Month: April 2007

Jogging on the spot

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Due to me being a lazy moo and being out on the piss too much a social butterfly the gym has been well overdue a visit as I haven’t been for over a week which isn’t giving me much value for my thirty nine English pounds a month so I packed my gym kit last night in preparation of going to the gym tonight after work and all day I was battling with myself whether to go or not and I kept thinking but I’ve brought my kit in, I’ve got the whole week clear to do gym stuff and lots of running and no prior piss ups social engagements, I must go to the gym.

So I walked up to the gym and a man was smoking in front of me and I thought mmmm, that smells nice and so I thought no no no, banish those thoughts immediately and get thyself to the gym young lady and then I saw Pret a Manger and I thought it’s a shame they stopped doing the More Than Mozzarella sandwich although they do still do it but they put meat in it which isn’t very good when you’re a veggie and then I got to the gym and as I walked through the doors it felt strangely comforting and I thought that’s not normal, walking into your house should feel comforting, not the gym and so I went into the changing rooms and there’s a poster there saying the gym’s doing a running club and I think yay, but then I see that it’s at 7:15am. That’s 7:15 IN THE MORNING. Gulp. I think hmm, maybe not then.

And I come out of the changing room and there’s loads of treadmills free and I think ooh, there’s loads of treadmills free, all the New Year people must have buggered off or maybe people are running outside because it’s lighter now, so I get on a treadmill and watch Neighbours and wonder when Paul Robinson came back and why has Susan Kennedy cut her hair off and why has Carl Kennedy grown a beard that looks really crap and I thought they’d split up anyway due to him shagging a young pretty girl, not that his wife isn’t pretty although she did look better with long hair but that was about 20 years ago and then I’m wondering if I’m going really slowly on the treadmill because I don’t understand kilometres and I take a peek at the screen on the treadmill next to me and the girl on that treadmill’s doing 10.5 kph and I’m only doing 8 so I jack it up to 8.5 and woo hoo now I’m really motoring along on this treadmill and I’m even keeping my balance and I somehow manage to stay on it for 30 minutes without falling off although it’s probably hard to fall off when you’re going really slowly as I’ve only managed to go 4k in those 30 minutes and then I do the 5 minute cool down bit which involves a lot of walking and as I get off a woman is waiting to get on and she probably only saw the walking bit and probably thinks I was wasting the treadmill and gives me a funny look. Ho hum.

Stats:
Kilometres: 4
Total time: 30:00
Average pace: 8.5 kph
Total calories: 282
Music:
The Killers – Indie Rock and Roll
The Young Knives – Weekends And Bleak Days
Voodoo Queens – Supermodel Superficial
Technotronic – Pump Up The Jam
Bobby Conn – King For A Day
Stereo Total – I Love You, Ono
Five O’Clock Heroes – Want Your Number

How to spend £105 without really trying

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Although I usually keep this blog to posts about running and ranting about B&Q, Joggerblogger has asked how I got locked out of my house so here is my tale of how to waste a perfectly good Saturday afternoon and spend £105 at the same time.

As mentioned on Saturday’s post, I needed some more compost so I could do garden stuff and so I went out to explore the local pound shops to see if they sold compost which would save me a trip to Woolworths so I went out and my front door didn’t want to shut so I used brute force and it eventually shut and I thought, I bet I have trouble opening that when I get home, but I continue on with my hunt for compost and hooray, the first pound shop I come to has compost so I get a couple of bags and go into another shop on the way back to get essentials like cat food and wine and I get home and my key goes into the lock but it won’t turn. Waa. It’ll turn one way but not the way I need it to turn to open the door so I go across the road to see if my neighbour can come and kick the door in for me but he’s not in and so I go to my neighbour two doors away but they’re not in either so I knock on my next door neighbours’ house while trying to remember the Polish for can you kick my front door in please and they’re not in either so I leave my shopping by the front door and go and look for a phone box so I can phone someone to come and help me, as my mobile’s inside the house, and then I think there’s no point going to a phone box as I don’t know anyone’s numbers anymore, unlike the olden days when I knew everyone’s numbers off by heart but now you just scroll for a name in a list on your mobile and so I go back home and think I’ll wait for someone to come out of the park and ask them to kick my door in and a man comes down the road and I say to him, excuse me, can you do me a favour? My front door’s stuck, can you kick it in for me please? He says no, I’m not doing that. I say please, it is my house, honest, I can show you that the keys don’t work. He says no, I’m not doing that. I say ok then. I see a man coming out of his house a few doors away but I’m thinking he doesn’t really look strong enough to kick a door in and another man comes down the road and so I say to him can you kick my door in please? He says really? I say yes, my keys don’t work and I give him the keys and he tries and he says do I really want him to kick the door in? I say yes please. He says is anyone in? I say no, if they were, I could get them to open the door. He tries to kick the door in but the door’s not budging and he says if he does manage it, he’ll break the door frame. I say do you think it’s best I get a locksmith? He says yes.

I go to the pub and get a bottle of Becks and ask the barmaid if she has a Yellow Pages I can look at. She says no. I say have you got any phone books? She says we did have a Thomson Local but I don’t know where it is. I say can you look for it please? She says ok and then comes back three seconds later and says sorry, I can’t find it. I say have you got a call box? She says no. I say can I use your phone to call directory enquiries, I can’t get in my house and I need a locksmith. A man standing next to me at the bar gives me his mobile and I say thank you but do you know the number of any locksmiths? He says no.

The manager comes out and gives me a phone and a Thomson Local and I ring a locksmith and the locksmith says what’s your contact number, I need to ring you back to say how long it’ll be. I say I haven’t got a number, my phone’s inside the house. He says what about the number you’re calling from? I say I’m in a pub, I’ll ask the manager if it’s ok to give the number out and the manager says it’s fine and I give the locksmith the number of the pub and he rings back five minutes later and the manager gives me the phone and the locksmith says someone will be round in an hour and it’ll cost £105.

I have another beer and thank the manager and the barmaid for their help and go and sit on my doorstep and wait for the locksmith and my neighbour across the road comes out and says are you ok? I say I can’t get in my house, my key’s not working, I’m waiting for a locksmith. He says do you want me to have a look? I say yes please and he goes to his van and says I’m just getting a sledgehammer out and he comes back and squirts some oil in the lock and tries it but it’s still not working and I say can you kick the door in? He says that the door frame will bust if he does that and I’m probably best off waiting for the locksmith. While my neighbour’s trying to get the key to work, the locksmith turns up and does something with a thin piece of plastic which doesn’t do anything and then he gets some kind of metal rod/mirror thing and wedges open the letterbox and sticks the metal rod/mirror thing through and puts up the latch and opens the door and he says the latch was down, you shouldn’t shut the door with the latch down. I say I didn’t put the latch down, I only use the latch when I’m putting the rubbish out. He shows me how to use the latch on the front door and I resist saying I do know how to operate a front door thank you very much and I pay him his £105 and by that time I’ve gone off the idea of doing any garden stuff and just open the wine instead and go and sit in my garden in the sun.

Another crappy run by yours truly

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I went out for a spin round the park and the park’s quite quiet which was nice because it’s mid to late morning and usually gets busy by then and I do a lap of the park and then go up to the sports field and there’s someone running there. What the fuck? I’m used to having the place to myself and I think maybe I should stop him and say excuse me but this is my sports field, go and find yourself your own sports field and then I think well he looks like he could do with a bit of exercise so good for him for getting out there and not sitting at home eating a fry up whilst watching Saturday morning telly.

I pass him again and wonder why I always seem to run in the other direction to other people, even at races, and I go back to the park and wonder if I can do another lap and I decide I can’t as I’m going so slowly someone’s going to stop me in a minute and ask me if I’m dead so I go home to do some garden stuff but I need to buy some more compost to plant more seeds and I’m very happy because the seeds I planted are growing, yay. Look, here are some sunflowers, chili plants and basil growing.

And in here we have some rocket.

And some spinach.

And a sunflower. It is in there, honest. It’s that green dot.

And I’m wondering where to get compost from as funnily enough I don’t want to go to B&Q, even if I have still got a £9.98 credit note to use up (no, that’s not my compensation; my claim is in the hands of the arbitrators at the mo) but I don’t know where else to get compost except for Woolworths which will mean battling my way up the longest street market in Europe, and the idea of that is less than appealing and there’s always massive queues in Woolworths and the queues take even longer now that the staff in Woolworths have been given a script and ask the customers if they got everything they needed and was there anything they couldn’t find and if there was anything else they could help them with and it’s all very annoying and I think maybe I’ll give Woolworths a miss.

Today’s route

Stats:
Miles: 1.58
Total time: 16:09
Average pace: 10:14 minute/mile
Total calories: 152
People running in my sports field: 2
Seeds growing: lots
Music:
Mark Ronson – Stop Me
Scissor Sisters – She’s My Man
XTC – Sgt. Rock (Is Going To Help Me)
Calvin Harris – Acceptable In The 80s

One pathetic and weedy .45 of a mile

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After my boss continuously winding me up today by buzzing me every five minutes to ask stupid questions or to swear at me I thought I’d go for a run tonight and clear my head, especially as my legs have miraculously recovered after my adventures in the forest on Sunday, which left me hobbling about on Monday and Tuesday.

I got home and wondered if it’d be safe over the park as although it is evening, it’s still daylight and I decided that it would be reasonably safe and so I got changed and went to the park and decided that it would definitely be safe as it was packed with people. People playing football, people playing cricket, people walking their dogs, people sitting on the ground, people sitting on the benches and two men doing something with a bungee and a stick.

I did a lap of the park then decided I’d had enough as sharing an enclosed space (it is the smallest park in the world remember) with that many people was seriously bugging me, as was having to keep an eye out for errant footballs or cricket balls, so I went home to carry on practising being a hermit.

Stats:
Miles: 0.45
Total time: 04:25
Average pace: 9.49 minute/mile
Total calories: 45
Busy parks: 1
Music:
Gary Numan – My Shadow In Vain
Heaven 17 – (We Don’t Need This) Fascist Groove Thang

Cross country running

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I discovered last week that there’s a forest not a million miles away from my house. In fact, nowhere near a million miles and just two little stops on the overground. So today I decided I would go and explore the forest so I scanned the relevant part of the London A-Z and print it off for use in the event of me getting lost; get my personal alarm for use in the event of flashers/rapists/muggers/polar bears being in the forest; my mobile phone for use in the event of having to call for help; some money for use in the event of an inspector getting on the train as my travelcard doesn’t go as far as Wood Street; and my ever faithful self-fixing camera for use of taking pictures of the forest.

I leave my house and 15 minutes later I’m in a forest. Cool. Actually, it was a bit more than 15 minutes due to me going the wrong way when I got off the train. But look, here’s a forest.

I don’t think I’ve been in a forest since I was a teenager and used to hang out with the wrong crowd and smoke cigarettes that we bought singly in the shop for 7p each.

It was quiet over the forest, I was a bit worried before I set off that there might be gangs of kids hanging about as Wood Street isn’t exactly known for being a nice part of town and I was trying to forget that someone got murdered at the station a couple of years ago but I couldn’t remember any instances of people getting murdered over the forest but then again I didn’t even know that there was a forest there so what do I know?

Maybe it was too early for people to be out or maybe everyone was inside eating Easter Eggs but I think I only saw 5 people the whole time I was over there.

And I run around the forest for a bit hoping I’m not going too far in the wrong direction and I see the bridge that I’d been over earlier and go back over it and head back in what I think is the right direction to get back to the train station and I come to a road and I think shall I run home? And I think yes, why not, it’s a nice day, so I consult my map to see where I am and I’m right near Lea Bridge Road and I think Lea Bridge Road is v. handy as it’s always lurking around somewhere and as long as I go down it in the right direction I can’t get lost and then I come to this pizza restaurant which is blatantly lying.

And I know it’s lying because although I haven’t been in this particular restaurant it can’t possibly make the best pizzas in London because that accolade goes to Mondragone in the village but then I’m thinking but what if they are the best pizzas in London and all this time I’ve been missing out? Eek. I’m going to have to investigate.

I run further down the street and make a detour to go past my old flat and restrain myself from knocking on the door and punching out the people who bought my flat and then stole my identity although they were probably pissed off with me for not warning them about the psycho neighbour from hell upstairs but I was trying to sell my flat and telling prospective buyers that upstairs lives a psycho neighbour from hell probably isn’t the best selling technique in the world.

Today’s route

Stats:
Miles: 5.03
Total time: 56:46
Average pace: 11:17 minute/mile
Total calories: 446
Forests: 1
Restaurants claiming to make the best pizzas in London: 1
Ex psycho neighbours from hell: 1
Music:
Soft Cell – Down In The Subway
Citizen Fish – Out Of Control
Kaiser Chiefs – Love Is Not A Competition (But I’m Winning)
Velvet Underground – Coney Island Baby
Eminem – Cleaning Out My Closet
Adam And The Ants – 5 Guns West
Sultans Of Ping – Telephone Lover
Black Wire – Hung Up
Blur – B.L.U.R.E.M.I.
The Horrors – Dragger’s Rant
Ian Brown – Ice Cold Cube
Radical Dance Faction – Firepower
Toyah – Street Creature
Muse – Cave
Cardiacs – It’s A Lovely Day

Day of the dandelions

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It’s been a lazy week on the exercise front. And I don’t even have any excuses except for I needed to wash my hair on Monday and Wednesday and I was going out on Thursday.

But I redeemed myself this morning and ventured out over the park armed with my trusty camera. I said to Tracey on Thursday that I go running without any ID on me and I don’t take my phone either and if I had an accident no one would know who I was and I wouldn’t be able to phone for help or anything and she said I should take my phone with me and I said but then that’s like I’m thinking something’s going to happen and she said but you might come across someone who’s broken their leg and then you can phone for help so you should take your phone for the benefit of other people. I liked that way of thinking but by the time I remembered Tracey’s wise words I’d already put my trainers on and my phone was upstairs and I wasn’t going to take my trainers off to retrieve my phone so I risked life and limb and the lives and limbs of other people and went out phoneless.

But when I get my new phone next week I will take that out with me because not only has it got a 5mp camera it also has integrated GPS which would have come in handy when I was lost in the back streets of Hackney. Although obviously my new phone would soon become my new stolen phone had I got it out in the back streets of Hackney.

I was rather optimistic this morning because when the doorbell rang I thought ooh maybe that’s my new phone, even though the website said it would be despatched within two working days and I ordered it on Thursday which means that there hasn’t even been one working day, let alone two, and when I opened the door it wasn’t the postie brandishing a new phone shaped package, but it was the bloody god squad. God squad man said hello, I’ve got something for you but whatever it was he was getting out of his bag wasn’t Easter Egg shaped so I lost interest immediately and said no thank you and shut the door.

After making sure the coast was clear of the god squad I went to the park and went up to the sports field and instead of taking pictures of daisies, today I took a photo of a dandelion.

And another one.

I did a lap of the sports ground, then back out on to the street and back into the park, then I decided to do another lap of the sports ground and then back into the park and took a photo of this purple flower.

And then I’m wondering if I can manage another lap of the park and I think I probably can because it is the smallest park in the world so I do another lap of the park and my Garmin tells me I’ve done 3.3 miles and I decide to round it up to 4 miles before I go home so I go round the block too and go past the shop and I realise that I haven’t run past the shop since beginning my beginner’s schedule last year of run 1 minute, walk 1 minute x 10 which used to nearly kill me but I was always very proud of myself for managing to do it.

And now, after being at one with nature in the park, I am going to be at one with nature in the garden and plant some seeds and grow some chilis to put on my pizza.

Today’s route

Stats:
Miles: 4.17
Total time: 48:54
Average pace: 11:44 minute/mile
Total calories: 421
New phones ordered: 1
God squad at the door: 2
Music:
Delorean – As Time Breaks Off
Fiery Furnaces – We Got Back The Plague
Black Wire – Hung Up
Fall Out Boy – This Ain’t A Scene It’s An Arms Race
Good Charlotte – Keep Your Hands Off My Girl
Pit Er Pat – Nick Those Prawns And Burn Them
The Gossip – Bones
Mark Ronson – Stop Me
Abba – Summer Night City
Kaiser Chiefs – Ruby

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