A light-hearted look at running, cycling and general fitness
Here's Stage 4. Not exactly immaculate but this year's weeds are evil industrial strength weeds.
Can actually see the path to the shed now. How do you knock down a shed? Sledgehammer?
I think Stage 5 is going to be the bit by the house which looks like this at the mo
More weeds!
Another Operation Garden post, I'm afraid. My leg's still hurting after the Crisis Square Mile Run on Thursday so no running for me today. Actually, I'm fibbing, I had too much wine last night.
But I have been very industrious today and pulled up all the weeds by hand and found my patio. No helpers today due to there being a football match on or something, or was it cricket? I can't remember.
Here's what it was like at Stage 2
And now here's what it's like at Stage 3
And here's a reminder of what it looked like at the beginning
Stage 4 hopefully will be tomorrow, then I'm going to need a skip for the 23+ bags of rubbish and a trip to B&Q to get some plants and gravel and stuff. Then I can have a BBQ, hurrah!
Stats:
Weeds: millions
Patios: 1
Bin bags full of millions of weeds: 23
Just found out that because of the revised route (couldn't go over Tower Bridge because of the bridge bit being up and therefore danger of 2,000 people in red t-shirts falling off and drowning), it was only 3 miles last night and not 3.5 miles so I'm not as finely tuned an athlete as I thought. Bugger!!
Oh well, I still loved it so that's the main thing. I suppose.
Oh wow, how cool was that? Last night’s Crisis Square Mile Run was brilliant! And yay go me doing it all without stopping apart from at the start when everyone had to stop after quarter of a mile to try and get down some narrow steps. Gary sped off after 5 minutes to try and do his do it in 25 minutes thing but I caught up with him after a mile as he’d gone too fast too soon and I left him for dust. Ha ha. See, I told him he should have trained for it. Did I gloat? No, of course not. Not until I’d had three pints of Hoegaarden, anyway.
Aah, it was so good I wanted to do it all over again straight away. And I wasn’t last. Nowhere near last in fact. Now I want to find me another race. Yah!!
Can’t really put my stats because my Garmin didn’t like Central London and only recorded 3 miles, bugger. Ah well.
Eek, just about 5 and a quarter hours to go until I have to run 3.5 miles round the streets of Central London with about 2,000 other people wearing red t-shirts, instead of doing a few laps of my local park wearing a black t-shirt and my iPod and growling at random members of the general public. Not that the colour of my t-shirt has any bearing on my running ability, or maybe it does, and that's where I've been going wrong. Hmm.
Right then, I have everything in place. Have my Garmin, two cameras (one for Kate to take pics from her supporter's spot at the pub and one for me in case of photo emergencies en-route), running kit and a pub to meet in afterwards (most important bit).
Now, after I've done my first ever 5(and a bit)k, what's next? Do it better and without stopping (if I do stop) or do it faster? Do more training and less beer drinking and pizza eating?
It's going to be a fun evening!
Ooh, tomorrow's the big day, my first race! Not that I'm racing it, just trying to complete it and as it's only 3.5 miles I should be ok. And you can still sponsor me if you want to and I promise not to spend all the money on beer and pizza, heh heh.
Gary's friend has challenged him to run it in 25 minutes which I pointed out today would mean 7 minute miling. He said "oops". I said I was surprised he hadn't already worked that out, what with him being a mathematician and that.
Anyway, have felt really crap all week and haven't been out for a run at all and it wasn't looking likely that I'd even make tomorrow but felt better today and went out for a few laps of the park. Wasn't too bad after I'd warmed up a bit, as initially I wanted to stop after half a lap of the park (about 2 minutes), and apart from the other people running in the opposite direction to me. I've worked out what it is. They go in the supermarket direction (i.e. anti-clockwise). I tend to avoid supermarkets (pizza menus were invented so people don't have to go through the horrors of the supermarket) so I go clockwise round the park. Although saying that, the big Tescos goes clockwise. Oh well, maybe my theory is wrong and I'm talking rubbish.
I shan't be updating my blog tomorrow night as I'll be in the pub. Ben pointed out today that there's a lot of pubs on the route tomorrow night and hopes I won't be distracted. Then he said maybe I can stop halfway at one and meet him there? Hmm, that's no way for a finely tuned athlete to behave.
Wish me luck then! This time next year, you'll be wishing me luck for my first half marathon, heh heh.
Stats:
Miles: 1.68 miles
Time: 16:27
Average pace: 9:47 minute/mile
Average speed: 6.1mph
Max speed: 7.5mph
Calories burnt: 145
Music: Shuffle (Strokes, The Fall, Ash, Muse)
This is nothing about running at all although I did do the garden after I'd been out for a run so there's a tenuous link for you. Gary came to help with stage 2 of the garden. Here's a reminder of what it looked like before stage 1
Here's stage 1 which I did all by myself and got sunburnt in the process
And here's stage 2. Gary bagged up all the rubbish from stage 1 and I did all the digging. I hate bagging up rubbish so am very grateful to Gary for the help (he did get a free dinner for his hard work though).
I haven't a clue how to get rid of the weeds/grass growing through the cracks in the patio. Each year different weeds grow, this year I have evil industrial strength weeds so in my not very environmentally friendly way, I chucked a load of weedkiller over them. Hope that works. At least I can sort of see the patio now. This is what my garden looked like 3 years ago. Not a weed in sight!
Aah, hope I keep up the hard work and restore my garden back to looking reasonably respectable again!
Woo, go me, I did 3.5 miles non stop (sort of) this morning! Hee hee, I always say "sort of" don't I? Only a few seconds though to take pics of horses and invisible squirrels. I don't have time to write a proper blog at the mo as Gary's coming round to help with stage two of the garden in a bit so I'll update later and post pics. Hope I can think of something to say. There were the two female runners who smiled at me, that was nice, better than the usual miserable gits and the strange man asleep in a car. Oh yes and the ducks. I have a pic of the ducks. It was very sunny too and it's only 9:30am so it's going to get hotter and I'm going to get sunburnt again doing the garden but at least I'll earn me some more calories to eat and drink tonight as my diet's going to be ruined later but I have lost 3 lbs this week, hopefully all off my belly.
Right, Gary's running late so here are today's pics:
'tis a horse. But you probably knew that.
And here's another horse. It looks like the same horse but it's not, honest.
And here's some ducks. Well, maybe not some, just two. There were some more but they're not in this pic. Obviously.
There was also a squirrel but he ran away before I could take his pic. I was going to take a pic of the man asleep in a car but thought I might get in trouble if I do that. Maybe his wife kicked him out. Heh heh.
Stats:
Miles: 3.51 miles
Time: 40:39
Average pace: 11:34 minute/mile
Average speed: 5.2mph
Max speed: 6.4mph
Calories burnt: 358
Music: Shuffle (Cardiacs, Ash, Outkasts, SMDO, Yellow Stripe Nine, Madonna, Primal Scream, Air, Bobby Conn)
Friendly runners: 2
Men asleep in cars: 1
Here are the stats for May. An improvement on April, that’s for sure.
Stats for May:
Miles: 29.03 miles
Time: 5:20:35
Average pace: 11:02 minute/mile
Calories burnt: 2589