JogBlog running blog

My plans for an outdoor three miles this morning were scuppered by the stupid bloody poxy snow that made a reappearance yesterday, continuing through the night and leaving me with this view

outside the front door this morning.  Pretty, it may be, but it was snowing pretty heavily and I didn’t fancy my chances of staying upright in it, so I took myself off to the gym instead.

The gym was empty but there was a man walking on the outside treadmill and I didn’t want to go on the other outside one as it’s in kilometres, not miles (although the one he was on was in kilometres the other day too, which it never used to be, so I hope they’re not going to also change the one remaining treadmill that counts in proper money) so I went on the one next to him and told it I wanted to do three miles and off I went, quite slowly as I was tired today, and then a pikey woman started walking on the treadmill next to me and her fat pikey child was on the elliptical trainer next to her and I thought what’s a child doing in here, it’s not a playground and then I wondered if maybe the school was shut due to the stupid bloody poxy snow and it was probably better that she brought her little porker with her to the gym instead of taking it to Starbucks across the road and fed it pastries although that was probably where they were going next and I’m running and running on the treadmill and the pikey woman is walking and walking and I eventually do my three miles and I go on the rowing machine and then I do some weights and the only other person in the gym by then is a man doing weights and he’s left his towel, diary and water bottle on the seat of one of the leg weights machines and I wonder if he thinks it’s a table and I don’t want to ask him to move them and so I only do upper body stuff and then I go home and have broccoli and stilton soup which was voted for over potato and leek by some Twitter friends.

Stats:
Distance: 3 miles
Time: 32:42
Pace: 10:54
Calories: 311
Men walking on treadmills: 1
Women walking on treadmills: 1
Kids confusing gyms with playgrounds: 1
Men confusing weight machines with tables: 1
Music:
Detholz
Cardiacs
Blur
Julian Casablancas
White Rabbits

I went to the gym today to do my two miles and I thought it’ll be busy in there as it’s Monday and everyone will be panicking about the half a glass of wine and packet of crisps that they consumed over the weekend and will be cycling furiously trying to burn it off but when I get there, there’s only two people in there and I wonder where all the Monday people are and I also wonder if all the New Year newbies have fucked off now and I think yay, I get the place to myself then, result and I go to the changing room that only I seem to use and I put my stuff in the locker that only I seem to use and go back into the gym and there’s a man walking on a treadmill and so I do the British thing and get on a treadmill further away, leaving a respectable gap between us but the screen’s in kilometres and I don’t want kilometres, I want miles and so I get on the treadmill next to the man and this one’s in miles and I think hurrah and I do my two miles and then I decide to go on the rowing machine and the pacing man is doing his pacing round between weights thing that’s really annoying and I wish he’d just sit down and count to thirty or whatever in between sets instead of walking around the gym and two women come in and they start walking on the treadmill but after about ten minutes lo! they actually start to run on it and I’ve only ever seen one person run on the treadmill in the gym before and the old man who showed me how to use one of the weights machines comes in and sits on his favourite machine, the back machine or whatever it is and I wonder where the old lady who I used to talk to in the New Year is as I haven’t seen her for ages and I used to see her every time I went to the gym and I wonder if she was just a New Year newbie and has lost interest and then I go on the bike even though the bike is very very boring and although I haven’t got my glasses on, I can just about make out that prick Gok Wan or whatever his name is on the telly and I finish on the bike and I go into the changing rooms and someone’s left their stuff on the bench and I wonder why they don’t use the lockers, they are free after all and then I go home and tomorrow I will go back to the gym and then on Thursday, I will run outside for three miles in my new running shoes.

Stats:
Distance: 2 miles
Time: 20:44
Pace: 10:22
Calories: 207
Men walking on treadmills: 1
Women running on treadmills: 3
Men pacing about between weights sets: 1
Old men on their favourite machines: 1
Old ladies who used to go to the gym every day: 0
Pricks called Gok Wan: 1
Pairs of new running shoes: 1
Music:
Detholz
Cardiacs
Silvery
Blur

As you know, I hated running in Headcorn.  I hated running in the stupid country lanes with their stupid no pavement thing and stupid holes in the roads thing and their stupid sharp bends and so I practically gave up running there.  Now we’ve moved to Ashford and although there are country lanes if I want them, there are also miles and miles of pavements and cycle lanes.  Miles and miles of pavements might sound a crap place to run, but it’s not London and there’s not a side street every three feet and there are a lot of fields around so it means I get the scenery and I get to have my ipod up as loud as I like without worrying about the traffic.

Result.

More specifically, the result is that I have been running on a regular basis.

As I’d practically given up running in Headcorn, my fitness was down a massive amount but when we moved, I found a gym just five minutes’ walk up the road where the membership is only £20 a month.  Yippee.  So with my fitness building up in the gym, I got myself a beginner’s schedule from the Runner’s World website and have been sticking to it for the last three weeks and I am now up to a comfortable(ish) four miles.  I’m even going to be doing the Isle of Oxney Hot Soup Dash in two weeks.  And I’m not only doing it for the free soup (even if I did email the organiser to ask if the soup would be vegetarian [the nice man said he’d make sure there was some vegetarian soup for me]).

So, I’m sorry for the slacking on the running front and the blogging front.  And if any of you nice PR people who keep sending me stuff to review are reading, I’ll review your products soon.

My next run is scheduled for tomorrow and I’m down to run two miles.  This will be done on the treadmill as my gym membership only allows me to go during the hours of 9am and 4pm and I stupidly went and got a part-time job which means I have to get my value for money on the days I’m not working but it’s only a temporary job so I can go back to being a full-time idle layabout in a few weeks.

Hurrah.