the road and so I carry on and I get to the top of the road as the next interval comes and there’s another car coming, so I miss part of the next interval too and I think I’m not doing very well with this today and I get to the closed off road and get to the top of the intervals pyramid and I turn round and go back the way I came and as I get to the end of the closed off road and back onto the not-closed-off road a car’s coming up the road opposite and I turn round so he can see that I’ve seen him and I wait for him to go past but he doesn’t go past and I turn round again and he’s still going really slowly and I think hurry up and go past then and he’s still driving really slowly and I turn round again and I think THAT’S THREE TIMES I’VE TURNED ROUND NOW SO YOU CAN SEE THAT I’VE SEEN YOU, YOU TWAT and he eventually goes past and I feel bad for shouting at him in my head in capitals and everything, as he was only going slowly so he didn’t run me over, which is a nice thing to do really but then I don’t feel too bad as he won’t know I was shouting at him in my head in capitals and everything and probably won’t read this either and I’m trying to keep in time with the 1, 2, 3, 4s but I have no rhythm today and I’m wondering if it’s because last night I dreamt I moved to Australia for two months and I’m feeling upside-down and then the intervals finish and the cool down finishes and I run the rest of the way home with Los Campesinos singing Romance is Boring.

Stats:
Distance: 2.31 miles
Time: 25:44
Pace: 11:09 m/m
Calories: 230
Rhythms kept: 0
Dreams of moving to Australia for two months: 1

After my three day detox, I get up and weigh myself and I’m three lbs lighter and the postman delivers three things in the post (a book , a poetry home study course [ssshh, don’t tell Shaun, but after getting a really crappy score for my poetry assignment on my OU course [which I passed with a grade 2 pass by the way, yay], I am determined to ‘get’ poetry] and my final payslip [which, seeing as it was for the grand total of £54 doesn’t exactly cover the other purchases]), I go out for a three mile run.

I’m not really sure how conducive only drinking juice for three days is to a decent run but surprisingly, over the three days, I didn’t lose any energy or get tired and I only got hungry around dinnertime, which I do anyway.

I get to the path and Black Wire comes on my ipod and it reminds me of when I was first starting out running and used to play Black Wire a lot and go over the marshes and the path is kind of like the path in the marshes as it’s off-road and only has trees and bushes on each side but it’s not the marshes and then I think about how my three mile route has a very varied terrain; it covers a pavement, a cycle path, a path down the park, then back to pavement, then down a trail, then over grass, then up a hill, then back onto the pavement, then another trail and then back out onto the street and down a hill to the house.

As I’m going down the path, I pass some garden furniture that some wanker has dumped and I wonder why they couldn’t take it to the tip, as there’s a tip in Ashford and they must have a car they can take it in, as I think I’m probably the only person in Kent who doesn’t drive and then I pass two shopping trolleys and I wonder why people come here to dump their shopping trolleys and I have just learnt that the plural of trolley is trolleys and not trollies as I first spelt it and this surprises me but anyway, I get to where the usual dumped trolley is and get onto the grass and then to the hill and as my new regime is not to stop and walk up hills, I run up the hill and then I’m in the housing development and outside one of the doors is a sign welcoming a new baby and there’s an amazon packet on the front step and I think now everyone knows the house is empty and they could get burgled and it wouldn’t be very nice if they got burgled when they’d gone to get their new baby and I wonder what the book is and if it’s worth stealing but it’s probably just a How to Feed Your Baby book or something and I’m not a thieving bastard anyway and a few doors down is a house with about ten letterboxes and I think wow, that’s a lot of flats they’ve squeezed into there and they’re probably cheap and I wonder how much they cost and if I could buy one and then I’m out of the estate and I notice they’ve dug the field up nearer towards the road and I hope they’re not going to build EVEN MORE houses as I think we have enough new houses here thank you very much and it’s not like I’m jealous or anything of their nice new houses which probably have high ceilings and stuff unlike this 300 year old one I’m currently living in with all the spindly spiders and then I’m walking and the Audiofuel girl is singing ‘You’ve Got Me Feeling’ or something and I think sorry love, I’m not really feeling it at the moment and I carry on walking and I think I’ll run until I get to the gate and then I think I did that last time and if I keep on doing that, I’ll get into the habit of walking each time I get to a gate and so I keep on going and then at the next gate I walk and then I say to myself that I’ll run until I get to the road, then I’ll allow myself to walk, at least until the downhill bit and I walk until I get to the postbox and then it’s downhill and I run down the hill and when I get to the bottom there’s builders with paint and stuff in the shop that’s been closed for years and years and years and maybe someone’s bought it at last and it’ll be an open shop that sells wine and cat food and stuff and therefore yay.

Stats:
Distance: 3.00 miles
Time: 36:38
Pace: 12:12
Calories: 292
Three day detoxes: 1
Books in the post: 1
Poetry courses in the post: 1
Payslips totalling the cost of the above two things: 0
Hills run up: 1
New baby signs: 1
Amazon parcels: 1
Shops that might be opening: 1
Music:
Audiofuel
Black Wire
Los Campesinos
Hole

Ok, so it’s not a very big challenge but I’m doing a three day detox which involves drinking lots of fresh juice and smoothies and you can read about it on my Planet Veggie blog. I’m also weaning myself off Facebook and Twitter and not looking at them for three days. So far, so good.

I’m not sure how well detoxing and interval training goes together but today is Tuesday and therefore interval day.

As much as I love Audiofuel, I only want to listen to it when I’m running, either outside or on the treadmill, but not when I’m doing other stuff in the gym or on the train but it’s also too much faff to keep changing the tracks on my ipod, so I keep all the Audiofuel tracks on there and autofill around them and the pyramid training tracks are at numbers 98-100 on my ipod and so I have to click and count to 98 to get to the first interval track and I get to 98 and listen to see if it’s Audiofuel, but no, it’s Courtney Love screaming something and I click once more and hurrah, I’ve found the right place. I listen to the introduction as I put on my Garmin which has been lying in the driveway getting a signal and I miss the beginning of the warm up as I’m getting out of the gate but soon I’m running slowly down the road waiting for the intervals to start.

Today I’ve decided to run slowly in the recovery bits and not walk like I did last time but I’m full of pineapple, blackberry and blueberry smoothie and I’m not sure if I’m going to manage it.

I manage to run all the way up the first side of the pyramid, although the top interval was more of a shuffle than a sprint and I do a bit of walking in the recovery bits on the way down. I do run all through the cool down though except for the bit when a car came round a bend and I had to get out of its way.

Stats:
Distance: 1.91 miles
Time: 20:22
Pace: 10:41 m/m
Calories: 196
3 day detoxes: 1
Facebooks: 0
Twitters: 0

I’ve drawn myself up yet another half-marathon schedule, seeing as the Folkestone half I’m supposed to be doing is in eight weeks’ time and if I increase my long run one mile per week for the next eight weeks, I should be ok, barring any injuries. I think the furthest I’ve run since moving to Kent over a year ago is 6 miles so it’s not really looking very likely but hey ho.

My new schedule is very simple, it goes like this:

Monday: Gym/XT
Tuesday: Intervals
Wednesday: Gym/XT
Thursday: Short-ish run starting at 3 miles for the first week, increasing to 5, then dropping back to 3
Friday: Drink wine Rest
Saturday: Long run, starting at 5 miles for the first week and increasing to 11
Sunday: Gym/XT

Hmm, just realised I have no weight sessions in there. I’ll do them on the cross-training days.

My new schedule may have to be altered depending on if I get a new job and if I do, what days I’ll be working.

Anyway, as today is Tuesday, that meant intervals, so I took Audiofuel’s Pyramid Max 180 interval training session out with me and this time, instead of going slowly during the recovery bits and going a bit less slowly during the fast bits, I walked during the recovery bits and went faster during the fast bits as I thought having a greater difference between the fast and slow bits would be better than having just a marginal difference between the fast and slow bits. If that makes any sense, perhaps someone could tell me if that’s right or not?

I took a new route today and ran up the road, nearly into a car coming round a bend, and got to the top of the pyramid, turned round and went back the way I’d came.

And even though I did walking bits, you can tell I went faster in the fast bits, as my average pace overall is still faster than I’ve been doing recently.

Stats:
Distance: 2 miles
Time: 21:29
Pace: 10:45 m/m
Calories: 205
New training schedules: 1
Weight sessions on training schedules: 0
Walking bits: Lots
Cars nearly run into: 1

After Adam from Fitness Footwear offered a pair of Vibram Five Fingers as a Juneathon prize, I emailed him and said I can’t win them, I’m organising Juneathon, can I have some anyway and he kindly said yes, as long as I write a long review about them.

Well, I don’t know about long, as I haven’t tried them out properly as, after hearing things such as you have to take it slowly in them and build up the mileage and walk in them first for a few weeks before running in them and stuff, I haven’t done any proper research to find out just how I’m supposed to build up and so, after leaving them sitting in the box for a few weeks, I took them out to wear in the house for an evening.

I read somewhere that the best way to try and get them on your feet is to place your toes into the little toe compartments and then slide your heel in. It took me three goes to do this, as my little toe is so little, it didn’t want to go in.

Apparently, you’re supposed to choose a size or two smaller than your usual size but when I was sent a size smaller, they were uncomfortably tight and my big toes wouldn’t straighten in them. This could be because I have abnormally long toes though, as I was told by a man tripping on acid in a park in Brixton at a festival many years ago that I was ‘really long. Everyone else here is normal but you’ve got really long arms and legs.’ Strange man.

Eventually, all toes are safely cocooned in their little canvas casings and if you want to further adjust them, there’s an elastic cord at the heel you can tighten.

As they’re made of a rubber sole with a canvas upper, they’re quite comfy and flexible, although not as flexible as I thought they might be, but that could come with time, I suppose, as I’m sure I’ve seen a photo of someone wearing them with curled toes.

I don’t usually wear shoes around the house as I prefer a barefoot feeling to be caused by actually having bare feet, although I did start wearing slippers last year after moving from my toasty house in London to the arctic climes of Ashford.

I settle down on the sofa with a glass of wine and put my feet up in front of the TV. It’s probably not their main use and I haven’t seen it as a marketing feature, but the rubber soles did stop my feet from slipping off the chrome coffee table.

They were quite comfy, but half way through Eastenders, I take them off and spend the evening properly barefooted.

I’m not sure what this latest craze for barefoot running is all about. I blame it on ‘Born to Run ’ by  Christoper McDougall that everyone seems to be either reading or has read recently (including myself). Have Asics, Brooks, New Balance, etc. been wasting their time with their hi-tech shoes with promises of better performance and fewer injuries, when all we need to do really is spend approximately £100 on something that will scare small children?

Next time, I’ll take them for a test lap around the garden.

I enter the plush surroundings of Nuffield Fitness and Wellbeing Centre in Paddington and go up to the receptionist. ‘Er, hello. I’m here for, um, it’s an Asics thing I think, I’m not sure…’ and I’m not sure what I’m doing here. I was invited to come along and get some advice from Sarah Connors, a physio, and Nicki Waterman, a celebrity trainer, who are also both members of the Asics Pro Team. I’ve been invited down as ‘the media’ and I feel like a fraud.

Luckily, after sort of explaining what I’m sort of here for, the nice lady on reception doesn’t tell me to get out but takes me over to a seating area where a fit-looking woman with a dark brown bob wearing Asics kit is sitting down. She stands up and says ‘Hello, I’m Sarah’ and shakes my hand. I tell her my name and she says ‘Are you the press?’

I say ‘Er, I’ve got a blog.’ I feel like a fake again. I hope other ‘media’ come along, so the responsibility of coverage for whatever it is I’m supposed to be covering doesn’t fall solely to me.

Sarah looks up at a sound similar to someone pulling a wheeled-suitcase down the spiral staircase. She calls out ‘Do you need a hand, Nicki?’ Nicki appears from round the corner. She’s tiny, pretty, blonde and very tanned. But she’s not pulling a wheeled-suitcase behind her – she’s on crutches. She’d fallen down a manhole whilst out running back in January. Sarah also has an injury caused by ski-ing. Who says exercise is good for you?

The PR people (Gill and Rae) turn up carrying carrier bags full of Asics goodies. I’m handed a bag and pull out an Asics top and three-quarter-length tights. Nice. I’m then handed a pair of Asics Gel 1150. Nicer. I go to the changing rooms to get changed and when I get back, I’m introduced to two proper writers – Laura from a new fitness magazine and Jo from Healthy Magazine.

We go into the gym and while Laura goes for her interval session with Nicki, Jo and I are given a talk by Sarah.

Unfortunately, listening isn’t my strong point and I don’t really take in what she says, but it was something along the lines of injuries being caused by fatigue and how you start to slouch when you get tired which is bad for the hips (I could be talking complete rubbish here) and her advice for new runners is to get the right shoes, and to vary the terrain and mileage (also good advice for not-so-new runners).

After the talk, Sarah shows us some stretching exercises for strength and says if we’re only going to do one stretching exercise, this is the one to do.

Next, we swap over and Jo and I get onto a treadmill each and Nicki asks us how far we run and how often. She starts us off on the treadmill and says we both run really flat and we should be running heel to toe. I try this and immediately stop sounding like an elephant on a tin roof.

Nicki says we’re going to be raising the incline to 8 and will be asking how far on a scale of 1-10 of exertion we feel.

We raise the incline every 30 seconds or so to 8 and then back down again. My exertion level reached at least 9.

Next, Nicki says we’re going to be going faster and to push ourselves. Not being a fan of pushing myself, I’m not looking forward to this and as she whacks it up to 12kph she says I’m finding it easy. I tell her I’m not. She says I am as I’m still talking and so I decide not to talk to her again.

I’m knackered and slow it down to a walk. ‘DON’T WALK’ Nicki shouts at me. Wow, she’s scary for someone so small and I speed it back up but then I feel a bit faint and tell her this. She asks me if I had breakfast and I say no. Nicki says I must have breakfast – it’s like a car with no fuel.

I jog slowly for a bit and feel better and want to go faster again but Nicki says not if I feel faint and looks at me with a worried look on her face. I really don’t want to give up and tell her I feel fine, honest. I speed up the treadmill and we do another incline for a minute, then drop back to zero. Nicki tells me to ramp it up to 12kph but I decide to rebel and only put it up to 11.5kph but after 30 seconds, she looks at the screen and presses the button until it’s on 13kph and I try to keep up with it without dying for the last 30 seconds. I do it without dying, then it’s over and I walk for a bit.

Nicki says I don’t push myself. Hmm, tell me something I don’t know. She asks me if I usually do 5ks and 10ks and I say yes. She asks if I can ride a bike and I say yes. She asks if I can swim and I say I haven’t since I was a kid. She says I should do tris as ‘when you get older…’ but I don’t hear the last bit as I’ve got ‘when you get older…’ running round my head. Too old to run? Try telling that to Death Valley Jack.

I get off the treadmill and Nicki shows us some stretches. She tells us to keep our back foot straight which Jo and I have both not done, as Nicki gets hold of our feet and turns them straight which makes them feel twisted. So, if you need your back foot straight, turn it ‘til it feels twisted.

After the stretching, it’s all finished and I give my thanks to Sarah, Nicki and the PR team for a brilliant day with some great advice (even if I don’t remember all of it – sorry Sarah) and I’ll definitely be incorporating intervals into my training.

At the post-Juneathon Party in the Park, Sean from Audiofuel handed out CDs of their latest interval training tracks and after last week’s interval session with celebrity trainer Nicki Waterman (blog to come later), I promised myself that I would incorporate intervals into my ‘training’. So, when I got up this morning and spotted the CD sitting on my desk, I said to myself, ok then, intervals it is.

Unfortunately, updating tunes on my ipod these days - since Windows 7 doesn’t work with the old Shuffles - is a complete flipping faff and involves me putting tracks onto my main PC (which has  Windows 7), then onto a memory stick, then loading them onto my netbook (which has XP) into iTunes, then plugging my ipod into my netbook and updating from there.

I was a bit hesitant to do intervals this morning from a coaching session, as the only one I’ve done before is the Kara Goucher Endurance Boost , which involves running fast for four minutes a few times with three minutes recovery in between. Or something like that. And I can’t even run slowly, let alone quickly, for four minutes without wanting to return to my more natural environment in front of my pc where I don’t have to do anything more energetic than use my index finger to gently press the left mouse button to switch between Outlook, Facebook and Twitter.

Still, I eventually do the necessary to get the tracks from CD to ipod and get outside and press play. There’s a 48 second introduction where Sean (who has a very nice voice and does the voiceover for the Audiofuel pyramid coaching sessions) tells us this session will keep our heart fit and improve our aerobic fitness and will also burn fat and make us look good, which I like the sound of and could probably do with, especially after yesterday’s dinner which comprised of potatoes being cooked in double cream and cheese.

To start us off slowly, there’s a warm up of five minutes at 155bpm and then we’re counting down from 5 to the first sprint at 172bpm. Yes, Sean says ‘sprint’ and I’m scared. I don’t think I’ve sprinted since school and I’m in complete agreement with Miranda who says ‘As an adult you should only run if you’re near a train station and look at your watch first’. Quite.

But, wait! Sean says we’ve only got to sprint for 30 seconds! Woo hoo! I can run for a few seconds, can’t I? Of course I can. Even if it’s only as punishment for using an exclamation mark at the end of three consecutive sentences.

I sprint for 30 seconds and don’t die. Result. Then there’s a recovery of 60 seconds and Sean says to ease off and run at your own pace or walk if I want to. WALK IF I WANT TO? I love Sean. He says I can walk. Yay for Sean. But I am hardcore and don’t walk. I do my recovery ‘run’ of 60 seconds and Sean says to take lots of breath and get ready for the next sprint. ‘Breath’? Just the one? What does that mean? I can’t hold my breath for the rest of the session, I WILL DIE!

The next sprint comes up and this time I’m doing 45 seconds at 175bpm and then once again there’s a recovery of 60 seconds and then it’s a 60 second sprint at 178bpm and I get told I’m nearly at the top of the pyramid and I think oh no, I won’t be able to sprint the last bit as I’m at the bit of the route where I have to tread on fallen down fences and climb over discarded shopping trolleys and then I’ll be on the grassy bit which is hard to run over as it’s all lumpy and bumpy and so when I get told to brace myself for the top which will be 75 seconds at 180bpm I run as fast as I can over the grassy bit which isn’t really very fast at all, more of a tiptoe over the bumpy bits really, and then I get to the slopey bit that leads up to the housing estate which I usually walk up due to it being a bit slopey but because I’m on an interval session and supposed to be pushing myself, I run up the slopey bit and then I’m told ‘that’s the top of the pyramid sorted – just down the other side now’ and then Sean says ‘take lots of breath – more than you think you need’ and I still think I need more than one breath, unless it’s my dying one and then I’ll probably only need one but I’m not dying and after the 60 second recovery Sean says I’m doing 1 minute at 178bpm and I think HANG ON A MINUTE, I ONLY HAD TO RUN SECONDS BEFORE, NOT MINUTES, THAT’S NOT FAIR and then I realise that one minute is 60 seconds. Duh.

And then there’s two intervals to go; the penultimate one being 45 seconds at 175bpm and I’m told to take shorter strides if I need to and I think if I shuffled with strides any shorter, I’d trip myself up and then I’m on the final 60 second recovery and told that the final 30 seconds will be a sprint at a cruisey 172bpm. Cruisey? What kind of word is that? That’s almost as bad as ‘take lots of breath’, and I would offer my services up as the voiceover and therefore use proper words and maybe even squeeze an ‘innit’ in it but no one would buy anything with my less-than-dulcet Essex/East London tones and then I’m told to steel myself to go in 20 seconds and then I’m running the final interval and then there’s a five minute cool down and Sean says I can walk it if I want to and so I take him up on his kind offer and then he says ‘if you got through this interval session sprinting the whole way, you’ve had a great workout. If you haven’t, you’ve got something to aim for next time’.

Um, I didn’t do any walking, so that means I ran it, doesn’t it?

I get home and feel great and upload my stats and SportTracks says I did my first mile in 8.59 and I think WOO HOO, WAY TO GO ME as I usually do 11 minute miles and so of course, being the modest unattention-seeking person I am immediately tell everyone on Facebook and Twitter about my 8.59 minute mile, being careful to omit the fact that the second and third miles weren’t maybe quite as quick (the third mile not actually being part of the interval session – the session lasts for 22 minutes [which is probably how long it’s taken you to read up to here, sorry] – and so being mostly walking back to the house).

Running fast for seconds at a time. What a brilliant idea. Everyone can run for a few seconds, can’t they?

Audiofuel’s Pyramid 180 Max Interval Training is released today, costs just five of your English pounds and you can buy it from the Audiofuel shop.

Yesterday someone spammed my blog by leaving a comment about a new service for runners and cyclists with a link to a website and so I deleted it for being spam and emailed the person who posted it and said thank you for commenting on my blog but it’s spam and I’ve deleted it for being spam and she emailed me back but I was too much of a coward to open it in case she told me to fuck off or something but this morning I got up early and was feeling invincible after my raspberry and banana soya milk smoothie and so I opened the email and she hadn’t told me to fuck off but apologised for the ‘inconvenience’ (although I hadn’t actually felt inconvenienced, just mildly annoyed that my blog had been spammed) but that it wasn’t spam and I so emailed her back explaining exactly how it was spam and that anyway, her website wasn’t even live yet and only said ‘coming soon’ and containing a link to download a pdf information sheet and maybe she should wait until she’s got a live website before she starts spamming people and then after I’d finished telling off the spammer I got changed and went out for a run in the rain and I didn’t want to start off my usual way as I get fed up and tired after .75 of a mile when I go that way so I decide to cut that bit out and go down the path through the houses and through the path that goes behind the houses and then down the path through the fields and then down the hill back home and so that’s what I did.

Stats:
Distance: 3.02 miles
Time: 33:08
Pace: 10:59 m/m
Calories: 310
Spammers: 1
Raspberry and banana soya milk smoothies: 1
Paths through houses: 1
Paths behind houses: 1
Paths through fields: 1
Downhills: 1

p.s. Don’t forget it’s the Post-Juneathon Party in the Park on Saturday (see previous blog post). All the cool people will be there. I’ll be there too.