JogBlog running blog

I'm giving up on the park. There were kids playing football in there which I didn't mind in the slightest but there was a man running on the path which bugged me and not only was he running on the path but running the opposite direction from me which meant that we passed each other head on and after the third time I couldn't take it any more so went onto the street. If I can't stand people running near me, how the f**k am I supposed to cope next Thursday with about 2,000 other people running near me? Heh heh. Na, it'll be fun.

I don't know if it's the warmer (well, not warm today but I did manage to get sunburnt on Sunday when I was doing the garden) weather and the lighter evenings but there definitely seems to be more people out running lately. Saw another female runner tonight which was spooky as I'd just been thinking before I came out that I very rarely see other females out running. She had freshly applied make up on which is very strange unless she's one of these annoyingly perfect women who always look fresh, unlike me. I take my make up off before going running, otherwise I'd come back looking like a panda.

And speaking (well, briefly mentioned, anyway) of gardens, here's mine after stage 1. Let's hope I get as far as stage 2 unlike last year when I cleared half of it and then did no more.

There's a patio under there somewhere, I just know there is. I will find it.

Anyway, not too feeble an effort tonight, considering as when I couldn't face passing the other runner any more I thought I'd go up the road and back and then go home but continued instead, so yay, go me!

Stats:
Miles: 2.44 miles
Time: 25:45
Average pace: 10:32 minute/mile
Average speed: 5.7mph Max speed: 7.4mph
Calories burnt: 227
Music: Shuffle (Soft Cell, Ash, Dandy Warhols, Zwan, The Futureheads, Baby Teeth)
Other runners in the park putting me off: 1
Women running in full, freshly applied make up: 1

Oh man, why do I hate other people being in the park so much? I can only run when there's no other people in my line of vision, I like switching off and just listening to my music. There were two other people running on the path, completely put me off. Although I did overtake one of them, not sure how I managed that, I was only going my usual snail's pace. I'll have to go at 4 in the morning, might get the place to myself then. And why are people up at 8:30 on a Sunday morning anyway? Shouldn't they be at home either sleeping or hungover? Or both? And why do people go to the park just to sit on a bench? Don't they have gardens? It's not exactly a nice park. Odd.

Oh well, didn't go very far today (well, you can't go very far round the park anyway. And yes I know I said only a couple of days ago "who would want to just do laps of the park" which makes me a complete hypocrite as that's all I've done for the last couple of days) but I'm going to do the garden in a bit which looks like this

at the mo so that should be quite a bit of exercise for the day! (There's not even a lawn under there, just a patio and borders. Sooooooooooo many weeds, ugh.)

Ugh, and a magpie landed right in front of me. Whoever made up that superstition needs shooting. That's the only thing I'm superstitious about (well that and putting on the right shoe (or Converse in my case, I hate shoes) first and not wearing socks inside out). I hate magpies. And members of the general public.

Stats:
Miles: 1.34 miles
Time: 13:46
Average pace: 10:17 minute/mile
Average speed: 5.8mph
Max speed: 8.7mph
Calories burnt: 108
Music: Primal Scream
Other runners in the park putting me off: 2
Women in velour tracksuits giving me dirty looks: 1
Magpies: 1

Eek, have I gone mad? Due to lack of alcohol and an early night last night, meant I was up at 6:15 this morning and at 7:30 decided to go for a run. Had decided just to do a quick mile as I don't usually run two days in a row due to fear of overdoing it and getting injured but thought a quick mile wouldn't hurt but it turned into 4 and a half laps of the park.

Was a surprisingly easy 2 miles too and didn't once feel like stopping, although I'm not usually a morning runner. Still not going to start running before work though as I'd have to wash my hair afterwards and I can't be bothered to do that in the morning. Am feeling guilty now as I'm going to the hairdressers later and they're going to have to wash the greasy mop on top of my head, oops!

I had the park to myself until the last lap when two dog walkers turned up. Spoilt it for me as I was in a little world of my own with my music blaring into my ears and could have kept on going but when I saw them it brought me back down to earth so decided to make it my last lap.

Oh and by the way, I've decided today is "leave a comment day". Some of you do (you know who you are) and I'm grateful for that but to you people who land on here and maybe read a bit, go on, don't be shy, say something! You don't even have to register. Then again, even my friends don't leave a comment. They don't even read my blog. They say "how's the training going?" so I say "if you read my blog you would know" then they say "can I have the link again?" Sigh. At least I get to talk about them without them knowing I suppose. Heh heh.

Stats:
Miles: 2.10 miles
Time: 20:23
Average pace: 9:43 minute/mile
Average speed: 6.2mph
Max speed: 8.1mph
Calories burnt: 187
Music: Primal Scream
Dog walkers ruining my anti-social behaviour wanting the park to myself: 2

Hmm, got home raring to go and really looking forward to a run, especially as the sun had finally came out (not much point in it coming out at 6 o'clock in the evening but ho hum) but ended up walking quite a bit. At least I don't want to kill anybody anymore. I don't care if Bernard says I sound like Denise (and if he keeps comparing me to Denise I'm going to have to punch him), people on the tube and trains REALLY bug me. Why can't they just be quiet. I want to listen to my iPod not their inane conversations. Oh well, three days off work, yippee!

Think I'll leave my camera at home next time I go out running and do more running and less stopping and taking pictures but it would appear that the council read my blog as they have trimmed back the path. Look

it's not so scary anymore, hurrah!  Here's what it looked like last week

Took a scenic route tonight so I can show everyone that I really live in the countryside and not in the fag end of East London. Look, we have canals and everything.

At least, I think it's a canal. I don't think it's the river. God, I sound dumb. Never mind. Let's continue on this scenic route.
Yee ha! Gee gees! (That's horses to the more grown up of you out there.)

Aah.
Here's some greenery.

It's green and grassy, that's because it's green grass and stuff.
Here's some more green stuff.

I actually hate the countryside. What's all this no pavements and have to walk in the road nonsense? Madness.
Aah, more gee gees.

Um, some more horses. (Going to revert back to my real age now.)

All this talk about a drought, we have loads of water here. Look, here's some more watery stuff.

Well then, that's my scenic route, isn't it pretty?

Just two weeks til my mini-marathon (heh heh) and it's not looking very likely that I'm going to complete it without stopping. Oh well. Kate's finally made a decision about whether to do it or not and her decision is not. She's going to come and support me and Gary though which means she's going to see us in the pub afterwards. At least we now have an official bag looker afterer.

It's Friday which means it's beer o'clock although it's water o'clock for me tonight as I'm going to have a sober Friday and a hangover free Saturday which I haven't had for a few weeks and anyway I have to make up for the bottle of wine and half tub of Ben & Jerry's I had last night.

Here are my not very impressive

Stats:
Miles: 2.91 miles
Time: 35:12
Average pace: 12:05 minute/mile
Average speed: 5.0mph
Max speed: 7.2mph
Calories burnt: 281
Music: Hard-Fi, Black Wire
Horses and stuff: see pics above.

Had to force myself out the door today as a) I couldn't be bothered; b) am fed up of the route I've been taking; and c) think that if I keep going down the scary desolate path then one day my luck's going to run out and I'm going to get mugged or something.

So I decided to do one lap of the park, go up the road and back, then another lap of the park. Got to the park (ok, it's a nanosecond away) and saw it was empty and thought "yay, got the park to myself" then saw someone running in it and thought "bugger, someone's in my park, git" so thought he'd probably be gone by the time I got up the road and back as no one's going to want to just do laps of the smallest park in the world, but when I got back (ok, I hadn't exactly gone very far) he was still there so I did do a lap of the park just as it started to absolutely pour down, it was bloody freezing too!

Still, I did venture out although my motivation was at minus six kijillion. No pics today though as thought I couldn't be that feeble that I can't even do a mile without stopping, not that there was anything to take pics of anyway.

Oh, and look what I heard about on the radio today. A new gadget, I think they made it especially for me!

Stats:
Miles: 1.04 miles
Time: 9:56
Average pace: 9:32 minute/mile
Average speed: 6.3mph
Max speed: 7.0mph
Calories burnt: 78
Music: Black Wire
Other people running in my park when I want the place to myself: 1

Will try again with the pics. Not using the Wordpress insert image thing but directly linking to them on my server. Don’t think Wordpress likes pics bigger than thumbnails or I could be doing it wrong I suppose.

Here’s the park.

I wish the park was bigger as then I could run round that instead of the streets or the marshes but it only takes 4 minutes to run round it and I think I’d get v. bored v. quickly if I just ran round it 10 times.

I think the council

should do a bit of gardening. This path needs cutting back a bit.

I came across this billboard
which reminded me that Big Brother was starting that night (pics were taken on Thursday and it’s Sunday now). BB is great this year, I’m already hooked! Want to slap that Nikki though.

Any Polish (I think) speakers out there?

I don’t suppose it says anything interesting though. Although it might say “do not take a picture of this sign”. Maybe.

Aaw,

a little kitty
I don’t think

there’s much danger of me being arrested for speeding!

Well, there’s my mega interesting pics from Thursday. Perhaps next week I’ll find something better to take pics of. People are quite interesting but I’d be in danger of getting a kicking if I start taking pics of random nutters. Shame.

Took my new toy out for a run today and here's the first pic I took.

This is the smallest park in the world

It's also the most pixellated park in the world and I haven't got time to be mucking around with it so it's going to have to stay pixellated for the time being until I either a) work out myself how to upload it properly; or b) ask someone else how to do it.

Will leave the pics alone for now then but just so you know what you're missing out on (ooh it's like Bullseye - me and Jim Bowen, separated at birth!) I've got a pic of a path, a Polish(?) sign, a cat, a Big Brother sign (starts at 9 tonight, hence the "haven't got time to be mucking around with it" thing - hurrah!) and a sign of a speed limit.

It was nice stopping now and again and taking pics and not feeling guilty or like a complete wimp for stopping. Didn't seem to lose much time either so must have been going faster on the running bits. I don't seem to be coming home as sunburnt looking either so maybe that means I'm getting fitter? I might say to Gary (and Kate if she ever makes up her mind if she's running it or not) that he/they can run the Crisis Square Mile run at their speed without me so I can stop and take pics along the way, especially as we'll be going past lots of London landmarks and I don't actually have any pics of London landmarks although I am a Londoner (apart from the Essex, American and Irish bit. Oh and the Dutch bit).

Oh and I think I saw the Scottish Bob who was rumoured to be dead but then unrumoured to be dead. Perhaps starting at the beginning would be helpful? I saw Scottish Bob in the pub a few weeks ago who said that he'd been out with the other Scottish Bob recently. I said I didn't know who the other Scottish Bob was but Scottish Bob said I did and it was the small Scottish Bob. Bumped into Little Steve on Saturday who said that small Scottish Bob was dead. I said that big Scottish Bob had been out with him recently and he wasn't dead but that I still didn't know who he was unless there were three Scottish Bobs. But tonight I went past a bloke from Leytonstone who I think now I remember as being small Scottish Bob. And he wasn't dead. But if you live in Leytonstone you do run the risk of dying young. And of having a very unoriginal nickname.

Ah well, have to wash my hair and get my dinner before settling down for the next 13 weeks to watch Big Brother.

Stats:
Miles: 3.47 miles
Time: 39:55
Average pace: 11:30 minute/mile
Average speed: 5.2mph
Max speed: 6.9mph
Calories burnt: 303
Music: Killers
Small Scottish men who aren't dead: 1

Grey and drizzly today so looks like the summer came and went last Thursday but it’s easier to run when it’s cooler and I did a surprisingly comfortable 3 miles, well, sort of comfortable. I’m not really sure what a comfortable run is. It didn’t kill me but it wasn’t a lying in bed watching telly kind of comfortable either.

My mum emailed me and offered to be my pacer on her new electric bike. Yeah, right, it’s difficult enough as it is for me to retain my air of cool sophistication without a pensioner cycling really slowly next to me on an electric bicycle. How can I break it to her gently? Maybe I’ll just say “no mother, you find it difficult enough to retain your air of cool sophistication without someone jogging really slowly next to you”.

She’s as bad as me with her gadgets (although she never knows how to use them and so I have to go round and help her) and speaking of gadgets, I came across this site. Ooh, I think I’m in heaven. It’s full of gadgets and it’s even called Shiny, how cool is that? I came across it when I was looking for reviews of my new camera that’s being delivered tomorrow. It’d better come tomorrow and it’d better not come while I’m still sleeping but I heard they’re a pretty good website so should be ok. Can’t be worse than Comet anyway. Those evil b*****ds made me wait in from 8am to 7pm and then didn’t even bother turning up although they assured me when I rang them at 6pm that it was definitely on its way. Do not ever use Comet unless you really hate yourself or want to miss part of your friend’s birthday bash. At least I stayed relatively sober that night as I got there late, which is more than can be said for Gary who disappeared in Soho for an hour then turned up at the club minus his jacket.

Didn’t see anything interesting today so I’m not sure what I’m going to be taking pictures of. There was a Polish sign in a shop though so I might post that and see if anyone knows what it says.

And why isn’t this blog working properly and hiding the buttons that does the html for you instead of making me handcode? (I’m actually embarrassed to say I almost couldn’t remember how to do a link, oops!)

Stats:
Miles: 2.99 miles

Time: 32:35

Average pace: 10:54 minute/mile

Average speed: 5.5mph

Max speed: 8.6mph

Calories burnt: 261

Music: Strokes
Polish signs: 1

As I have a hangover today (thanks Kirsty) and have run on a hangover before and know that a) it doesn't happen; and b) it hurts the next day, just went for a mile and thought I'd go faster than my usual just marginly faster than walking speed thing. Still had to walk a couple of times though, I'm such a weed!

Strange man in the park sitting on a bench, looked like he was pondering and I wondered what he was pondering about, maybe his girlfriend just left him? Aw.

Ooh, and I did order myself a new camera, it's all small and silver and shiny and it's coming on Wednesday and I can't wait! Aah, I love new toys!  I just looked at my quit stats and it says I've saved £195 since stopping smoking, so that pays for the camera then, in which case I think I deserve a new toy, cool!

Also got myself some new running gear yesterday, yah!!

Stats:
Miles: 1.12 miles
Time: 10:56
Average pace: 09:44 minute/mile
Average speed: 6.2mph
Max speed: 7.9mph
Calories burnt: 104
Music: Shuffle (Cribs, Outkast, Editors)
Pondering men: 1
Hangovers: 1

As woman with child cancelled on me (again, but not because of woman with child sickness type thing this time but a have to work late type thing), I decided to continue with my healthy week of no pizza, chocolate, crisps, or alcohol, and not play Scrabble as I told Gary I would if/when woman with child cancelled on me (ok, I don't *have* to drink and eat pizza while playing Scrabble…) and went for a run instead. Quite sad really, as when I got up this morning I thought to myself that I didn't want to go out eating and drinking but would rather go for a run. Most odd. Never mind, it's Friday tomorrow and am going out with woman with child then for eating and drinking (I'll do most of the drinking).

A bit of a feeble effort today though, lots of walking, although I wasn't helped by the huge amount of midges that kept flying at me and going in my mouth. I shouldn't be eating midges, what with me being a veggie and that. Perhaps I should stick to the street where there might be less midges, as this evening I was brave (or stupid?) and went over the marshes as I'm getting a bit fed up of running round the fag end of town.

And to add a bit of interest to my blog and to give me an excuse to keep stopping, I might get myself one of these cameras (thanks to mickeyjohnnyboy for the recommendation). Although it might be a bit extravagant just to take snaps with for my blog, but it's small and will fit in my pocket easily and I might be able to sneak it into gigs where they usually take my camera off me (yes, you evil people at the Garage who wouldn't let me take pics of Cardiacs). Anyone want to buy an Olympus C770 and make me feel better about buying yet another new toy?

If I'd had a camera on me today, I could have taken a picture of the rat I saw with a slice of bread. Aw, I disturbed it and it left its bread and ran off. Hope it went back for his dinner after I'd gone.

Ben cycled past me tonight but he didn't realise it was me, probably because he wasn't expecting to see me and that's probably because I told him on Friday that I don't go over the marshes in the evening. At least, I think it was him, I'll have to email him tomorrow and ask him. Or maybe I won't as, if I do that, and it was him, he'll be looking out for me every night and I don't like people seeing me look such a state. Yes, I'm vain!

And I don't have to work tonight, yah!! (Sorry Joggerblogger, have nicked your "yah" thing, hope you don't mind!)

Stats:
Miles: 2.93 miles
Time: 33:00
Average pace: 11:15 minute/mile
Average speed: 5.3mph
Max speed: 6.9mph
Calories burnt: 267
Music: The Music and shuffle
Rats with slices of bread: 1
Friends not recognising me: 1
Midges: About 16 billion