Month: January 2008

For the fourth outing of the SAS, we were joined by Warriorwoman for our weekly drinking training session, but the lure of the pub was too strong for her and she bailed out halfway round and took a short cut that very helpfully led straight to the pub.

The remaining five hardcore proper athlete types continued round and finished the lap where four of us departed to the pub, leaving the other two to be even more hardcore and do more laps.

Healthy drinks were consumed in the form of milk which had a very unhealthy price tag of £4 a pint, healthy facts emerged in the form of us all being ex-smokers, then we got fed up of being healthy and got some chips and garlic bread with cheese.

Stats
Distance: 5.03 miles
Time: 59:39
Pace: 11:51 m/m
Pints of milk at £4: 1
Bowls of chips: 1
Garlic bread with cheese: 1

More stats and route map here

Last night’s running commute was swapped in favour of free alcohol at an internet industry networking thing in keeping with [an anonymous friend’s] year of only drinking free alcohol and on our way to the geekfest we kept being offered free alcohol by owners of various Brick Lane curry emporiums and we thought that’s fate, we will go and get free alcohol then come and eat curry and drink more free alcohol although I seem to be drunk by 8pm and in the morning I can barely remember the restaurant and remember even less how I got home although I think it involved a bus and being in Chingford and some teenage girls and it’s 7:47am and I’m wondering why my alarm isn’t going off and I remember it’s Saturday and I think yay and I go back to sleep and I don’t wake up until 10:30 and I have a huge hangover and a stomach ache and I think can I wimp out of today’s run and I think no I can’t as I will be pissed off if I do so I get up and think that was a bad idea and I get back into bed but I immediately get up again and think how the fuck am I going to run 11 miles, I’m not even sure I can make it as far as the kettle but I do make it as far as the kettle and I make a cup of tea and drink lots of water and an hour or so later I’m feeling vaguely humanlike and I get my Garmin and my iPod and I think I haven’t charged my iPod for about a week, I hope it doesn’t die on me and I get to the marshes and there’s a group of people with WFHC on their tops and I wonder what the HC stands for and I have to stop at the bridge at the marina as there’s a cyclist in front of me wheeling his bike up the bridge and I get to the tennis courts and there’s a man at the fence waving me over and I go over and he asks me to throw his ball back that’s come over the fence and I find the ball and I look at the fence and I think oh shit that fence is a bit high, what if I can’t throw it that high, I’m going to look like an idiot but I manage to throw it over the fence and I continue on my run and hope no more obstacles like walking cyclists or wayward tennis balls are going to hold me up and I get round the marshes without any more obstacles and the singer from the Wombats is telling me for the third time that he’s moving to New York as he has issues with his sleep and I’m wondering why this song keeps coming up all the time and at 6.8 miles a boring Killers’ track comes on and I go to skip it and my iPod goes quiet and I think oh I must have pressed the off button by mistake so I press the on button which is the same button as the off button but nothing’s happening.  OH MY GOD MY IPOD HAS DIED ON ME AND I’VE GOT 4.2 MILES LEFT TO DO.  Fuck.  And I’m wondering if I can do another 4.2 miles without my iPod and I think well I’ll have to, I’m three miles from home anyway, might as well do the whole distance.  Bollocks.  And then something bleeps and I think maybe it’s my iPod coming back to life but I realise it’s my phone and I think am I allowed to stop and check my phone and I think probably not and I think I can check it when I get to the bridge but then I remember that I’m not going up the bridge, I’m going to continue into Tottenham Marshes to make the distance up and then it occurs to me that I have songs on my N95.  Yay, saved.  And I put my headphones into my phone and make sure the music’s coming through the headphones and not the speakers like I did last time and I go up to the bridge where the race started last year which was the last race I did and had to limp round the last half of it due to my leg falling off then not being able to walk for two months and then I head back towards home and I’ve got two miles left and I get to the park and I’ve got half a mile left so I do a lap of the park and then I go home and somehow I’ve managed to drag my hangover round 11 miles without stopping.  Sort of.

Today’s route

Stats
Distance: 11.11 miles
Time: 2:05:44
Pace: 11.18 m/m
Calories: 955
Walking cyclists: 1
Wayward tennis balls: 1
iPods dying at 6.8 miles: 1
N95s saving me: 1
Music
The Wombats
Cardiacs
The Killers
Peter, Bjorn and John

Due to people giving feeble excuses such as not being in the country, a sprained ankle, and imaginary spinning classes, I head off to Speaker’s Corner to meet the two new recruits to the SAS and as I am hardcore, I run down there from work but my Garmin doesn’t want to get a signal and so I stand in the middle of the road on a triangle junction thing until I realise I probably look a bit of a twat so continue on my way Garminless but it eventually picks up a signal about a mile down the road and I get to Speakers Corner early as I manage not to get lost and end up in Harlesden or Brighton and I wait for the others and we exchange the usual pleasantries like “is Hopping Bunny your real name?” and we head off round the park and I’m leading the way until I realise that I don’t actually know the way so I obviously haven’t been paying much attention although I’ve done it twice before and it’s practically a rectangle (although I actually think it’s more of a parallelogram) and I only have to turn off four times but I get confused about which four but we do a lap of the park without stopping and then two of us go to the pub for a quick pint where I am informed about the new spaniel-based recruit that will be joining us in a few months. Sweet as.

And also on the new recruit front, Angela is coming out to drink Stella run with us next week, hurrah.  Any other Londoners out there want to join us?  Go on, you know you want to really…

Yesterday’s route

Stats
Distance: 6.26 miles
Time: 1:11:59
Pace: 11:29
Calories: 589
Spaniels: 1
Pints: 1.5

Due to there being no trains tomorrow to St Albans, getting to tomorrow’s 10 mile race on time would mean leaving the house at about 6am, so I drop out of my sixth race in a row and decide to do ten miles locally at a civilised hour; today’s civilised hour of choice being lunchtime.

It’s raining which is my favourite running weather and it’s quite busy with runners and dog walkers over the marshes but today the runners are a bunch of miserable fuckers and don’t smile or say hello like they usually do when it’s raining and I think they must be new year people but they are out in the rain which is usually only the preserve of the hardcore but then I see the man that I’ve seen three or four weeks in a row over there and he says hello and I say hello back and I’m wondering if he just runs round Hackney Marshes all day as I see him every week and I’m always out there at different times and I think maybe he’s my stalker and then I think he might be thinking the same about me. Hmm.

I get back to the marina and past the rowing club and remember that I was going to take a mile detour up Tottenham Marshes then come back down to the street as that should take me up to ten miles by the time I get home but then I think it might be too far and I’ll just get back to the park and go round there until I get to ten miles and I get to the park and I’ve only done 8.9 miles and I think shit, I thought back to home was 9.3 miles so I go round the park a couple of times and there’s a speedy type in there and he laps me and I think bloody hell he’s quick and quite cute too and I wonder how often he runs in the park and then I’ve done ten miles and I seem to have done it without walking or without stopping to take photos of cows or without walking over bridges or without walking up the steep bits, in fact I’ve run the whole ten miles non stop but I did make sure I ate properly yesterday so maybe there’s something in this eating malarky after all.

Today’s route

Stats
Distance: 10.20 miles
Time: 1:52:12
Pace: 10:59
Calories: 959
Races missed tomorrow: 1
Music
The Wombats
The Killers
Cardiacs
Hole
Tori Amos
The Like
Bobby Conn

My hangover wasn’t as bad as originally envisaged so I got up early to go and do my scheduled 9 miles although I wasn’t sure how far I was going to get due to not having eaten since yesterday lunchtime which I wasn’t sure was the best training strategy nutrition-wise.

I get a mile and a half into the marshes and I stop to look at the sign to see how far Clissold Park is as londonjogger said there’s deer over there and it says 1.5 miles and I think cool, there’s deer just a mile and a half away but I don’t know how to get to the park and I remember that I was going to look in the A-Z but I’d forgotten and I think I can’t go now, I’ll get lost, so I continue down the marshes and the church has gone and they’ve replaced the grass they ruined by dancing all over it or whatever it is Christians do and I get to Hackney Marshes and a couple overtake me on the bridge and I think fucking cheek and they stop to walk round the puddles and I think lightweights and they turn off the way I want to go and I think bollocks, I’ll have to run alongside the river and dodge the puddles and when I get back to the path I see the lightweights ahead of me and I think fuck, I hope I’m not going to be following them all the way round but when they get to the edge of the marshes they turn back and I’ve spent the first 3 miles with the sun in my eyes and the sun must live in Hackney as when I get to the edge of the marshes the sun is huge and right in front of me, blinding me and I have to stop as I can’t see and then I get to the forest bit and there’s still loads of new year people out and I think I should be pleased as I’m usually scared when I’m on my own in the forest bit especially as the Cure song “Forest” always comes into my head at that point which doesn’t help me be any less scared and then I’m back in Walthamstow Marshes and I’m walking and thinking I’m hungry now and when I get home I’m going to have a bacon sandwich and then I remember I have sausages too and I think I’ll have a bacon and sausage sandwich and then I’m in a quandry because then I think maybe I should have one of each and I can’t decide and I think it would be nice if the only thing to ever worry about is whether to have a bacon or sausage sandwich or a bacon and sausage sandwich and I’m running and walking and I’m thinking I’m not going to make 9 miles oh fuck and there’s still loads of new year people and I think oh well they’ll be gone by the end of the month and then I think maybe they’re training for the London marathon in which case they’ll be gone by April and I get up to the rowing club and I’ve got about three miles left and I’m still walking loads and my legs are aching and I’ve got no energy at all and I think that will teach me for not eating and going to the pub instead and I walk most of the remaining three miles and think to myself that next week I will stay in and eat pizza and not drink because next week comes my next milestone of 10 miles, oh yes.

Distance:
9.22 miles
Time: 2:00:44
Pace: 13:05
Calories: 779
Churches: 0
Suns: 1
Sausage and bacon sandwiches: 1
Music:
Faith No More
Cardiacs
The Police
Boomtown Rats
Bee Gees
Bobby Conn
Catatonia
Devo
Primal Scream
Joy Division vs Missy Elliott
Kasabian
Manic Street Preachers
Muse
Sex Pistols

Yesterday saw the first outing of the Hyde Parkers and I would have blogged immediately as I usually do had I not been in the pub stretching, refueling, resting, and, er, that other stuff proper athletes do.

We did a slow 4 miles around the perimeter of Hyde Park then me and Jo sloped off to the pub while we waited for those speedy types to do another lap before coming to the pub to get the beers in, then much beer was consumed and many chips were eaten but proper athletes need carbs right?

And in the unlikely event that the scumbag who stole Jo’s bag a) can read; and b) is reading this blog:  I hope you get hit by a bus.  And I don’t mean a small Hoppa bus, but a really big bus.  Maybe a bendy one.  They’re quite big.

Yesterday’s route

Stats:
Distance: 4.31 miles
Time: 51:14
Pace: 11:54
Calories: 405
Pubs: 1
Bags nicked: 1