JogBlog running blog

I should have run today. My pathetic Janathon mileage is 22 miles running and so I was going to round it up to 25. But I didn’t. I’m still aching from Friday’s body pump (is it normal to be aching this long?) and will be going to running club tomorrow (possibly. Shaun’s just informed me that he’s not going. Bah.) and I don’t like to run two days in a row (so why have I just organised a daft running challenge that encourages people to run every day for 31 days? Don’t know.) and so I decided to cycle over to the donkeys and take their photo instead.

After I’d seen the donkeys I decided to explore a bit as it was a beautiful and sunny day. It was even warm enough for me to ditch my gloves.

I cycled through Bilsington and saw a pub, then I cycled through Ruckinge and saw another pub and then I came to a steep hill that I walked up.

Up this hill I saw a bunny, then round the corner I saw a load of chickens and TWO COWS. I like cows. Unfortunately the cows were too far away for me to take a photo.

Not much else of interest happened on my bike ride. I didn’t see any more cows or pubs, only sheep.

And now I’m at the part where I have to say thank you for participating in Janathon and that I hope you enjoyed it.

So, thank you for participating in Janathon and I hope you enjoyed it.

Thanks to Joggerblogger for inventing Juneathon in the first place and thanks to Sean at Audiofuel for force-feeding me pizza until I agreed to organise the first ever Janathon and more thanks to Sean for donating the brilliant prize of a Garmin and Audiofuel compilations and even more thanks to Sean for his unending support and enthusiasm, as ever.

Thanks to Phil for his brilliant PR-ing and getting us the sponsorship from Talk Talk.

Thanks to Greg, Cass, Angela, Millie, Kaye, Pete, Jules, Helen, Steve, Ross, Susan, Katie and Kathryn for volunteering to be on blog-checking duty. That was a HUGE weight off my shoulders. I was about to have a nervous breakdown at that point.

More thanks to Jules who has been incredibly helpful throughout the month by helping people work out the Running Free website, putting the Janathon Daily together, putting all the blogs into a bundle for people to read on Google Reader, promoting Janathon in a podcast and tons of other stuff that I’ve forgotten about.

Thanks also to Dee for getting us a mention twice on 6Music.

Thanks to everyone for commenting on each other’s blogs and being so supportive. That’s what Janathon’s about.

Thanks to my new Twitter friends for the chat and banter. If you didn’t join the party on Twitter, you missed out, it was buzzing.

Thanks to Shaun for putting up with me stressing about it all with the worry that it would all turn out to be a disaster and I end up giving the prizes to the wrong people (that could still happen, eek).

I think that’s it for now. I’ll be checking all the stats in a couple of days and will announce the winners by the end of the week.

Stats (cycling)
Distance: 12.54 miles
Time: 1:29:13
Speed: 8.4mph
Calories: 384

Total mileage for Janathon
Running: 22 miles
Cycling: 88 miles
Swimming: 4 lengths
Cross-training: 4 hours
Calories: 6424
Days completed: 24/31

So, a pretty lousy effort really. You’ve all put me to shame!

I said to Shaun that if he ran in daylight then I’d go with him on the bike and so he did run in daylight and I went with him and I saw a fox but Shaun didn’t, even though the fox crossed his path and we went past the owl sanctuary and in the distance we could see the windmill and that was about it really and sorry this blog post is a bit shit but I want to go and watch  Come Dine With Me and you could read the one below instead if you haven’t already as it’s a bit better.

Stats (cycling)
Distance: 6.14 miles
Time: 48:40
Speed: 7.6mph
Calories: 209
Foxes: 1
Owl sanctuaries: 1
Windmills: 1
Come Dine With Mes: 1

Yesterday I woke up hardly able to move after Friday’s epic (for me) cycle/body pump/swim Janathlon and so this morning I didn’t think I was up for a run but asked Twitter anyway if I should run or go to the gym and only two people responded and they both responded that it was too cold to run and I should go to the gym, which means that a) they are obviously not runners; and b) therefore don’t know that runners are hardcore and not put off by the weather being a bit nippy.

But as I was aching so much, I decided to go to the gym and see if some rowing could sort my aches out. When I got to the gym, as it was the weekend, there was someone different on reception and as I went to go inside she said are you going to the gym and so I said yes and she said can you sign in please? and so I gave her my card and said I haven’t signed in once in the year I’ve been coming here and she tutted and sighed and rolled her eyes and shook her head and if she’d been standing up, she probably would have put her hands on her hips and she said you must be sneaking in then, and I think well, if sneaking in means saying hello to whoever’s on reception at the time, then yes, I’ve been sneaking in and she says you must sign in and I say ok then and then I go inside and get changed and go on the rowing machine and there are two girls walking really slowly on treadmills and not only are they walking really slowly on treadmills, they’re walking really slowly on flat treadmills and not only are they walking really slowly on flat treadmills, they’re HOLDING ON TO THE FLIPPING HANDRAILS, like they’re really going to fall off the flat treadmills that they’re walking really slowly on and I do thirty minutes on the rowing machine and then I get on the treadmill and RUN ON IT like you’re supposed to and sitting on the weights machine next to me is a girl talking on her phone and I keep giving her sideways dirty looks but she doesn’t seem to notice and I tut and she doesn’t notice that either and I wonder if I should roll my eyes and shake my head and put my hands on my hips but decide that running on a treadmill with my hands on my hips would make me look even more stupid than I usually do and the girl on the phone eventually fucks off to sit on another machine and do nothing but talk on her phone there instead and I do thirty minutes on the treadmill and then I go home and I’m aching more than I did when I got up.

Stats (rowing machine)
Time: 30 minutes
Distance: 4400 yards (I think)
Calories: 225

Treadmill
Time: 25 minutes (+ 5 minutes cool down)
Distance: 2.3 miles
Pace: 10:52 m/m
Calories: 242

I had told myself, as part of Janathon, I would go swimming for the first time in 25 years and as the end of Janathon is nigh, it was about time I did as I was told. So last night, I booked myself onto this morning’s body pump class at the gym in town, with the intention of going swimming after.

I did body pump a few times in London but the system there is that you have to ring and book 24 hours in advance and you also have to ring at 6:30am, as otherwise it’d be fully booked by 7, so I pretty much gave up trying to do the classes there but here you can book online up to a week in advance. Result.

Body pump was great. I haven’t done it for a few years and didn’t do it very often then and so I didn’t know what I was doing but the instructor was very helpful and told me which weights to use for each track and after the 45 minutes were up, my arms were wobbling and shaking like a blancmange that’s been bought a Rabbit for Christmas.

I wasn’t entirely sure if wobbling and shaking was very conducive to a successful swim, taking into consideration I haven’t been swimming for 25 years but I was here and I’d told myself I was going swimming, so went swimming I did.

Well, kind of. I looked at the lanes and the first one said slow lane but it looked very narrow and there were already three people in it and it said to swim clockwise and so I went down to the end and got in the pool and swam. In a splashing around and kicking and trying to propel myself forward kind of way. There was a woman in front of me doing breast stroke and I was attempting a front crawl and I think I kept splashing her and when we got to the end she stopped and I said sorry, I don’t really know what I’m doing and she said she was sorry she was going so slowly and I said I haven’t been swimming for 25 years and don’t know pool etiquette and she said well, this is the slow lane but it’s not really big enough for more than one person and she went into the other lane where there weren’t any people and I carried on in the slow lane where there was a man doing breaststroke and I attempted to do breaststroke but I kept sinking and so I carried on with my splishy splashy front crawl thing and there was another girl doing front crawl but gliding gracefully through the water and I got to the end and wondered if I could do another length and thought I can’t give up after two lengths, it’d hardly be worth getting wet and so I kicked and splashed my way down to the end and back up again but I couldn’t make it all the way to the end and I was in the deep end and kept sinking, so I doggy paddled over to the side and made my way up to the end and got out and got dressed and then went to Caffe Nero and had a hot chocolate and a red pepper and smoked Italian cheese panini.

So, today’s Janathon was a triathlon of cycling, body pump and swimming.

I am hardcore.

Stats (cycling to and from the gym)
Distance: 5 miles
Time: 30 minutes
Speed: 10mph
Calories: 161

Body pump
Time: 45 minutes
Calories: 400

Swimming
Lengths: 4
Calories: 80

Hot chocolate
Calories: 280

Red pepper and smoked Italian cheese panini
Calories: 412

Well, I’ve only done 20 days, anyway. Although, in my defence, that is the highest amount of Janathon days I’ve completed ever. So yay.

I had to finish another assignment this morning, so no gym as I didn’t want to do my assignment in my dressing gown and knew once I was dressed, I wouldn’t bother getting changed once more into my gym kit. It has just occurred to me that I could have done my assignment in my gym kit and gone to the gym straight after. Duh.

Still, I didn’t slack and that’s the main thing. Today I got on my bike and chose the purple bike as it has more gears and I was starting off by going up a hill. When I got half way up the hill, the person on a bike in front of me had got off and pushed. Lightweight.

I was going to try a new route but it didn’t go very far away really and it only ended up being a bit under five miles, so that makes me a bit of a lightweight too.

Er, that was about it really. Sorry for the boring post. I’ll try and find something to rant about tomorrow.

Stats
Distance: 4.75 miles
Time: 29:43
Speed: 9.6mph
Calories: 146
Janathons completed so far out of 31: 20
People pushing bikes up hills: 1
Mes pushing bikes up hills: 0
Boring blog posts: 1

During Janathon, I found out there was a local participant and so I tracked him down on Facebook and sent him a message and said hello local person and he said hello back and asked if I was a member of a running club and I said no, I had thought of joining Ashford & District Road Running Club as it looks nice and friendly but I live in [insert name of small area on the outskirts of Ashford] and I don’t drive and if my boyfriend didn’t want to come along I’d have to cycle two miles into town and then another two miles out the other side along the motorway and he said oh, I’m the membership secretary of that club and I live in [insert name of neighbouring small area on the outskirts of Ashford] and I can give you a lift and so I said hurrah, thank you, I’ll ask my boyfriend if he wants to come along and if he does, he can drive us but if not, I’ll take you up on your kind offer of a lift.

Shaun did indeed want to come along to the running club and we were going to go last week but I felt bleurgh and didn’t want to go but this week we did go and I got introduced to the other women running that week and I was asked how far and fast I run and I said not much at the moment, I’m really slow, about 12 minute miles and only doing about 3 miles and she said we’re probably doing a bit more than 3 miles today and so I thought ok, she probably means 3.5 or 4 miles and I can cope with that but when she told someone else the route she’d planned to go I thought THAT SOUNDS LIKE A FLIPPING LONG WAY TO ME and I escaped to the toilet and then I went outside to see if Shaun was there to tell him I wasn’t going to run and he was there but so were the women who were about to head off for their run and I said to Shaun, I’m not running, they’re going too far, I’m going to stay here and wait for you but then the women said OH NO YOU’RE NOT, YOU’RE COMING WITH US and I said no, really, you’re going too far, you’re going about six miles and I’m not fit enough, I only want to do three miles, but they wouldn’t take no for an answer and one of them ACTUALLY PHYSICALLY PUSHED ME ALONG TOWARDS THE ROAD and I said do you mind? I don’t really like being pushed and I shrugged her off and turned round and went back to the changing room in a strop but they all followed me and the one who pushed me said she was sorry she upset me and I said that’s ok and they said I wasn’t allowed to wimp out (not their exact words) and I had to run and I’d be fine and if I didn’t want to go the whole way, they’d come back with me and I said I didn’t want to cut their run short and I only wanted to do three miles and they said that was fine and when we’d done three miles, we’d turn round and come back and I said BUT THAT WILL MAKE IT SIX MILES and I said I didn’t want to hold them up and they said you won’t hold us up and I said but I already am, you’d be a mile down the road by now but they wouldn’t take no for an answer and so I went out and thought I’ll turn round after 1.5 miles and come back even though I won’t know where I am and after 1 mile one of them says we’re going too fast and I look at my Garmin and it says we’ve done a mile in 12 minutes and I think that’s fast? and I can’t turn around and run back as there’s someone behind me and there’s no escape and I have to keep going but there’s a lot of walking involved and we get back completely soaking wet as it’s been pissing down and Shaun’s been waiting 45 minutes for me because we’ve gone 7 SODDING MILES and it’s taken 90 SODDING MINUTES.

Bah.

But secretly I’m pleased I’ve done 7 miles even though it took a flipping long time and then Shaun and I go to the pub and I have sausage and mash and he has steak and chips.

Yum.

Stats
Distance: 7.06 miles
Time: 1:36:33
Pace: 13:41
Calories: 614
Running clubs: 1
Pushy women in running clubs: about 6
Rain: lots
Sausages and mash: 1
Steak and chips: 1

For today’s Janathon, I exercised my HTML and CSS skills by adding another prize to the four already on offer: a pair of Polaroid Polarized Sunglasses.

I have a pair of these and they’re pretty cool and I blogged about them last year.

To see the other prizes on offer, go to the Janathon prizes page.

(I may cycle later)

Stats
New Janathon prizes: 1
May cycle laters: 1

I have made the executive decision to not Janathon today. I’m a month behind with my coursework and I had an assignment due two weeks ago that I haven’t submitted yet and another one due next week and so today will be spent reading and writing (and I don’t mean reading Tweets and writing Facebook updates).

And I’m still feeling a bit bleurgh, anyway.

There endeth the excuses.

(If I do go for a bike ride later, I will delete this blog post and pretend I didn’t say anything about slacking.)

I had big plans to be a hardcore double-Janathoner today. I was going to go to the gym in the morning, then to a running club in the evening but when I went to get dressed, I felt really bleurgh, so I thought I’d see how I felt after lunch but after lunch I felt even more bleurgh so cancelled going to the running club but then thought I should at least do a short bike ride and so I got on my bike but after 0.22 miles, felt sick and cold and so turned round and came back.

Ho hum.

Stats (cycling)
Distance: 0.43 miles
Time: 3:28
Speed: 7.5mph
Calories:14
Hardcore Janathoners: 0

I couldn’t be bothered to go to the gym today, so I thought I’d do some weights in the conservatory but then I remembered the rowing machine that’s in there and so while I cooked my leek and potato soup for lunch, I did twenty minutes rowing.

Stats (rowing machine)
Time: 20 minutes