JogBlog running blog

As last week’s run was powered by half a slice of sun-dried tomato and jalapeno bread which seemed to do the trick, this morning, as I’ve told myself I’m doing eight miles today, I thought I’d better eat a whole slice of this morning’s freshly baked sun-dried tomato, jalapeno and pumpkin seed bread although I’m not really hungry and then I procrastinate for an hour and 45 minutes and I’m eventually out the door at 9:30 and the footpath is still closed and I’m wondering if eating bread before running is a good idea and I’m feeling bloated and I think I’ve got a carb belly, unlike Leighsa who gets a carb face (no, I haven’t a clue what she’s on about either) and I pull my tights up to hold my belly in and I’m hoping I don’t get camel toe instead as I’m hardly a picture of sartorial running elegance at the best of times and before I left I was reading Adele’s blog and she mentioned diggers in the river and I was thinking what is she on about? is she running in some parallel marshes universe? but when I get to the river I see there is indeed a digger in the water and as I get round the corner there are two more diggers in the water and I get round the marshes and there’s far more footballers playing than usual and they even have spectators today and I wonder why and as I’m approaching the bridge that brings me back to the stables there’s a lake on the path and I think that’s weird, there’s not usually water here and I wonder how deep it is and there’s no way around it but my feet are hot and I think it will cool them down so I go through the water and it is deep and very cold and it has cooled my feet down but now they’re all squelchy and as I get to the bridge I see it’s flooded and there’s water pouring down into it and so I go up to the road instead and there’s a girl standing in the road and I think don’t stand in the middle of Lea Bridge Road, it’s busy,  you’ll get run over and then I realise there’s no cars and I wonder where all the cars are and I look to my left and the road’s cut off and and so I go over to be nosy investigate and there’s a burst pipe and the road’s flooded and I wonder how Shaun’s going to get to mine and I cross the road and go back into the marshes and go out the way I came in and I think bollocks, I’m going to have to do two laps of the park and I hate doing laps of the park and I get to the park and I carry on down the road and go round the block and then I go into the park for the last half a mile and there’s loads of people with babies and buggies in there and I knew there was a reason why I don’t like going into the park and for some reason it seems to be all men with buggies and I’m wondering if it’s National Single Dad Day today or something and I go past a man with a buggy and he smiles at me and I think don’t be getting any ideas mate, I’m not being a replacement mum for your kid and babies aren’t a stop and talk and gurgle and coo or whatever thing for me, they’re a run very fast in the opposite direction thing and I get home after my eight miles and remember that someone from Nike+ spammed me and didn’t offer me any freebies, bah, but asked me to link to this Facebook page and I’m not really sure what it is, some Men v Women thing, so go and have a look.

Stats:
Distance: 8.18 miles
Time: 1:31:41
Pace: 11:13 m/m
Calories: 717
Loaves of sun-dried tomato, jalapeno and pumpkin seed bread: 1
Diggers: 3
Floods: 1
Men with babies: loads
Links to some Nike+ Men v Women thing: 1
Music:
Cardiacs
Ladyhawke
MGMT
Polyphonic Spree
Maximo Park
Faith No More
Pulp
Hole
Black Wire

I originally RSVP’d yes to the monthly London Blogger’s Meet Up, but spurred on by my successful run on Saturday, I decide to try and salvage something in the run up to the Reading Half and do some eleventh hour (ahem) proper training and so when Tracey emails me and says are you coming to the Blogger’s Meet Up to get free alcohol, I say no, I’m going to run home instead and it takes me until I get to the Angel - a mile away from the office - to get a signal on my Garmin (because, like I said before, no Garmin, no running) and I start running down Upper Street and go past Hamburger Union where I went last week before I went to see the Secret Machines and no one should ever eat in there because a) the burgers are crap: b) the chips are crap; and c) the service is crap and I had a nicer Burger King Veggie Whopper Meal in a service station somewhere in between Wales and home (yeah, my geography is shit) last year and after 2.05 miles, my left knee starts to hurt and I’m wondering if maybe I should get on the train at Hackney Downs which I’m nearly at but it starts to ease off and I’m thinking knee, if you’re going to hurt, hurt now so I can get on the train but it stays not hurting and then at 2.90 miles, my right foot starts to hurt and I think I SAID IF YOU WERE GOING TO HURT, THEN HURT BEFORE I’M AT THE STATION because it’s no good being stuck after the station because I’ve no way of getting home as I’ve only got an overground ticket and there’s no money on my Oyster card and I only have my credit card on me and I don’t think buses take credit cards and the buses don’t go to my house anyway but then my foot stops hurting and I get home and because it’s Shrove Tuesday, I make a big Dutch pancake and top it with mushrooms, spinach, tomatoes and cheese and you can see a picture here and it was really really nice and then I do my washing and find out my washing machine’s broken and then I’m really really pissed off and Shaun rings and says how are you? and I say my washing machine’s broken and he says what are you going to do about that and I say you’re going to fix it and he says oh.

Stats:
Distance: 5.51 miles
Time: 1:09:00
Pace: 12:31 m/m
Calories: 450
Free alcohol: 0
Running commute: 1
Hurting left knees: 1
Hurting right feet: 1
Pancakes: 1
Washing machines that work: 0
Music:
Cardiacs
The Killers
Ladyhawke
MGMT
Polyphonic Spree
Libertines
David Bowie
Faith No More

This morning’s aroma (apart from the cat litter tray) was sun-dried tomato and jalapeno bread and I start to eat it while I’m emptying the dishwasher and making tea and I think stop eating bread, I don’t usually eat before a run and I decide to call it fuelling instead of gluttony and it looks bright and sunny today and I wonder how far I should run and I decide to attempt six miles and think ha ha ha ha ha, yeah, right, I don’t think I’ve run more than four miles in the whole of my “training” and the Reading Half’s in five weeks and once again I think oops and I go to put my Garmin outside and it says it’s only got 11 hours charge on it and it usually has 13 and I think will I be out running for more than 11 hours? and I think probably not and I tell the cat to go inside and she goes inside and hisses at me and I think why are you hissing at me? you usually save that kind of behaviour for Shaun and Faith No More start singing From Out of Nowhere and I think oh no, I don’t like to leave a song unfinished, but if I wait until the song’s finished, my Garmin will lose its signal and so I cut Faith No More off in their prime and go outside and I get to the marina and there’s a sign that says footpath closed and I wonder if the sign’s lying and it’s really closed and I think anyway, I don’t want the footpath, I want the footbridge and I go up to the bridge and it is shut and I think they need to change their sign and I turn round and go back and then there’s a sign that says footbridge closed and I think that’s a stupid place to put it, after people have already been up to the bridge and found it closed and so I go the other way and a man runs past me with a small dog and he says hello and I get overtaken on the bridge before the Sex Change Pub but I don’t mind being overtaken, after all I’m used to it and then there’s a dog with three legs rolling around and looking very happy  and there’s a man coming down the path with a hoody and gloves and I think HOW SCARY DO YOU LOOK? and on the corner is a man standing by a tree and I wonder why he’s standing by a tree and I decide he’s just waiting for people to play football with and in the car park is a group of people and I wonder why they’re hanging around in the car park and I decide they are also just waiting for people to play football with and I turn right instead of left this time as last time I turned left it was the wrong way and I got lost in the forest like The Cure although I’m not sure if they were singing about Hackney Marshes and then a cyclist starts to slow down and I think please don’t stop and he stops and I think eek but then I see he’s just waiting for his dog and I think phew and two old men walk past me and they say hello and I wonder why I’m not scared of old men or cyclists or runners or people walking dogs  or people walking with other people but if I see any men under the age of 50 on their own over the marshes I have a heart attack and I go past the stables and it smells and it reminds me I’ve got to empty the litter tray and then I get home and somehow I’ve managed to do nearly 6.5 miles.  Yay for me.

Splits

Stats:
Distance: 6.47 miles
Time: 1:11:26
Pace: 11:03 m/m
Calories: 555
Loaves of sun-dried tomato and jalapeno bread: 1
Cats hissing: 1
Runners overtaking me on bridges: 1
Dogs with three legs: 1
Scary looking men with hoody and gloves: 1
Men standing by trees: 1
Groups in the car park: 1
Cyclists stopping to wait for their dog: 1
Smelly stables: 1
Smelly cat litter trays: 1
Music:
Cardiacs
The Killers
Ladyhawke
MGMT
Polyphonic Spree
Libertines

I get contacted by a nice lady from Mitchell Beazley who asks me if I’d like copies of two books to give away on my Planet Veggie website.   FREEBIES?!!  Like she even needs to ask; just send me the freebies, and so I email the nice lady back and say yes please, send me the books and I will run a competition on my site and she sends me the books which are Veg: The Cookbook by Gregg Wallace and The Seasoned Vegetarian by Simon Rimmer and I think hmm, I’ve seen Masterchef and I don’t remember Gregg Wallace being a vegetarian and so I look at Veg: The Cookbook with some suspicion and it doesn’t say anything about being a vegetarian book on the front cover, nor on the back cover and neither on the inside front cover or inside back cover and so I flick through the book at the recipes  which all look very nice and are indexed by vegetable but then lo! my suspicions are confirmed when I see a recipe containing beef.  Eek.  And it says something about slicing up the dead cow and I drop the book like a hot potato although I’d rather have a hot potato than a dead cow and I email the nice lady and say I’m sorry but it’s not a vegetarian book and therefore I can’t give it away on Planet Veggie but I do have another blog where I allow meat-eaters to come and play and I can give the book away on there if that’s ok? and the nice lady emails me back and says yes, that’s fine and so I have three copies of Veg: The Cookbook to give away and I’ve been trying to think of a competition but failed miserably and so all you have to do to win one of three copies is to write a comment telling me why you should win the book and the three comments I like the best will win and I really hope that more than three people comment otherwise I’m going to look like a saddo.

Stats:
Copies of non-vegetarian books to give away: 3
Copies of vegetarian books to give away when I get round to it: 3
Date competition ends: 28 February 2009

It has been brought to my attention that there were two notable absences from my slackers and smartarses lists and they are Big Runner, who outed himself on Facebook to thank me for sparing him from my wrath and I thought ooooooooooooooh, no Big Runner, you’re not spared my wrath, I just forgot and yes, you’re quite right, your blog should, under the Trade Descriptions Act, now be called Big Slacker and Fit Artist pointed out that Highway Kind never slacks, ever and although Highway Kind tried to get out of being on the smartarses list by claiming that he does slack because he goes on the treadmill if the weather’s crap (my words obviously, he’d put it far more eloquently what with him not being a foul-mouthed Essex girl like what I is) he can’t get out of being on the smartarses list that easily because going on the treadmill is not slacking; going on the treadmill is hardcore and only for the terminally dedicated which is what I was on Tuesday when I went on the treadmill because the weather was crap and after one minute I thought can I do that another 29 times? and I thought yes of course I can and after five minutes I thought can I do that another 5 times? and I thought no, bollocks to that and so after 15 minutes I stopped being hardcore and terminally dedicated and went home to be softcore and terminally undedicated.

Stats:
Distance: 1.43 miles
Time: 15:00
Pace: 10:30 m/m
Calories: 141
New slackers: 1
New smartarses: 1

Bah.  I wrote a blog post then the connection went down and I lost it.  I haven’t got time to write it again now, got to go and do that going to work thing.  I will re-write it tonight.  Maybe.

Although not quite into the smartarse list yet.

Still, after waking up and smelling my freshly baked cheddar, sun-dried tomato and olive bread (which you can look at on my new blog, plug plug), I make a cup of tea (Twining’s Echinacea & Raspberry), empty the dishwasher (Smeg, stainless steel), feed the cat (small, black) and write down my dream in my notebook which consists of four pages (the dream, not the notebook, um, I don’t mean the dream was about four pages, oh you know what I mean) and an armache due to me not being very practised in the art of putting pen to paper these days, what with finger to keyboard being the more modern way of doing things and I’m up bright and early and think the sooner I go out, the sooner I can come back and munch on the bread and I think it’s going to be cold and Shaun said it was going to be minus 2 and I think maybe I’ll wear my Helly Hansen top underneath my usual long sleeve top (Nike?  Adidas?) and then I think that’ll be uncomfortable but then I think that’s what base layers are for, for wearing underneath other things and so I put two tops on and it’s not uncomfortable and I go outside and the canal’s higher than I’ve ever seen it and it must be full of melted snow and I wonder if the cows have gone as I didn’t see them from the train the other day although I did see some lumps but wasn’t sure if the lumps were snow covered cows or snow cows or just lumps of snow or what and an old lady on a bicycle cycles past me and nods and smiles and I think old ladies on bicycles I can probably put up with, it’s just the rest of the cycling population I can live without and I go past a building site and I think why is there a building site in the marshes? I don’t want a building site in the marshes, this is a nature reserve and I go through the bridge and then there’s a big iced over puddle and I wonder if I tread on it and the ice breaks will I fall through and drown? and I decide probably not as it’d only be about 2 inches deep and then I think hang on, it’s a well known fact that you can drown in 2 inches of water isn’t it? and so I don’t tread on the iced over puddle in case I drown and I get onto the boring bit and I can’t get right over to the edge and I turn my iPod down so I can hear any cars coming and I think that’s no good, Courtney Love is singing and Courtney needs to be LOUD and I get to where the pavement comes back and turn my iPod back up and a skinny girl who seems to consist of nothing but long limbs runs past and Blur come on with Girls & Boys and it sounds brilliant and spurs me on and I don’t notice the rest of the boring bit and I was supposed to list my top ten running tunes as I was tagged by The Red Bucket but I didn’t think I had any but now I have one.  Is that ok Mr Bucket?

Stats:
Distance: 3.01 miles
Time: 32:17
Pace: 10:44 m/m
Calories: 290
Loaves of cheddar, sun-dried tomato and olive bread: 1
Aching arms due to writing four pages with a pen: 1
Old ladies on bicycles: 1
Ice puddles waiting to drown me: 1
Top running tunes on my list of 10: 1
Music:
Electric Soft Parade
Hole
Duran Duran
Blur
Nirvana

Everyone likes lists, so here’s a list of slackers.  Obviously, there’s only one person who can go at the top of that list and that’s me.  So, in no particular order (actually, they’ll be alphabetic order, as I’m just going down my blogroll, picking on people), except for no. 1:

1. Me (I’m not calling myself JogBlog, I don’t do the pretentious talk about yourself in the third person thing.  Um, except on my Facebook status.  Damn, just outed myself.  Must. Stop. Outing. Myself.)  I have been slack.  Very slack.  But my boiler was broken for 9 days and therefore I couldn’t shower and wash my hair after and that’s my excuse and it’s nothing to do with the fact that I was MONUMENTALLY PISSED OFF and found it more fun to sit next to a fan heater or three and drink wine and eat crisps and chocolate instead.
2. Carl (aka Boris).  No sign of a blog post since 30 December.  Tut tut.  He also informs me that he’s probably not going to do Reading due to lack of training.  Triple tut.
3. Running From 30.  Not a lot of activity going on on her blog either, although there was a confession of a lack of running.  Don’t you have a half to do at the end of March, Meg?  One beginning with R and ending in eading?
4. Seaside Strider.  She appears to be making the excuse of having a bad back.  But I’m going to let her off as she’s married to Sore Limbs (see no. 5) and so deserves our sympathy.  Get well soon Eva.
5. Sore Limbs.  He reckons he’s been doing the odd three or four miler so not completely fulfilling the definition of slacker but I just like picking on him.
6. Strumming, running & drinking.  Emma, I think you need to take one of the words out of the title of your blog.
7. The Red Bucket.  Phil’s excuse is that the gym is busy.  But he’s  not supposed to be in the gym, he’s supposed to be outside training for a half.
8. Warriorwoman.  This should be at number one really (although obviously no one’s allowed to be at number one except me) as Angela’s excuse is that she’s too happy to run.  TOO HAPPY TO RUN?  I’ve heard it all now.

Still, although I seem to be surrounded by slackers, at least virtually, some of you out there have been very good with your training, i.e.

1. iliketocount.  Keeping up with his marathon training.  And mince pie eating.  And measuring rain.  And all the other weird things he does.
2. Fit Artist.  Also training for the  London Marathon and does most of her runs with a buggy.  Hardcore.
3. More to Life  Than Weight.  Said to me “noooooooooooooo, I can’t do a half, no way, no way, no way”.  Is now powering through her training and putting me to shame.  Way to go, Leighsa.

But just remember you three, no one likes a smartarse.

Stats:
Slackers: 8
Non-slackers: 3

I did run on Saturday and have been berated for not blogging but my run was pathetic as after .43 of a mile, my Garmin ran out of battery and so I turned round and went home and I didn’t know how far I’d really gone as I didn’t know how long my Garmin had been out of battery before I noticed and when I got home I didn’t have time to blog as I had to get ready to go to a party in the Cotswolds and that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it so there.

Stats:
Distance: .43 miles
Time: 4:04
Pace: 9:29 m/m
Calories: 41
Garmin batteries staying charged: 0
Parties: 1