Month: May 2007

Juneathon Eve

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It’s the eve of the Juneathon and, like joggerblogger, I kick started it with a 3 miler.  I had hoped to get round the three mile route of the marshes in 30 minutes, but once again that 30 minutes eluded me.  Waa.  I will have to start running quicker.  I should have thought of that in the first place really.  Duh.

And while I was out wondering if the RfL on Sunday is going to be really bad with people walking, as XFR Bear says that unless I’m at the front, I’m not going to make much progress due to all the human traffic unless I kick them out of the way (ok, he didn’t say the kicking them out of the way bit), I’m still wondering which charity I should pick to raise money for when I do my half-marathon and thinking I shouldn’t really be doing the RfL as Cancer Research test on animals but I’m doing it relatively guilt-free as my £10 is only paying for the organisation bit and not the torturing animals bit and then I think duh, why don’t I raise money for a cancer charity that doesn’t test on animals.  Obvious really.

So, tomorrow is the start of the Juneathon.  Who else is in?

Stats:
Miles: 3.06
Total time: 31:14
Average pace: 10:12
Total calories: 304
3 mile marshes routes in 30 minutes: 0
Music:
The Libertines – Up The Bracket
The Rolling Stones – Under My Thumb
Klaxons – Two Receivers
Kaiser Chiefs – Try Your Best
The Libertines – Time For Heroes
Arctic Monkeys – This House Is A Circus
Kaiser Chiefs – Thank You Very Much
Scissor Sisters – She’s My Man

Travelling without moving

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In an attempt to help shift some of my KitKat based lardyness I went to the gym after work and did 20 minutes on the treadmill and it looks like I’ll be getting quite acquainted with the treadmill as joggerblogger has thrown down a Run Every Day In June challenge, which will be perfectly possible if I give up my day job, my part-time business and don’t go out in June. Um. So a rethink was in order and if I do a mile here and there at lunchtime on the treadmill I should be able to do it. I think. It may also mean a couple of early morning runs too. Eek.

Today I also made one of the biggest decisions of my life ever. I have decided not to watch Big Brother this year. I don’t think I’ve got the time to dedicate an hour every evening for the next three months watching it and every year I hate it more and more but still carry on watching it and it’s going to clash with The Apprentice which, after all, is just BB for growns up anyway isn’t it?

I have BB cold turkey already though. How am I going to turn on the telly at 9 for The Apprentice without flicking over for a quick peek at this year’s freaks on BB?

Stats:
Miles: 1.86
Total time: 20:00
Average pace: 10:45
Total calories: 184
Pledges of running every day in June: 1
Pledges of not watching BB: 1
Pledges likely to be kept: 0
Music:
Peter, Bjorn and John – Young Folks
The Rolling Stones – You Can’t Always Get What You Want
P J Harvey – Working For The Man
Pixies – Wave of Mutilation

Computer says no

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It rained at the weekend. It rained and rained and rained. And then it rained some more. So I didn’t go out for a run. In fact, I barely left the house and spent three days in front of my computer. I did tick off everything on this weekend’s to do list though. Woo, go me.

Still, ticking off everything on my to do list doesn’t counteract the fact that the other day my scales told me I was 9 st 7. Ouch. And it’s not muscle, it’s lard. Peanut Butter KitKat Chunky flavour lard.

So although tonight was originally supposed to be a going for vegan Chinese and then to the pub night and not a going out for a run night, I dragged my weary self out of the door for a quick spin round the park and the sports field. After I’d been round the sports field, there was a girl jogging in the park who, because she was wearing a pink tracksuit and trainers that weren’t proper running shoes, I decided she was practising for a Race for Life and thought to myself shall I be mean and and overtake her and so I thought yes I will be mean and overtake her but I’ll wait until I’m nearer my house in case I get out of breath and have to stop and so I overtake her and leave the park and go home hoping that she’s not at the RfL that I’m doing on Sunday and remembers me and trips me up and I go upstairs to upload the stats from my Garmin and my computer doesn’t recognise it and I have to reinstall it and iTunes doesn’t want to load up and Google Earth takes 15 minutes to load and and Photoshop won’t start and I think ooooh noooo it was bad karma overtaking the girl in the pink tracksuit and now my computer’s broken. Bah.

Stats:
Miles: 1.50
Total time: 14:58
Average pace: 9:59
Total calories: 150
RfL-ers overtaken: 1
PCs not working: 1
Music:
Peter, Bjorn & John
Pixies
The Libertines

Running commute #4

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Continuing this week’s theme of not being an idle git after going to the gym on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, this morning I packed my running gear into my running rucksack in preparation of doing a running commute tonight and sat at work trying to think of reasons to get the train instead like, it’s too hot, I’m going out for lunch and I’m not sure a big plate of Thai noodles is good running commute fuel and the law of averages would dictate that the more times I go through Hackney, the more likely I am to be murdered. But spurred on by the fact that I’m carrying half a stone of lard around that I’d rather be without; I’m supposed to be half-marathon training; I need to beat Gary in run the Crisis Square Mile Run in two weeks; and I probably won’t get murdered, I got changed after work and started my commute and banished any thoughts of cheating and getting on the train halfway at Hackney Downs.

I manage to get past Hackney Downs station without getting on a train and even manage to get to the roundabout on Murder Mile without looking at my map (or getting murdered). Yay. I had planned on making the running commute where I do it without looking at my map the last running commute, but now I have a new goal of doing a running commute without any walking breaks. Bah.

I get to the ice rink and then have a dilemma. Do I go through the marshes where it’s prettier and probably quicker? Or do I carry on going down Lea Bridge Road? Hmm. If I go through the marshes, that will have the added bonus of not having to go past B and bloody Q, but it also means not going past Somerfield and as usual I need to buy cat food and also fancy a bottle glass of wine but then I think oh shit I haven’t got enough money for a bottle of wine anyway as I only brought out enough to buy lunch and some cat food and I think ah Somerfield do the little bottles of wine, I can get one of them and some cat food and next time I do a running commute I will get a bottle of wine and cat food the day before so I can go through the marshes and so I continue down Lea Bridge Road and eventually get to Somerfield and they have a sign saying great value Go Cat, only £1.05 a box and think you lying twats, that’s not great value at all, my local shop sells it for 79p and I pick up a box and then go and get a little bottle of wine. Yum.

Masterfoods (who make Mars chocolate) update:
A few weeks ago Masterfoods – who make amongst other things Mars Bars, Snickers, Twix, Bounty, Maltesers and Celebrations – decided to change their recipe to include animal rennet (a calf’s stomach lining for those who don’t know), therefore making them unsuitable for vegetarians (they actually said they were unsuitable for strict vegetarians because the fuckwits obviously don’t know that you’re either veggie or you’re not. Duh.) Due to 6,000 consumer complaints in the first week (I can’t tell you how long it took me to send all those emails, heh heh) they’ve changed their minds and won’t be using the cow recipe after all.

However, and this is a big however, they have said that Twix, Bounty and Celebrations will continue to be not suitable for vegetarians. Oh shit. That to me sounds like they were never vegetarian. Oops.

Some say it was all a publicity stunt. I say they’re twats and I’m sticking to my Peanut Butter KitKats.

End of veggie rant. Just letting people who asked know what the situation is. You can go back to your bacon sandwiches now 🙂

Today’s route

Stats:
Miles: 6.18
Total time: 1:20:29
Average pace: 13:01
Total calories: 428
Walking breaks: 6
Expensive boxes of cat food: 1
Music:
Maximo Park – Trial and Error
Mark Ronson – Toxic
Klaxons – Totem on the Timeline
Scissor Sisters – Tits on the Radio
Arctic Monkeys – This House is a Circus
The Damned – There Ain’t No Sanity Clause
Kaiser Chiefs – Thank You Very Much
The Libertines – Tell The King
PJ Harvey – Teclo
Pixies – Tame
Scissor Sisters – Take Your Mama
Primal Scream – Swastika Eyes
Primal Scream – Stuka
Maximo Park – Stray Talk
Mark Ronson – Stop Me
Scissor Sisters – Step Aside For The Man
Good Charlotte – Something Else

Half marathon training week 1

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In an attempt to kick start my half marathon training and because I haven’t been for a couple of weeks, I went to the gym last night and because my official schedule says to do two miles today I went to the gym at lunchtime and went on the treadmill because my unofficial schedule says to go to the pub tonight for Dave’s birthday instead of going out for a run.

See how dedicated I am giving up my lunchtime playing on the internet time?  I might have to give up some more lunchtime playing on the internet time due to having a new website to do.  Anyone know how to make disposable cooler boxes look interesting?

I might do a running commute on Thursday.  Note the word “might”.

Stats:
Kilometres: 3.5
Time: 25 minutes
Speed: 8kph
Calories: 250

Hornsey YMCA 10k race report

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Hornsey station smells of wee. And there starts my adventure in an unknown part of North London that I had never even heard of until last year. I find my way to the park by following some people wearing their “supported by Budgens” race numbers and the park is far from the station and I’m glad I went to Hornsey station instead of Turnpike Lane, even if it does smell of wee, because Turnpike Lane tube looked about another half a mile on the map.

The race starts on time and while I’m in the crowd waiting to go two men next to me are chatting saying there’s usually people from Eastenders there and one of them thinks he saw someone from Eastenders but he doesn’t know her name but she’s blonde and shouts a lot and his mate says Barbara Windsor? And his mate says no, a younger girl and so then I’m trying to think who’s young and blonde on Eastenders and shouts a lot and I think it’s probably Carly.

At 1.8 miles we reach the hill that leads up to Alexandra Palace station and because I’m a finely tuned athlete, I run up it and overtake all the lightweights who have stopped to walk then at 2.2 miles a proper finely tuned athlete laps me and I think lapped already?!! and I’m not looking forward to doing two laps and think maybe I’ll wimp out after one lap as it’s very hot and I want to walk and I think to myself I’ll have a walking break halfway and I hope they have some water then as I finished the bottle I brought with me before we’d even started and I get to the halfway mark and they do have water and I stop and get a cup and then I’m walking drinking my water and I don’t want to throw it away and I wonder if I can run with a cup of water without it spilling everywhere and I can’t really but I don’t want to give up my cup of water so I carry on and eventually finish it and throw the cup in someone’s wheely bin and lots of people are standing outside their houses watching the race and cheering people on and I’m wondering if there was a race local to me would I stand outside my house cheering people on and I think no, I probably wouldn’t, I’d probably be upstairs playing on the internet.

At 4.2 miles I get to the hill that leads up to Alexandra Palace station again and this time I stop and walk like everyone else and then it gets flat again and I think oh shit, I’ll have to start running again and then I think I’ve only gone 4 miles but then I think but that means I only have 2 miles left and I can run 2 miles, hurrah, but then I get to 5 miles and I’m thinking of stopping and walking and I’m thinking no just carry on, only a mile to go and then I realise I’m walking and I think I’ll run again when I get to that bench up ahead but I get to the bench and carry on walking so I think I’ll run again when I get to that gate and I pass the gate and then people start overtaking me so I think fuck that and start running again and I look at my Garmin and see that I’m not going to beat my last 10k time, even though last time it involved falling over a football and then I get back to the park and the finish line, yay.

We all get herded down some cattle pen thing and I get given a banana and I think I don’t really want a banana but I take it anyway as I’m not one to look a gift banana in the mouth and I also get a bottle of water which is penguin approved.

And it says to store it in a clean, dry, rabbit free place. Why rabbit free? I’m confused.

Then I go to find my free t-shirt which is after all the only reason I’m there and as usual they haven’t got any small ones left but if I keep on eating Peanut Butter KitKats I’m not going to be fitting into small clothes for much longer anyway.

Today’s route

Stats:
Miles: 6.32
Total time: 1:10:28
Average pace: 11:09
Total calories: 533
Hills: 2
Walking breaks: 3
Bananas: 1
Bottles of water that mustn’t be kept near rabbits: 1
Music:
Mark Ronson
Klaxons
Arctic Monkeys
Good Charlotte

Race day

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It is just wrong for an alarm to go off at 7am on a Sunday morning, unless you’re a nurse or something and have to go to work at the weekends or I suppose if you’re one of these strange people who go running and enter races that are on a Sunday morning instead of a more civilised time like a Saturday afternoon.

I’m lying in my bed thinking shall I get up and go to the race because I’m thinking I haven’t run for two weeks so I must be really unfit and I’m also wondering if staying up late drinking lager and eating Peanut Butter KitKat Chunky was the best race preparation and I’m also wondering if I can bear to be seen in public with a race number proudly declaring itself to be supported by Budgens.

But I decide that as I haven’t been to Hornsey before it’ll be an adventure.  Sort of.

Recovery run

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Due to having a cold all week due to too many late nights over the last couple of weeks, my best laid running and cross-training plans (they were laid so well that I’d even written them down in my diary [ok, so I also need a diary to remind me to look in my diary but that’s not the point]) went kaput in a spectacular fashion, in a I did no running and didn’t go to the gym either kind of way.

So this morning when I woke up, it was nice and sunny so I got up early and thought I’d head out for 3 miles so I put on my trainers and picked up my keys and just as I was leaving I realised I’d forgotten my Garmin. Eek. Must be ill. So I go back upstairs and retrieve my Garmin and go out into the grey and the rain which has replaced the sunshine and do what was actually a comfortable 3 miles without the urge to stop. Woo. Which is just as well as I’ve got a 10k next Sunday and I haven’t run 10k without a walking break, a look at the map break, a photo break or a can’t be arsed to run anymore break since, um, the 10k I did last October. Oops.

And we won’t mention the half-marathon I’ve entered in September which is now not only starting to look like quite a long way to run but doesn’t actually seem that far away in the future either. I blame joggerblogger. He put me up to it. Never trust a man with a rabbit.

Good luck to Angela who’s doing a triathlon tomorrow. Stratford Sprint tomorrow, Ironman next year?

Today’s route

Stats:
Miles: 3.24
Total time: 34:32
Average pace: 10:40
Total calories: 298
Music:
Mark Ronson – Diversion
Arctic Monkeys – Old Yellow Birds
Klaxons – Atlantis to Interzone
Mark Ronson – Inversion
Klaxons – Magick
Mark Ronson – Apply Some Pressure (Feat. Paul Smith)
Arctic Monkeys – Do Me A Favour
Mark Ronson – Toxic
Klaxons – Golden Skans
Klaxons – Gravity’s Rainbow

All the fun of the fair

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Jumping up and down at the Bobby Conn gig on Wednesday left my calves killing me so in a kill or cure kind of way, thought I’d go out for a short run as I’ve got a 10k in two weeks and it’s not going to run itself.

And in the smallest park in the world is the smallest fair in the world.

I just did a quick lap of the park and a quick lap of the sports field and someone had turned the weather off as it was freezing, can we have the warm weather back please?  And as it’s cold that means I’m not venturing out into my garden so most of my plants are still  at the seed-tray-in-the-kitchen stage and my garden is getting full of weeds again although it’s not as bad as last year.  Yet.

Stats:
Miles: 1.55
Total time: 16:36
Average pace: 10:44
Total calories: 162
Smallest fairs in the world: 1
Music:
Harvey Danger – Cool James
Klaxons – Gravity’s Rainbow
Baby Teeth – The Simp
Maximo Park – Hammer Horror

Running commute #3

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As my running commute #2 and a half needed rounding up, I jumped on the tube tonight and went to the train station to get the train half way home and to run the rest of the way.  I was wondering how I was going to drag myself off the train when I was half way home then realised that I didn’t need to get my train but could get any train that goes to Hackney Downs so I looked at the departure board and a few trains were going there and so I chose one that was leaving in six minutes and was stopping first at Hackney Downs but when I got to the platform it didn’t say Hackney Downs, so I got on the train and asked a woman does this train stop at Hackney Downs and she said yes, I’m pretty sure it does and so I stayed on the train thinking I hope this train does stop at Hackney Downs, I don’t want to end up in Cheshunt, I don’t even know where Cheshunt is, then over the speaker the man said that this train is calling at Hackney Downs and so off the train went and a few minutes later I’m standing outside the station wishing my Garmin would hurry up and get a signal as I’d rather be a moving target than a sitting duck and then I’m off to do my half a running commute and I get to the road that I remember being really hard to cross so I try to cross a bit earlier and a man tries to run me over because I’m standing where he wants to park, so I go back down the road and cross at the zebra crossing and then there’s another road to cross and the cars are coming from all directions and some are turning where I want to cross but hardly any of them are bothering to indicate first and so after I while I just cross and hope I don’t get run over and then I’m on Murder Mile and remember where my exit is at the roundabout and then I’m feeling pretty knackered and walk over the bridge and a cyclist is coming towards me so I have to stop anyway and then I think why is there a cyclist on the pavement?  And then two more cyclists come towards me and I’m thinking EXCUSE ME CYCLISTS, PAVEMENTS ARE FOR PEOPLE and then I realise that half the pavement is a cycle path but it’s the narrowest pavement in the world and there’s not enough room for cyclists and pedestrians and I cross the road hoping there’s no cyclists on that side of the road but I’m going the same way as the traffic now and the cyclists are coming up behind me which is even worse so I have to carry on walking and then the cycle path gets cut off by some roadworks and there’s a cyclist right behind me so I stop to let him go past me and he’s stopped too and we’re both standing there saying no, it’s ok, you go first, no you first, no you can go, and so I end up going otherwise we’re going to be standing there all night being polite and I get to B&Q and I can see all their garden stuff and I’m wishing B&Q was further away so it would be easier to boycott when I want to go shopping in the Summer for plants and flowers and stuff and then I get to the corner and I think I’ve done a lot of walking, maybe I should do some running now and I run until I get to Somerfield and buy some cat food and there’s a man in there throwing a strop but I don’t know why.  And I don’t really care.

Today’s route

Stats:
Miles: 2.70
Total time: 34:19
Average pace: 12:42
Total calories: 220
Cyclists on the pavement: millions
Men throwing a strop in Somerfield: 1
Music:
Ween – Strap On That Jammy Pac
Maximo Park – I Want You To Leave
The Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster – The Dancing Girls
The Horrors – Dragger’s Rant
Bobby Conn – Winners
Belle & Sebastian – The Boy With The Thorn In His Side
Soft Cell – The Art Of Falling Apart
Catatonia – Part Of The Furniture
Levellers – One Way
Courtney Love – But Julian, I’m A Little Bit Older Than You
Mark Ronson – Amy