JogBlog running blog

I went to bed early last night and this morning got up with my fake sunrise and decide to wait until it’s daylight to go for a run but I’m still knackered and I’ve been tired all week and I wonder why I’ve had no energy and I think I probably need to eat more chips instead of living on soup and water and I get outside and close the front door behind me and bloody hell it’s cold and I get to the marshes and it’s windy too like I don’t go slow enough already and I get to the stables and a horse comes to the fence to say hello so it would be rude not to take its picture.

And apart from the horse based photo emergency I manage to do a mile without stopping and it’s lightly raining which is nice and refreshing and I go past the cows but they’re too far away for me to take their photo and I go over my favourite bridge and get to the marina.

and a bit further down I see two swans having a chat

and I get to the bridge and I go into Tottenham marshes and there’s an old man on a boat with a pointy woolly hat on and bushy grey hair and he looks like an elf and I’m wondering if I can get to the other side of the river to come back down and I can’t remember where I ran in the Tottenham Marshes 5 race but I’m sure on the last stretch it backed onto itself but I can’t see where and I get to the bridge where the race started and I wonder if I can go down the other side so I go to investigate and there’s a gate and a sign so I go to see what the sign says and it says anti-climb paint and I think well I don’t want to climb over it anyway and I try the gate but the gate is locked and it must be for houseboat owners only and I look at my Garmin and it says I’ve done 4 miles and I think I should go back the way I came as I don’t want to overdo it and go further and I’m 2 miles from home so I go back the way I came and I see a rat but it runs off too quickly for me to take its photo and a few feet further along I see another rat and it’s in this photo somewhere, honest.

And then I think maybe I don’t want to live on a boat after all if there’s loads of rats around and then I think about the rat in my attic which I’ve heard twice this week and then Elf Man walks past me and he’s carrying a big sack on his back and I think wow he really is Santa’s Little Helper after all and then I’m back on the street and two miles later I’m home and I’ve done nearly 6.5 miles but really really slowly and I’m going to have to stop taking photos every five minutes. Hmm.

Today’s route

Stats:
Distance: 6.43 miles
Time: 1:19:05
Pace: 12:17
Calories: 606
Horses: 1
Cows: 6
Swans: 2
Rats: 2
Elf Men: 1
Music:
Bikini Kill
Mark Ronson
Devo
Maximo Park
Pixies
The Coral
The Gossip
Bjork
The Kooks
Stereo Total
Elastica
Dirty Pretty Things
Clinic
Faith No More
Gorillaz
Ween
Scissor Sisters
The Fratellis
Rollins Band
The Damned
Sex Pistols
Siouxsie & The Banshees

I wake up late after dreaming about Bobby Conn jumping into the sea from 100s of feet up in the air and a cute man in a wheelchair and I spend a couple of hours putting off going for a run and thinking I could go tomorrow instead and I check the weather forecast as today’s weather is looking very nice indeed from the window in my spare room and the weather forecast for tomorrow is rain although that could be rubbish as the weather forecast for today is cloudy and all I can see is blue skies and I think I’d better go for a run today, it looks like the weather for it and I’ll be pissed off if I put it off ’til tomorrow and then it’s raining and I plot a route on the gmap-pedometer website to see how far it is up Tottenham Marshes and back and it’s six miles and I think cool, I’ll do that and I think I’ll make today a leisurely run and take my camera and I eventually get out the door at about 11 and I haven’t even gone a mile and I’ve stopped to walk and I think why am I so tired? and I think it’s nearly lunchtime and I’m hungry, maybe I should just go home and get some lunch and I remember I ran at lunchtime once before when I had a week off work and I was feeble then too and I manage to run a bit more but then I stop again and I think I’m going to have to go home, this is no good and I get to where the cows live and think I might as well take a picture while I’m here.

And I get over the boardwalk and I think I should run again but I think there’s a steep bit in a minute and I don’t do steep bits so I might as well wait ’til I’m back on the path and I get to the path and run again and then stop again and I’m thinking about my lunch and what to have and I’m inspired by Londonjogger who made a vegetable soup the other day and I think I have some swede left from last night’s veggie shepherd’s pie, I wonder what swede soup would be like and I’ve got some green lentils left too, I can chuck them in and then I think I’ve got some split green peas, they can go in and also there’s some black eyed beans to use up and I think yay, that sounds like a nice soup and I will eat well today and have an early night and get up early and go for a proper run, not like today’s feeble effort and as I go past the stables I take a photo of the horses so they don’t feel left out

and then I run/walk the rest of the way home and make soup and try and decide whether to dye my hair mystic violet or cyber purple.  I think it’s going to be cyber purple.

Stats:
Distance: 3.10 miles
Time: 42:08
Pace: 13:34
Calories: 260
Cows: 6
Horses: 2
Soups: 1
Music:
New Model Army
Death House Chaplin
Stereo Total
Devo
MAP
Citizen Fish
Junior Senior
Faith No More
Subhumans
The Libertines
The Cribs

This post is to do with nothing about running, but it’s my blog, so it’s allowed. I think. This is an act of shameless self-promotion.

Not only can you come and visit me and buy my jewellery at the Christmas Without Cruelty Fayre (hate that spelling!) but if you order online with the code SS07, you can get 20% off. I even made a pretty flyer to advertise this fact.

Normal service will resume tomorrow.

Stats:
Acts of shameless self-promotion: 1
Flyers: 1

I am a lady of leisure this week. Well, I would be if my to do list didn’t consist of 17 things for me to do. And it’s not a very good to do list, evidenced by the absence of any mention of wine, beer or pizza.

And after my scales showing me as being 9 st 0 for the last couple of weeks, today they inexplicably show me as being 9 st 3. Bah. Although when I saw the contents of my recycle bin it would appear that maybe it’s not quite so inexplicable after all.

So I went out for a six mile run and I went the right way this time so it really was six miles and I’m overtaken by lots of cyclists on their way to work and I’m feeling nervous about going into Hackney Marshes on a weekday as I don’t know if anyone will be over there and then I’m in the foresty bit feeling paranoid and a man runs past me and I almost jump out of my skin and then I see a man walking towards me with a big stick and I think why is that man in the forest with a big stick? and then a man comes up the river bank with a bicycle and I think what was he doing down there? and the foresty bit seems never ending and I wish it would hurry up and end and I eventually get to the clearing and get to the bridge and there’s workmen on the bridge and and I think shit if I can’t go over the bridge I don’t know how to get home from here apart from going back the way I came and I don’t want to do that and I especially don’t want to do that when I look at my Garmin and it says I’ve gone five miles and so I go up to the workmen and say is the bridge closed? and they say yes but I can jump over if I want to but not to jump jump as it’s slippery so I cross over the bit of the bridge they’ve taken off and try not to fall into the river and then I’m on my way home and think the first thing I will do on my to do list is some web design work for a client in Crete as I’ll get paid for that, yah.

Stats:
Distance: 6.31 miles
Time: 1:12:53
Pace: 11:32
Calories: 612
Men with big sticks: 1
Weeks off work: 1
Music:
The Strokes
The Young Knives
Cardiacs
Cristina
New Model Army
The Who
Maximo Park
Ween
Manic Street Preachers
The Holloways
Editors
Pixies
Lily Allen

It occurred to me that half marathons don’t unfortunately run themselves and so I spent the week trying to get inspired to get back out running again and after reading various blogs and looking at races coming up I got inspired and so this morning after waking to the smell of freshly baked bread and wondering if it really was a good idea to go out and get that second bottle of wine last night I go out to do my six mile route round the marshes and I get outside and oh my god it’s cold and I’m thinking I should have put my long sleeve top on instead of showing off in my half marathon top that I didn’t run in anyway and I get over the bridge and past the horses and my first photo opportunity comes in the form of this squirrel.

And then I see a duck waiting for the floating buffet.

And Hackney Marshes must be the place for finely tuned athletes, as they even have a bar for press-ups

and a balance beam

and I just think why?

And I look at my Garmin and it says I’ve just done 5k in 38 minutes and I think oh that’s shit, I should stop taking photos and do more running and so I get into finely tuned athlete mode and put my camera away and I get back to the stables and my Garmin says I’ve gone 4 miles and I think shit I thought this was the six mile route, I’m only a mile away from home and I get to the park and there’s a white pigeon and I don’t think I’ve seen a white pigeon before.

And as I get round the park there’s a bunch of hoodies by one of the exits and I think oh shit I don’t like the look of them and I decide to run behind the couple that just passed me in a safety in numbers kind of way and I think oh shit I hope they stay in the park and don’t go up to the sports field as I don’t want to go to the sports field and I think oh shit, what if they’ve just started out on a 20 mile run, I can’t follow them all day and they do go up to the sports field but the hoodies have moved away from the exit and I leave the park just as the mobile park patrol drives in and it goes past the hoodies and they throw stones at it and I’m glad I left the park when I did and I go home and attempt to thaw out by drinking hot chocolate and eating toasted freshly baked bread with real butter, none of your healthy low fat spread nonsense and I think I need to buy some more spider charms so I can make another spider spiral bracelet like this one.

Today’s route

Stats
Distance: 5.89 miles
Time: 1:12:24
Pace: 12:17
Calories: 520
Squirrels: 1
Ducks waiting for chips: 1
Press-up benches: 1
Balance beams: 2
Hoodies: 5
Spider spiral bracelets: 1

Music
Ben Folds Five
Moma
The Dude
Faith No More
Citizen Fish
Nirvana
Elastica
The Horrors
The Gossip
Stereo Total
Maximo Park
Mr & Mrs Smith
Cardiacs
Sex Pistols
The Kooks
White Stripes
Death House Chaplin
New Model Army
Junior Senior
Devo
Subhumans

I know, I know, I know, I’ve been slacking on the running front and on the whole exercise in general front too but I have been very busy carving out my new career as a famous jewellery designer, the pinnacle of which so far has undoubtedly got to be the three and a half hours I spent sat freezing my arse off in a church hall in Chingford on Saturday, having my lovingly handcrafted jewellery blatantly ignored by grannies who passed by my stall without giving it a second glance. Bah. But my luck changed later that evening when I got my first “proper” (i.e. not from anyone I know) online order. Woo hoo.

But it was back down to earth today and time to leave being a famous jewellery designer to the side while I got back to my day job as a legal secretary and I went to the gym and went on the treadmill for 15 minutes, so there you go, I’m back in action. Sort of.

And while I’m on the treadmill, because the evil warriorwoman has tagged me again and try as I might, I can’t ignore it, I’m trying to think of five random facts about me which may be vaguely interesting and I’m not coming up with much; not anything I want to share with the whole world anyway. But here we are, five random facts about me:

1.  I was the Essex under-5s chess champion, winning a trophy made out of tin foil, which I won by beating my opponent with a sneaky 3-move checkmate that I’d got out of a book in the library.

2.  I have two birth certificates, an English one and an American one. This has resulted in a marriage proposal from a friend wanting to go to America to live. I declined.

3.  I used to be a goth. And have the photos to prove it.

4.  I’m crap at chess now.

5.  I’m not a goth anymore.

See, I told you I couldn’t think of five interesting things.  And now, hurrah, I get to tag five other people.  And today’s nominations go to:

Emily - because it’s about time we had the views of a non-runner type.

Kate - to get in touch with my inner American

Rae - see above

Joggerblogger - because I think he wimped out last time after Londonjogger tagged him

The Red Bucket - because anyone who likes peanut butter and salad sandwiches must have some randomness to share

And lastly, the rules:

• link to your tagger and post these rules on your blog
• share 5 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird
• tag 5 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs
• let them know they are TAGGED by leaving a comment on their blog.

Stats:
Treadmill: 15 minutes / 8.5kph
Rowing machine: 10 minutes
Tags: 1

Yesterday when I got up my leg was hurting so bad that I couldn’t put any weight on it and I was limping and I thought oh no, I’m injured again, just when I thought it was safe to send off my half-marathon entry but this morning when I got up I was miraculously recovered and there wasn’t even a twinge so I thought to myself I can go for a run tonight but then I thought maybe I should take my gym stuff to work just in case my leg starts hurting and I can’t run and I can go to the gym instead but then I thought that that would just give me the excuse to wimp out of a run and go to the gym instead and I thought no wimping out, I probably won’t get to go for a run for the rest of the week and not much chance of it next week either and I go to work and people are pissing me off and I think I must stop getting pissed off, I’ve been chilled out for the last couple of weeks and I try to think of excuses why not to run tonight and I wonder if I poke my leg with a pencil or something it will start hurting again and then I’ll have an excuse and I leave work without poking my leg with a pencil and I get on the train and two girls sit next to me and squish me and they start chatting and I think fucking hell, now I can’t read my book and I think to myself well people are allowed to talk and then I think I haven’t got time to run, I need to get a travelcard and cat  litter on the way home and I need to do my washing and I need to wash my hair and I think they’re crap excuses and I get home and there’s a form for the tabletop sale that I can sell my jewellery at in two weeks but I don’t understand it as the commas and full stops are in the wrong place and it’s been typed on a typewriter and photocopied about a billion times and is a bit blurry and I wonder if I should offer to type it for them or will they just think I’m interfering and then I remember that the tabletop sale’s the day after I’ve been to see the best band in the world ever and that it’s not very likely I’m going to get up early to set up a table, although in the letter it says I can set up my stall from 0am on the day so maybe I’ll just stagger down there pissed at  midnight after the gig and do it but then I think it’s probably a typo and I wonder what time I do have to be there and I think I’ll have to ring them again and go through the Little  Britain scenario that I went through on Saturday and I go upstairs to get changed but I can’t resist a peek at Facebook to see if anyone’s thrown a sheep at me today but there’s no sheep but I have been yacked on, whatever that means, and also there’s a message from Emily to say that she’s added my link to her blog and her jewellery website and she’s written a blog post about my jewellery so I think the least I can do is return the favour and tell everyone to go and visit Emily’s Beads and buy all her jewellery and I look at my schedule which doesn’t make much sense due to it being written backwards and I think it says to do 3 miles which is just as well as that’s all I was going to do anyway and I get changed and leave the house and head off on my 2.7 mile route and wonder if I go down the market will it be 3 miles and the streets are busy busy busy and I’m dodging around people and I go round a man at the bus stop only to run straight into TWO CYCLISTS ON THE FUCKING PAVEMENT, and then a group of lads sprint past me on both sides and one of them scratches my arm so I stop to investigate but it’s not bleeding but just stinging and I think you little wanker and I go down the market and I remember that I want to get some info from the council about getting a market stall but only on a Saturday and I think I can pretend I’m in Eastenders and I wonder who I can be and I think I’ll be Carly, she’s pretty, but then I think that it would help if I was blonde and pretty and 15 years younger and I think well I certainly don’t want to be Stacey as that would involve snogging a ginger bloke and I think yes, I’ll be Carly, plus it would be pretty cool to have Phil Daniels as your dad and I get to the end of the market and I go home and I have done three miles, hurrah.

Stats:
Distance: 3.17 miles
Time: 35:38
Pace: 11:13
Calories: 251
Badly typed forms: 1
Cyclists on the pavement: 2
Scratched arms: 1
Music:
Muse
The Twang
The Cure
Hole

My half-marathon training schedule was adhered to last week in a not adhered to at all kind of way due to lying on Facebook about going out for a run on Monday (but I think it’s ok to lie on Facebook, it’s only if you lie on your blog you’re in trouble) and choosing to stay in and make jewellery instead; Tuesday I had to go to the agency after work to be spoon fed lines to say at Wednesday’s interview but I did go to the gym at lunchtime; Wednesday’s interview after work didn’t happen because of the HR woman being off sick but because I hadn’t planned to run, I didn’t; Thursday night I was out watching  bands in Camden at the Dublin Castle; and Friday I went to the gym at lunchtime.

So here we are again on Saturday and I wake up knackered but remember that I can’t fit into the patchwork cords I bought in Camden on Thursday and think I won’t ever fit into them if I lie in bed all day and I wonder if I can lose enough weight to fit into them in two weeks and I think probably not but I get up anyway and go downstairs and the bread machine bleeps to signal it’s finished doing its breadmaking thing and I think I won’t piss about this morning, I’ll just reload my iPod and get out straight away but by the time my iPod’s reloaded and I’ve got changed it’s 8:45 and I think it’s almost as late as it was last Saturday when I went out and I go round the marshes and I’m going so very very very slowly and every step is an effort and I do 5k in a pathetic 36 minutes and I get to the station and my Garmin says I’ve done 3.75 miles and I think hang on a minute, last week when I got here my Garmin said I’d done 4 miles, where’s the .25 miles gone? and I think oh no, it won’t be 5 miles when I get back and I wonder if I can do a lap of the park when I get back and I think no way, I’m knackered and I get to the park and I’ve only done 4.6 miles and I think ok, I’ll do a lap of a park and I go into the park and there’s footballers in there and there’s almost as many footballs as there are footballers and they’re making me nervous and I don’t want a football to come over and trip me up and I think I can’t do a lap of the park, I’m too scared of falling over a football, I’ll have to do a figure of 8 and cut it short and I loop round and I leave the park and I’ve only done 4.8 miles and I think well that will have to be enough and I get home and my Garmin says I’ve done 4.93 miles and I think well that’s near enough 5 miles but next week I have do to 6 miles, eek and I promise to myself that next week I will run 3 times, yeah, right.

Stats
Distance: 4.93 miles
Time: 57:52
Pace: 11:43
Calories: 411
Training schedules adhered to: 0
Job interviews: 0
Music
Devo
The Cure
Hole
The Shins
Baby Teeth