JogBlog running blog

After a successfulish lunchtime buying walking up mountain clothing, successful in a yes I got some trousers and a jacket but yes they’re hideous kind of way, I leave my new purchases at work and head off for my running commute. I can’t be bothered to wait two thousand years for my Garmin to get a signal so I start to run before it’s got a signal and decide it can catch up with me which it does pretty soon and after .3 of a mile it starts to rain and I think hurrah, maybe there’ll be less people on the pavement but no, there’s still as many people about, they just have umbrellas that they’re trying to kill me with and I think why don’t you just get wet you lightweights and I’m going down Essex Road and there’s a cyclist on the pavement and I think OI, CYCLIST, GET OFF THE PAVEMENT and I would like to point out ONCE AGAIN that I don’t hate all cyclists, just the ones on the pavement and the ones who go through red lights and once again this morning I did my counting Bromptons thing and I saw 4, all black, and I carry on walking and running and getting wet and I get to Balls Pond Road and I think I’ll run down the other side of the road for a change and a change is as good as a rest and maybe it’ll be like being on holiday and I’m running down the different side of the road and I decide it’s not really like being on holiday, it’s just like running down the different side of the road, funny that, and I get to the bottom of the road and think do I want to go through Stamford Hill or do I want to go through Hackney and I decide to go through Hackney as it will be fun risking my life by dodging bullets and stuff and I get to Hackney Downs station and I think I want to get on the train instead but I’m a drowned rat and they probably won’t let me on the train and so I carry on and there’s another CYCLIST ON THE PAVEMENT and I think fuck off cyclist but I’m in Hackney so I only think fuck off cyclist, not say fuck off cyclist, and I get to the marshes and I go over the bridge but I can’t see the cows from where I am and I get home and I wonder why I bother attempting a running commute as I always end up walking most of it.

Stats
Distance: 6.54 miles
Time: 1:30:47
Pace: 13:53
Calories: 527
Hideous trousers for walking up mountains in: 2
Hideous jackets for walking up mountains in: 1
Cyclists on pavements: 2
Bromptons: 4 am / 6 pm

I don’t do my running commute on Tuesday due to having run on Monday, and Wednesday night I’m in Kent counting sheep thus proving that a) I can count to 11; and b) Shaun isn’t lying when he says that there are usually more than three sheep at the bottom of his garden.

Thursday I’m too knackered to do my running commute due to not getting home ’til about 1am and Friday I’m not feeling well and even feel unwell enough to pass on a girly night out with free champagne but on the train home after work I’m doing my usual looking-out-of-the-window-to-see-if-the-cows-are-there thing and fuck, THE COWS ARE THERE!!!!! Woo and hoo indeed. At least, I think they’re cows as I haven’t got my glasses on but they definitely look like cow shaped lumps to me and I get a bottle of wine to celebrate the return of the cows and also some crisps and chocolate and I go home and drink wine and eat chocolate and crisps and get up this morning bright and early and remember the cows are there and so I head out and wait about sixteen hours for my Garmin to get a signal and I go and stand over the other side of the road to see if it’ll pick it up any better from there and I see a strange ladybird type bug thing that’s black with orange spots.

My Garmin springs into action by the time I’ve finished taking photos of the strange ladybird bug type thing with orange spots and I decide to take in Springfield Park as I’ve got to do seven miles this morning and when I get to the top of the hill that I walked up really really slowly sprinted up really really quickly I see two recycling bins pretending to be cows.

But they can’t fool me and I know they’re not real cows and so I continue on my quest to find some cows and I go over the boardwalk and look over to where the cows should be and I can’t see any cows and I walk a bit more and I still can’t see any cows and I think I’m going to cry or puff my cheeks out or stamp my feet or maybe even all three at the same time but then I think I can see some cow shaped lumps in the grass and then I see a tail waving and HOORAY THE COWS REALLY ARE BACK. Yee hah. And so I run up to where the cows are and there’s a man going towards the cows and I’m thinking get the fuck away from my cows now but he doesn’t get the fuck away from my cows and he goes over to the fence and I think that’s not fair, I want to stand there, that’s nearer the cows and then I wonder if I get my camera out will he fuck off and I get my camera out and he does indeed fuck off and I take pictures of the cows.

And this year’s cows are even meaner looking than last year’s cows.

And after I’ve finished looking at cows I remember I’m supposed to be half marathon training and so I say goodbye to the cows and continue on my run and I get back to the path by the river and there’s a man in running gear taking photos and I’m thinking oi, I’m the only runner over the marshes allowed to take photos and I wonder if he’s got a blog and I don’t know if he’s got a blog but he has got two bottles of water in his belt and I think two bottles of water? why do you need two bottles of water and I continue over the bridge and past the sex change pub and through the filterbeds and then I’m feeling a bit knackered and I stop to walk and two bottles of water man passes me and then he stops and takes a photo of some ducks and I see that actually he has four bottles of water and I think how thirsty can someone get? and as I get closer I see that actually it’s five bottles of water and I’m thinking fucking hell and I realise that it’s probably six bottles, three on each side and his t-shirt is covering the sixth bottle and I’m wondering if actually they’re all empty and he just can’t be arsed to take them out of the belt thing and he’s still taking photos of the river and I wonder if he’s doing the same route as me but when I get to the edge of the marshes he’s disappeared and I see this sign

and the pedant in me is pretty sure that it should be practising with an “s” not a “c” and then the pedant in me is also wondering why Golf has a capital “G” and then just to be really really pedantic, I’m thinking it’s not a park, it’s the marshes and wasn’t there anyone at Hackney Council who was involved in the process of making this sign born with more than half a brain cell and I’m thinking obviously not and I continue on my run and I get to the foresty bit and there’s a man fishing and I thought there was a sign to say no fishing and I’m thinking OI, MISTER, LEAVE THOSE FISH ALONE and I’m wondering whether I should take his photo and plaster it all over the internet, thus letting the whole of the world know that he’s a fish killer and I’m thinking it’s probably not worth it and I don’t think the Fish Killer of Hackney is really going to make front page news and so I carry on and I go over the bridge and a cyclist dismounts and I think bloody hell, a cyclist doing what they’re supposed to? Blimey. And it’s an old man on an orange and silver Brompton and I’ve been seeing so many Bromptons every day that yesterday I decided to start counting them but I only saw four on the way to work and two on the way back, which is nowhere near the dozen or so I saw on the way home on Thursday and then I get back to the stables and I need to do another mile and a half and I’m not a mile and a half from home so I decide to go back out the marshes the way I came in and I see two girls in pink running gear walking really slowly and I wonder if they’re training for a Race for Life and I look at my Garmin and I’m on 6.66 miles and then I wonder if Gary’s going to wear an Iron Maiden t-shirt tonight and then I think of course he is, I’ve never seen him wear anything else in the 15 years that I’ve known him and I wonder if Shaun’s going to wear his Slayer t-shirt like he said he was going to and I’ll have to be seen out in public with two heavy metal t-shirt wearing men, eek.

Stats
Distance: 7.9 miles
Time: 1:37:33
Pace: 12:21
Calories: 729
Ladybirds with orange spots: 1
Recycling bins pretending to be cows: 2
Cows not pretending to be recycling bins: 5
Men with six water bottles: 1
Signs with the correct spelling of the word “practising”: 0
Fish killers: 1
Bromptons: 1
Music
Franz Ferdinand
The Editors
Elastica
Siouxsie & The Banshees
Black Kids
Modest Mouse
Plain White Ts
Ash
Blondie
Metallica
Fort Minor
Nirvana
The Shins
Killing Joke
Jeff Buckley
The Seahorses
Blur
The Charlatans
Ben Folds Five

Somehow I manage to let myself be talked into sitting in a car for 7 hours, a moving car at that, forgetting how I’m scared of cars/roads/traffic/everything and we go down to Cornwall to visit Emily and Michael and we stay in a B&B owned by the weirdest couple ever

and we spend the evening in the pub and get up the next day and it’s raining like you’ve never seen rain before and we go round Emily’s and she says they’ve been trying to think of stuff to do while it’s raining and I say we can go and see the donkeys and Emily says you want to see the donkeys in the rain? and I say yes, we are hardcore, we can cope with a bit of rain and Emily being the hostess with mostess indulges me and says in that case we’re going to see the donkeys but I must warn you they’re not always there and I say they will be there today, they must be and so we go out in the horizontal rain and wind and I’m trying to think up a new word for torrential but fail miserably and after a couple of miles we see the donkeys.  Hurrah.

And then Emily says do you want to see the sea and I say yes and she says it’s in the opposite direction and I’m thinking that I’m already wringing wet and trying to forget that Shaun was right when he said it wasn’t worth me straightening my hair before coming out and that it’d only get wet and I say yes, let’s see the sea and so we go and see the sea

and there’s a big rock thing

and some smaller rock things that we have to climb over

and I’m glad I’ve got my new walking up mountain boots on and on the way back we see some cows

and they’re weird cows who stare at you like they’ve never seen people before and we get back soaking wet and go back to our hotel to dry out and then go to the pub with the cute cat that was sleeping on the table until we turned up

and then the next day we have to go home but before we go we go and take a look at Land’s End

which is a really tacky place although there is a handy sign to tell you to beware of cliffs

in case you were too stupid to notice them

and we leave Land’s End after about ten minutes, not sure if we got our £3 parking fee’s worth but we have a long drive ahead of us which is made marginally better by the field full of invisible monkeys and today I’ve got the day off and I decide that I really really need to start training for the half in October and I go out to attempt a six miler and woo hoo, I manage to do it without stopping, hurrah.

Cornwall walk route

Stats
Distance: 6.38 miles
Time: 1:09:27
Pace: 10:53
Calories: 631
Donkeys: 2
Cows: loads
Weird B&B owners: 2
Fields full of invisible monkeys: 1

My last run was two weeks ago and even that was a feeble effort, merely being one of my half-hearted attempts at a running commute, which usually consists of a lot of walking. Hmm, sort of like tonight’s one then. But that Buckeye thing over on the right keeps telling me I’ve got a half marathon to train for so I pack my running gear in an attempt to redeem myself for being a slacker the last two weeks but in my defence I was forced to go out and celebrate the end of Veganthon on Friday which didn’t bode well for a Saturday morning run, especially as a trip into town to look for walking boots that aren’t too hideous was called for (a failed trip, they’re all hideous), as well as having to get ready to go out for dinner round Tracey’s. And going round Tracey’s for dinner and getting through the best part of two bottles of wine didn’t bode well for a Sunday morning run, although I did manage to wobble my way through three miles on a bike and this weekend’s not going to be much better, what with me attempting to go to Cornwall again although this time by road instead of air although I think I may be tipped out of the window if I insist on playing my music selection all the way on my new 160gb iPod which at the last count has 12,632 songs on it which equates to 36.5 days’ worth of music. Yippee.

Stats
Distance: 6.33 miles
Time: 1:30:41
Pace: 14:20
Calories: 438
Music
Cardiacs
Blur
Graham Coxon
Catatonia
Rolling Stones
Modest Mouse
The Smiths
Stereo Total