JogBlog running blog

As I don’t have one of those proper day job things that involve sitting in an office all day, I don’t get that Friday Feeling but I still feel the need to celebrate public holidays by drinking and eating too much and wasting time on Facebook and Twitter, but wasting time on Twitter can pay off. My last three web design clients have come from there (a charity in Devon and two authors) and the other day, I tweeted about my new sports bras that had come in the post (yes, my tweets are that exciting) that no, weren’t freebies but yes, I had paid for them.

Shortly after tweeting this mega-exciting update on my life, Boobydoo tweeted me and said oh, you should have got in touch with us, we’d have sent you something, and so I said I could always do with new sports bras and so they sent me a Shock Absorber Run Bra.

It looks highly technical with all its straps and clasps. My favourite sports bras have been the crop top type that you pull over your head and then struggle to get off after you’ve sweated all over it. This one has kind of polystyreney feeling adjustable straps going down the back (don’t let that put you off, I’m not sure ‘polystyrene’ is the right word but I can’t think what I mean; maybe more neopreney than polystyreney). They’re different to the usual bra straps where you have to lengthen the strap by tugging at it and adjusting it as these have little hooks that you pull out of a little sleeve and put in another sleeve, either higher or lower.

There’s also a clasp at the top and the usual hook and eye clasps at the bottom. As I’m lazy and used to my crop tops, I try to pull it on as a crop top and don’t undo the bottom clasps, but it gets stuck around my shoulders so I pull it off and undo the clasps and try to do it up like a normal person. It takes a while to do up as I’m not very good at doing up bras but I get there eventually and this must be the comfiest bra in the world ever. Being the most comfiest bra ever isn’t the most major factor in sports bra factors though: boobage movage is, so I tested this by jumping up and down. Nothing moved. Result. Another good thing about it is that it’s not padded like the Shock Absorber bra I got at the traumatic Mateivator workout that has removable pads that which, because they’re removable, get all twisted and folded up in their pockets when they’re being washed and then you have to faff about taking them out and untwisting them and putting them back in. So, comfort, support and lack of faff, splendid.

I put on the rest of my gear and decide to wear my Haile Gebrselassie world record breaking shoes and set off down the street.

My world record breaking shoes are really light and I feel like I’m gliding along (I’m well aware that any witnesses would probably not have used the word ‘gliding’ if asked to describe my running style) and my boobs are staying in place which is more than I can say for my belly which is wobbling about and I wonder why no one’s invented a belly bra and if any inventors are reading my blog, can you invent one please?

I decide just to do two miles and to do it without stopping but I get to two miles and I’m feeling good and so I decide to do three miles and whoop whoop, I do three miles at under 11 minute miles which must be some kind of miracle or maybe it was the new bra, which is by far the best sports bra I’ve ever worn (I’m never going back to cheap ones again) or maybe it was the Trion:Z bracelet or maybe it was the world record breaking shoes or maybe it was my athlete’s dinner last night of two slices of garlic bread and half a flapjack or maybe it was all the spin and body pump classes I’ve been going to?

And speaking of spin and body pump classes, I’ll be doing those at the gym tomorrow morning, where I’m going, not to avoid the Royal Wedding, but to avoid Twitter where my fellow human beings will dishearten me by directing a load of scorn, contempt, hatred and abuse at a young couple purely for having the nerve to get married. I mean, they’re hardly Jordan and Alex Reid, are they? Just because Prince William’s mum was a media-hungry attention-seeking strumpet, doesn’t mean he and his bride-to-be are. Good luck to them, I say.

Stats
Distance: 3.02 miles
Time: 32:48
Pace: 10:53
Calories: 317
Friday Feelings: 0
Boobage movage: 0
Belly movage: lots
Fantastic new sports bras: 1
Nasty mean people on twitter to be avoided tomorrow: hundreds
Music
Jamiroquai
The Wombats
Ladyhawke
The Jam
The Killers

Last year, I had planned that when the weather got better, I’d cycle down to the park or the woods and do a run round there.

But I didn’t bother.

This year, I have bothered. Yay.

I cycled 2.5 miles down to the park and looked for somewhere to tie my trusty steed. I wasn’t sure if I was allowed to lock my bike to just any available railings but I couldn’t see any ‘cyclists, please fuck off and use proper cycle racks’ signs so thought it was probably ok, especially as it was probably the same railings the policeman locked my bike to when he and his colleague drove me home due to me being too pissed to cycle and falling off in front of them while they were having a cup of coffee at the petrol station one morning in the early hours after I’d got off a train from London.

After securing my bike, I ran through Bowens Fields and then on through Victoria Park, out onto the street, through a council estate, then back through the park, back through Bowens Fields, and back to see if my bike had been stolen.

It hadn’t. Result.

Then I cycled back and was very proud of myself for doing my first ever duathlon.

Stats
Cycle 1
Distance: 2.46 miles
Time: 14:39
Speed: 10.1mph
Calories: 79

Run
Distance: 2.55 miles
Time: blah de blah
Pace: blah de blah de blah
Calories: 267

Cycle 2
Distance: 2.51 miles
Time: 14:02
Speed: 10.7mph
Calories: 86

After running watching on TV hearing about on Twitter the London Marathon (obviously the ‘proper’ marathon, not that silly little fun run that was held the Sunday before in Brighton), I decided that maybe I should get back out running and stop being a gym bunny (or whatever the bunny equivalent to mutton is), especially as Travelling Hopefully has decided to come up with her own daft running challenge where she, me, Helsbels and FitArtist and anyone else who wants to join us meets up for a half-marathon later on in the year and then, as if that wasn’t enough, Helsbels has come up with an idea for an online running club called ‘Will Run For Cake’ (I think the official name involves using ‘4’ instead of ‘For’ but I can’t bring myself to type that) and it’s going to be a proper official club with a committee and affiliation and stuff and if you want to know more you can contact her through her blog.

And speaking of daft running challenges, Juneathon will, of course, be back on this year. There won’t be any big prizes this time but I’ll have a new website up and running soon.

Back to today’s run though. Shaun had shown me a few days ago a cycle path I hadn’t noticed before and so I decided to run down there and at the end of it I ran past a runner who didn’t say hello and then I ran past an old man wearing a shirt and tie and I thought he must be hot and he looked a bit dumb wearing a shirt and tie in this weather although nowhere near as dumb as the man we saw wearing a shirt and tie and shorts a couple of weeks ago but the old man was probably wearing it because he’s an old man and they like to dress smartly and also because he’s an old man he was polite and he said hello and after a couple of miles I’m going down the dusty track and I want to stop and I think I CAN’T STOP, I AM HARDCORE although Courtney Love has just started telling me I’m covered in Loser Dust and then I go past a house where there’s a man stretching and it’s the same running man who went past me before and didn’t smile or say hello and I think A-HA! NOW I KNOW WHERE YOU LIVE AND I’M GOING TO COME ROUND IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT AND PAINT ON YOUR DOOR ‘NEXT TIME YOU GO PAST A FELLOW RUNNER, SMILE AND SAY HELLO, YOU TWATFACE KNOB’ but then I think maybe calling fellow runners a twatface knob isn’t the best way to endear me to them and then I’m going through the field where the new trees are and two people have told me what the new trees are for and one of them definitely knew for sure what the new trees are for and not making an intelligent guess as he’s the parish counsellor but I’ve forgotten what he said as I was too busy stroking his donkey (that is not a euphemism, you mucky pups) to take too much notice and then a running man runs past me and he looks identical to the non-smiling-stretching-outside-his-house running man except he’s wearing different clothes and I think it must be his twin or something and then I get home and I’ve done four miles and my Graze box is there and also a box with a knitted pig and some little yellow chicks and some chocolate mini-eggs

but there’s no note to say who it’s from and so I Google the return postcode on it and it’s from someone up north and so my detective skills lead me to believe it’s from Travelling Hopefully, so, Cassie, thank you very very much, I love my pig!

Stats
Distance: 4.01 miles
Calories: 384
Proper marathons: 1
Runners not smiling: 1
Old men in shirts and ties: 1
New daft running challenges: 1
Old daft running challenges: 1
New running for cake clubs: 1
Unsmiling runners stretching outside their houses: 1
Pigs in the post: 1
Music
The Killers
Hole
PJ Harvey
The Jesus & Mary Chain
Cardiacs
Avi Buffalo

I was contacted recently to see if I wanted to try out the Trion:Z dual loop bracelet and the first thing I noticed on their website was “The most difficult decision you have to make is what colour to choose”.

They weren’t kidding. There’s flipping hundreds of colours to choose from (this may be a slight exaggeration). I almost opted for the Audiofuel colours of black and orange, but my inner goth won in the end and I picked the purple and black one.

When it arrived, I looked at the accompanying leaflet to find out what it was supposed to do. The accompanying leaflet didn’t tell me. Hmm. As Warriorwoman has also mentioned on her blog, there’s lots of quotes from athletes extolling the bracelet’s virtues and how they wouldn’t race without a Trion:Z necklace or wristband, but they don’t actually say why.

The blurb on the website says:

“Trion:Z’s original dual therapy bracelet combines Trion:Z’s patented Ionic AND Magnetic therapy into one unique and stylish wristband. With TWO identical loops of Negative Ion releasing “Mineon Health Fibre®” and twin patented ANSPO orientate therapeutic magnets, making it the most powerful ionic wristband on the market.”

I took my stylish loops of negative ions out for a bike ride and I don’t know if it did whatever it was supposed to do but I didn’t fall off, so all was good.

I got sent a BAM – Bamboo Clothing Zip Neck Baselayer to try out but because it’s got long sleeves, I thought it would be too warm to try out now as although it doesn’t take me long to freeze indoors, when I’m out running it doesn’t take me long to melt.

But this morning I decided to give it a go, although it looked warm and sunny outside and I asked Shaun to take a photo of me wearing it and he took a photo and said ‘you look quite thin’ and so I said ‘WHAT DO YOU MEAN I LOOK THIN? ARE YOU SAYING I’M FAT?’ and when I got home after my run, I uploaded the photo and yes, I do look fat, so you’re not getting a photo of me but this is what the top looks like.

Nice, huh?

It’s beautifully soft and silky and it’s got thumbloops to keep your wrists warm and to, um, keep snow going up your wrists.

I want to wear the little thumbloop things as I’ve never worn anything with little thumbloop things in before but then I have a dilemma.

Does the Garmin go inside or outside the sleeves?

I decide it has to go outside the sleeves, otherwise I won’t know how far I’ve gone but then I have another dilemma.

What if I get really hot and want to roll my sleeves up?

I decide that I’ll just have to make the effort to unhook my thumb and unstrap my Garmin and roll my sleeves up and then put my Garmin back on again.

I get about a mile and see a poster for a missing cat and someone’s scrawled on it ‘this is why you should keep your cats indoors’ and I think that’s not very sympathetic although my cat stays in but that’s because I let her injections lapse years ago when she didn’t go out anyway because of a local cat picking on her all the time.

After I’ve finished reading the cat missing poster, I decide I’m boiling and I’m going to have to make the effort to unstrap my Garmin and roll my sleeves up and then I see a sign for a bridleway and I wonder where it goes and so I go down the bridleway and looking at the tracks in the mud, it would appear that there’s more tractors go down there than horses and then I wonder where I am and then I think I know where I am but I have thought incorrectly and I’m at the bridge where the half-built housing estate is and I wonder if builders work on Saturday as I try to avoid men in hi-vis clothing wherever possible and I decide they don’t work on Saturdays and so I run through the half-built housing estate and then I don’t know which way to go as it all looks the same and I see two oast houses and I wonder if I live near them and I decide I do and so I head towards them and yay, I’ve gone the right way after all and then I’m at the path and there’s a runner running towards me and I wonder if he’s seen me walking and I start to run and I decide to run on the road so I don’t have to go past him but I’m too slow and our paths cross and he says hello and then I decide to go down the path and there’s a man with an Irish Wolfhound and the man smiles at me and I think ‘I’VE PULLED A MAN WITH AN IRISH WOLFHOUND. RESULT’ and I’m mega mega boiling and although this top is mega mega comfy and would be warm and cosy in the winter, it’s just too warm and clingy for this time of year and then I’m running down the hill and there’s a girl running up it and she says hello and I think she looks familiar and I wonder why as I don’t know anyone round here and then there’s another girl running up the hill and she looks like Miranda and she doesn’t say hello and I get back to the house and I’ve done 2.91 miles and I want to round it up to 3 so I go round the corner and run past the front gate and I still haven’t done 3 miles so I carry on and I get to the gap in the road which leads up to the end of the garden and I think I’ll go up there but then I remember that Shaun says the man at the end of the garden says it’s not a right of way and so I turn round and go back the way I came and Shaun’s leaning out of the bedroom window and he’s seen me running past the house and back and asks me if I got lost.

Stats
Distance: 3.05 miles
Bamboo tops: 1
Garmin dilemmas: 2
Cats missing: 1
Unsympathetic people towards cats missing: 1
Bridleways with tractors, not horses: 1
Half-built housing estates: 1
Oast houses: 2
Men with Irish Wolfhounds: 1
Girl runners saying hello: 1
Girl runners not saying hello: 1