JogBlog running blog

I didn’t run the Flora London Marathon this year (or any other year for that matter), I entered the ballot for the first time ever but I was a reject.  Although that was possibly for the best, as my training for the Kent Coastal Marathon last year only consisted of a week’s training, which was promptly ditched when I found out that a) the first half of the course was hilly; and b) I couldn’t wear my iPod.

So congratulations to Adele and all the other nutters runners who ran yesterday and who were probably a bit surprised to find out that it was a gorgeous sunny day with nothing but blue skies and no sign of the grey cloud and heavy showers that the wonderfully inept BBC weather website had predicted only the day before.

And with that in mind, if I ever get onto the Virgin London Marathon website and manage to enter the ballot for next year (which is looking unlikely as apparently due to unprecedented demand [i.e. they forgot that it gets oversubscribed by about 120,000 people each year, duh] the website is down), with the weather forecast being so unreliable, I’m going to have more sartorial dilemma’s than Leighsa when she went to the physio.  What running gear do I wear?  Shorts and sun visor?  Tracksuit bottoms, reject’s fleece and golf umbrella?  Maybe I’ll just stick to being a pantomime horse.

Since the age of about 30, I have tried to be a responsible, law-abiding citizen (yes, ok, so I’m a late developer to the responsible, law-abiding citizen thing) and so I ring my mortgage company to tell them I’m moving and putting tenants in my house and do I need to inform them? and the man on the phone says yes, you need our consent and it will cost you £225 and you also need to change your insurance to a landlord policy.  So I ring up my insurance company and say hello, I’m moving house and putting tenants in and need to change my policy.  I’m asked for the policy number of the insurance of where I’m moving to.  Huh? I want to change the policy of where I’m moving from, not to.  Woman on the phone says I need to have my insurance with them at the place I’m moving to if I want to have landlord insurance on my current property.  Huh?  Can you say that again please?  She repeats what she just said and I say but it’s not my property, the insurance there is nothing to do with me, I just want to change the insurance on my property.  She says I can’t, unless where I’m moving to is insured with them.  But it’s not my property.  She says it doesn’t matter, you have to have insurance with us at your main residential address if you want our insurance on another property you own.  BUT THAT’S CRAZY I say.  She says that’s their policy.  I say well I’m going to have to cancel my insurance with you then.  She says yes I will, and she’ll cancel it from now.  BUT YOU CAN’T CANCEL IT FROM NOW, I STILL LIVE THERE I say.  She says ok, when do you want to cancel it from?  I say I’ll call you back.  I phone my bank and say can I have some landlord insurance please and the nice man says yes you can and it sounds like a pretty reasonable price too so I get my insurance with them and phone the crappy CIS or The Co-operative Insurance or whatever they’re called now and say stick your insurance up your arse you idiots.

Stats:
Insurance companies who are idiots: 1
Nice banks who gave me insurance: 1
Blog posts about running: 0

This time last year, I was just about to leave my job and start a new job and get sacked from the new job three weeks later (obviously I didn’t know about the getting sacked bit this time last year).  When I got the sack, I decided not to mope about but to find something new and different to do and what I found was a Facebook advert asking me if I wanted to climb up and down three mountains in three days and I thought to myself, do I want to climb up and down three mountains in three days? and I thought no, not really, but I might meet some fit men, so I signed up and then read the things to buy list which at the top was walking boots and so I went into Blacks and Snow & Rock looking for some sexy walking boots and came away with the impression that sexy walking boots do. not. exist.

This impression was further compounded by this video about Keen Sandals which has been brought to my attention.  I should have had alarms ringing just by the mention of the word “keen” and the word “sandals”.  Can it get any worse?  Can the image of middle-aged men be any stronger?  Still, I watched the video and they sound quite impressive with their toe protectors which apparently stop your toes from getting bruised, which I certainly could have done with after three days going up and down mountains and they’ve even got a recycled sole for all you tree-huggers out there and they have an alternative to leather which are salt water resistant so you can, um, go swimming in them or something but the only thing that appeals to me is the bunjee cord instead of a normal lace, as for some reason I have the dexterity skills of a two year old and can not do my laces up so they stay done up for more than about an hour.  Still, the man on the video says they’re a design classic, and who am I to argue?

As you may have noticed, I haven’t blogged for a while and you also may have noticed that the last time I blogged it was about how I didn’t run the Reading Half Marathon, only turning up for the important bit, i.e. the drinking beer and eating pizza bit.

As you may also know, I have a move to the countryside coming up and whilst thinking about things like letting my house out to women with kids (kids?  In my house?  Eek.) and telling the mortgage company and the insurance company and the TV/broadband/phone company and the Inland Revenue and the gas and electric companies and countless other companies (do I need to tell the man in the local off licence to tell his kids not to expect any Christmas presents this year due to Santa’s profits being hit?) it occurred to me that I’m going to need some posh new running gear so people in the countryside don’t think that Londoners are a bunch of scruffs.

So what do I buy to impress the countryside people?  Do they even care?  If I buy green will I look like a tree and run the risk of having a dog wee on me?  And what size do I get?  I’m going to have lots of running time on my hands (or should that be feet?), so will I run so much I’m going to shrink to a size zero?  Ooh, I hope so.  Or maybe I should get a size 14 as, as well as having lots of running time, I’m also going to have lots of time to explore the new fridge and its plentiful supply of chocolate that I know lives in there.   Or maybe some hi-vis gear due to the fact that I’m going to have to run on the road (or lanes or whatever it is countryside people call that three foot wide long bit of concrete they drive down) and risk getting run over by a tractor.

Maybe I’ll just stay here where it’s safe and there’s less likelihood of being weed on by a dog or run over by a tractor.  But then where would my excuse for buying new clothes come from?

A nice man called Huw emailed me and asked me if I wanted a challenge.   I pondered this briefly and said yes please, I like challenges.  He also asked me if I wanted a free Sony Walkman W Series mp3 player.  I also pondered this briefly and said yes please nice man, BRING ON THE FREEBIES.

A parcel turns up for me at work and I eagerly open it and hmm, it’s a nasty plum and gold colour, but this isn’t the nice man’s fault as I didn’t specify a colour and so he either thought I seemed like a plum and gold kind of girl, or it was the first box that came to hand and he just shoved it in the envelope without giving colour choice a second thought.   Methinks the latter.

I give it a greater inspection when I get home and it’s nice and light but as it’s wireless and the mp3 player is in the headphones, it looks like one of those bluetooth mobile telephone things, the things that make you look like a dork and as there’s two earpieces on the Walkman, I’m going to look like a double-dork.  Ouch.

The next morning I get up bright and early and I don’t mean a I’ve been up drinking and watching Sex and the City all night 10am bright and early, I mean a what the fuck am I doing up at 6am on a Saturday morning kind of bright and early and I take the Walkman upstairs to put some music on it, as my challenge is to compile a playlist that will improve my performance.  I was asked ages ago by Phil to compile a playlist and share it with the internet people, but I sort of accidentally didn’t get round to doing it.  The absence of any freebies being offered was purely coincidental.

The Walkman comes with a cute little docking station and the headphones magnetically clip together with a satisfying click.  This isn’t purely aesthetic, unclipping them turns the Walkman on.  According to the instructions the status lamp should start blinking but I can’t see a status lamp, blinking or otherwise, so I reconsult the instructions and it has a handy picture for idiots like me that literally points you in the right direction with an arrow pointing at the lamp but it’s still not doing anything and so I read the instructions again and one of the first things it says is “when you use the player for the first time … the player may take some minutes to be recognised by the computer”.  In other words, be patient.

So while I’m being patient I have another look at the instructions as I’m sure I saw on there somewhere that it can be used with iTunes.  Yippee.  That’ll save me having to a) think of what to put on the Walkman; and b) finding the tracks hidden in the depths of my hard drive.  But I can’t find the bit that says I can use it with iTunes and so I try to use Windows Media Player but give up after a while as it’s not happening and I look at the instructions again and yippee, find the bit about  iTunes and I need to install the Walkman’s Content Transfer and so I try to do this but it says the installer can’t be installed and so I’m going to have to drag and drop and I go through my iTunes folder to try and choose some music and I’m wondering why the fuck I’ve got 18 Metallica albums and unsurprisingly don’t choose any tracks from any of them and I eventually choose some tracks to take me round my planned 30 minutes/3 miles marshes run.

I set Cedric for 30 minutes/3 miles and cheat by eating some jelly beans to power me through it and I get outside and it’s very windy and I think the dorky headphones are going to come off but they stay nicely in my ears and they’re comfy and the sound quality is great but I’m not sure my playlist is going to improve my performance and first up is Inbetweener by Sleeper that I chose because ages ago I had an idea to write a chick lit novel called Inbetweener even though a) I haven’t read many (if any) chick lit books; and b) don’t know how to write one but Sleeper is always good to listen to and next up is  Only Living Boy in New Cross by Carter which I chose because I was supposed to see a band in New Cross yesterday, but didn’t due to having to clean the house in preparation for the letting agent today and which turns out to be good running music, although as I get to the bridge Cedric catches up so I must run faster and next is Cardiacs with In a City Lining, chosen because I spent yesterday updating my Facebook status with lines from it.  This has to be the most impossible music in the world to run to, as they refuse to keep to the same time signature for more than 20 seconds at a time and it’s all stop/start but this is partly what makes them the best band in the world ever.  The other part is simply that Tim Smith is a genius.

Next up is Graham Coxon with You & I that I remembered kept me on the treadmill once longer than I had planned and so anything that can keep me on a treadmill must be good.  And it’s nothing to do with the fact that he’s got that geek chic thing going on.

Just Say Yes by the Cure is a song that makes me happy.  I should have played this last night when I was having a major strop because I had to do the hoovering and tidying  instead of sitting on the sofa drinking wine and eating chocolate which is what I should have been doing on a Friday night (or being in New Cross watching a band, if you’ve been paying attention).

More Cardiacs, this time Joining the Plankton, which is my most favourite song in the world ever and the song I want played at my funeral.  I’ll probably have more than one song but I haven’t thought of any others yet.

Hole start singing Miss World.  I really like this song but I’ve never run to it before and I don’t think I will again as it sounds quite depressing.  Still, never mind because next is My Delirium by Ladyhawke and this is more like it, up-beat and dancey and just right to give me the final push for the last bit of the run which my Garmin tells me I have 21 seconds left to do and when I finish, I’ve beaten Cedric.

So, challenge completed.  Not really songs chosen to give me a push but songs chosen for various reasons, none of which running related.  Don’t tell the nice man, he might ask for the Walkman back.

Stats:
Distance: 3.04 miles
Time: 30:02
Pace: 9:52 m/m
Calories: 298
Up bright and earlies: 1
New MP3 players: 1
Music:
Sleeper - Inbetweener
Carter - Only Living Boy in New Cross
Cardiacs - In a City Lining
Graham Coxon - You & I
Cure - Just Say Yes
Cardiacs - Joining the Plankton
Hole - Miss World
Ladyhawke - My Delirium