Month: June 2010

On the 19th day of Juneathon, I ran 5 miles

Leave a comment

After a very moderate Friday evening for me where I drank less than half a bottle of wine, I wake up after dreaming that my dead dad and my dead brother came to arrest me and take me away and I get up and I look on Gmap Pedometer to plot out a five mile route and I go off to do my five mile route and wonder if the path is still cut in half by waterworks but it’s not and it takes me out through a housing estate and then I’m lost but then I realise I’m not lost and I go down the path and then down the other path and back up the road and down another road and then down another road and then I’m back on my road and my five miles is going to end going up a hill and when I get to the top of the hill, I’ve done exactly five miles and I think I might as well carry on and run down the hill but it’s windy and it’s like running on the flat but I carry on anyway and I get back and I’ve done over five miles and that’s the furthest I’ve run for ages and ages and ages.

Yay.

Stats:
Distance: 5.31 miles
Time: 58:28
Pace: 11:01 m/m
Calories: 546
Moderate Friday evenings: 1
Bottles of wine drank: less than half
Dreams about dead dads and dead brothers: 1
Pathways cut in half by waterworks: 0
Paths: 2
Uphills: 1
Downhills: 1
Winds: 1
Music:
Audiofuel
Madness
Sex Pistols

On the 17th day of Juneathon, I joined the school run

2 comments

But I was the only one running.

I don’t know if it’s the Juneathon daily exercise energising me, or the home made smoothies I’ve been having for breakfast, but as well as going out for a run before 9am on Tuesday, yesterday I got up before my alarm went off and today I got up at 6:45am and was out by 8:30 (yes, I know that’s a lot of time in between getting up and leaving the house but leaving the house is hard for a wannabe hermit) and I thought I’d better stick to the pavements and cycle lanes and not those stupid country lane things with no pavements as I’m probably going to hit the school run and those school run mums don’t know how to drive and I get down the road and there’s an SRM walking her kid to school and I think flipping heck, I thought country people drove everywhere and good for her and I get to the end of the road and I see a little fat kid and I think where’s he going? the school’s the other way, he must be bunking off but then I see a load of kids in uniform and I think aah, I never noticed a school here before and it must be the secondary school as they’re in uniform and the little fat kid must be going here and not bunking off after all and I go through the path opposite the school and it’s lined with bushes and there’s two teachers in there smoking and I wonder if they’re smoking in there to deter the kids from smoking in there and then I see a house where the owners have painted their double garage doors in the England flag or George’s Cross or whatever it’s called and I think how sad is that? and they’ll have to paint over it when the football’s over and I realise I haven’t seen any cars yet with the England flags on and I get round the corner and there’s an SRM on a bike and her little girl’s on a bike too and I think that’s pretty hardcore as the primary school is quite far away and up a hill and I wonder if they’ll get up the hill on their bikes or will they wimp out and walk it and then I wonder if I’ll be cycling home tomorrow after work as I had planned to cycle home from work from now on but yesterday I didn’t really enjoy it as the first time I did it, it was like a challenge and a little adventure and it wasn’t that busy but yesterday it was busy and it was just a chore and I got really saddle sore and I think I might have to wimp out of tomorrow’s cycle commute and especially as it’s Book Club tonight and I’ll probably be really tired after going to the pub and drinking and getting back late talking about books and then I’m running down the pavement and there’s two women on bikes and I go through the middle of them and one of them wobbles and comes to a stop and I say sorry and then I wonder why I’m saying sorry as I’m on the pavement and they should be on the road and I think GET ON THE FUCKING ROAD and then I’m going down the path and I’m hoping there’s no nonces in the bushes waiting for a schoolchild to come skipping innocently down the path unaware of any nonces in bushes and I think probably not as people shouldn’t let young children out on their own, not even if you want to go to a restaurant or something while you’re on holiday and then further down the path I can see a man and he’s dressed all in black and hasn’t got a dog with him and he looks scary but then he goes down the other path and in fact, I think it’s a she not a he and then I’m back on the pavement and outside the school are about a dozen cars with England flags on them and I think if I was a kid, I’d probably be excited to be driven about in a car with England flags on it and it’d be far less embarrassing than the bright orange Citroen 2CV

citroen

I was driven to school in and it’s not even like my mum was an old hippy or anything, she was completely conservative and totally Tory to the point of having Conservative Party posters in the windows of the house in the 70s, so now you know who to blame for Margaret Thatcher being in power and then I get home and my Hal Higdon Half Marathon Training Program says to do strength training so I do some weights and while I’m lying down doing some bench presses, I look at the dead spiders trapped in the roof of the conservatory.

Stats:
Distance: 3.03 miles
Time: 32:20
Pace: 10:39 m/m
Calories: 312
Early mornings: 1
SRMs walking: 1
Little fat kids: 1
Teachers smoking in the bushes: 2
Double garage doors painted with England flags: 2
SRMs on bikes: 1
Cyclings on pavement: 2
Nonces in bushes: 0
Dead spiders in conservatory roofs: lots
Music:
Audiofuel
The Mission
The Clash
XTC

On the 16th day of Juneathon, I lost my job

One comment

But as I’d been there for four months, instead of the six weeks I was originally hired for, I can’t complain. So, in six weeks, I can go back to being a full-time lady of leisure. Yay.

And after I went to work and lost my job, I cycled home and am now very saddle sore.

Stats (cycling)
Distance: 16.91 miles
Time: 1:43:57
Speed: 9.8 mph
Calories: 520
Jobs: 0
Sore bums: 1

On the 15th day of Juneathon, we’re halfway there!

4 comments

juneathon_2010Here’s my pretty chart of my halfway mark. Who’d have thought I’d turn into a cyclist?!! Thanks to The Red Bucket for posting one on his blog and allowing me to nick the idea. You can make your own on Google Docs. It would be prettier though if I could change the colours. Does anyone know how to do this?

No cycling for me today though. Today I got up early and plotted a 3 mile route on Gmap Pedometer and was out of the door by 9am (that’s early for me these days, so shut up) and started off up the hill and got about three feet up the hill before deciding to walk and I did my run with a bit of walking in it and nothing very exciting happened and as I got to 2.4 miles I thought no way is it .6 miles back to the house and it’s going to be more like 2.7 miles and Gmap Pedometer must be lying and when I got back to the house it was indeed 2.7 miles and I thought well, I’m not going up the hill again to make up the mileage so today’s run is only 2.7 miles and not the 3 that the Hal Higdon Half Marathon Training Program had me down to do today.

Stats:
Distance: 2.72 miles
Time: 29:20
Pace: 10:48 m/m
Calories: 279
Pretty charts of the halfway mark: 1
Lying Gmap Pedometers: 1
Hal Higdon Half Marathon Training Programs: 1
Halfway through Juneathons: 1
Music
Audiofuel
MGMT
Joy Division

On the 14th day of Juneathon, I caught up with my blogging

One comment

Today I went to the gym and went on the elliptical trainer, rowing machine and weights, then I came home and had a really nice lunch of a falafel, hummous and salad wrap and then I filled in a job application for a job at the library and managed to tell them about Juneathon which must surely get me the job? and then I cycled a round trip of 7.34 miles to buy some eggs and then I came home and caught up with the blogging I haven’t done over the last few days.

Stats (gym):
Elliptical trainer: 20 minutes
Rowing machine: 20 minutes
Weights
Calories: 250

Cycling:
Distance: 7.34 miles
Time: 40:51
Speed: 10.8mph
Calories: 247
Nice lunches: 1
Job applications containing mentions of Juneathon: 1
Far away eggs: 6
Blog posts written in a bid to catch up: 5

On the 13th day of Juneathon, I did the Great Kent Bike Ride

Leave a comment

They short-changed me. I entered in good faith a 35 mile bike ride and my Garmin only measure 33.39 miles.

Bah.

I got to the park where the start was and although it was supposed to be a ride and not a race and a family event, it was full of serious looking cyclists wearing lycra and on proper bikes, not pink ones with wicker baskets. I felt like I was in fancy dress.

Still, I cycled 33.39 miles around Kent and got a few ‘hellos’ and ‘mornings’ and one ‘OH MY GOD, LOOK AT YOUR BIKE, I WANT THAT BIKE. THAT IS AWESOME!!!s’ and got to the finish line and the man on the tannoy said ‘that’s the first proper bike I’ve seen come through so far’ and I go and buy a nice red t-shirt from the nice lady on the www.bike-events.com stall who says I’m the spitting image of her cousin and then Shaun comes to collect me and we go to Wetherspoons and I have a roast dinner containing 1,039 calories and he has burger and chips containing 1,270 calories.

That’s a lot of calories.

Stats (cycling):
Distance: 33.39 miles
Time: 3:10:50
Speed: 10.5 mph
Calories: 1,099
Proper cyclists on proper bikes and wearing lycra: hundreds
Unproper cyclists on pink bikes with wicker baskets not wearing lycra: 1
Roast dinners containing 1,039 calories: 1
Burgers and chips containing 1,270 calories: 1

On the 12th day of Juneathon, I ran to the new Juneathon 2010 Audiofuel mix

2 comments

Junathon2010Mix That nice Sean man from Audiofuel (I would call him that nice young Sean man but I have since found out he’s older than me) has made us lucky Juneathoners a new mid-Juneathon 2010 mix for us all. Yay.

You can download it for free here.

I took it out for a test run and very good it is too. I even had a laugh out loud in the street moment when, at 18 minutes into it, Sean says ‘well done on the run and don’t forget to blog about it when you get home’.

Um, I didn’t forget to blog, I just didn’t blog.

Until now.

Oops.

Sorry.

On the 10th day of Juneathon, I did the Crisis Square Mile Run

One comment

Yes, I’m late with this. I’m also late with days 11, 12, 13 and 14, so this is going to be short.

Crisis Square Mile Run 2010 highlights:

  • Meeting Fit Artist for the first time
  • Meeting up with Eating Trees for the second time
  • A little girl running alongside me for a little while
  • My fastest mile in a race, ever (I think)
  • Beer
  • Pizza
  • More beer

Lowlights:

  • Stupid girl barging me on the bridge at the finish
  • Missing Fit Artist at the finish line
  • Having to leave the pub to get the train home

crisis 002

Stats:
Distance: 4.47 miles
Time: 45:29
Pace: 10:11 m/m

1 2 3