JogBlog running blog

Yesterday I cycled down to Woodchurch to have a look at the Windmill there. It’s a very nice windmill and I took lots of photos, like this one

which was brazenly stolen from my Facebook page by Fitographer who doctored it in Photoshop and said, hey, look what I did to your photo (or words to that effect) and this is what he did

and I was so impressed with what he did to my photo that I made it into my Facebook profile picture but that was yesterday and today I ran(ish) 4.2 miles.

Stats
Cycling:
Distance: 10.73 miles
Time: 1:08:09
Speed: 9.4 mph
Calories: 326
Windmills: 1
Windmill photos stolen and improved: 1

Running
Distance: 4.27 miles
Time: slow
Pace: slow
Calories: 406

My getting up early thing yesterday must have been a fluke, as today I didn’t get up ‘til 9, and that was only because I had a spin class at 10:30 and it takes me over an hour to leave the house and so I got up and looked out the window and sitting in the driveway, instead of the car that Shaun had been driving to replace his normal one was his usual car, covered in bird-poo and although I hadn’t asked Shaun where his car was, it didn’t occur to me that he’d sent it off to get covered in shit and be returned in the early hours of the morning.

After I’d finished pondering the poo mystery, I got my stuff together and went to the gym. As I’d got up late, I didn’t get much time to do anything else before the class, so just did eight minutes on the rowing machine then went and did the class, then I got back on the rowing machine to make it up to twenty minutes and two men got on the machines either side of me and I turned round and there was a whole row of machines behind me that were empty and I wondered if I should tell them the concept of personal space but I only had three minutes to be annoyed and then I wanted to go and do Thru the Gears on the treadmill but Lightning Blue Eyes by Secret Machines came on my iPod

and I thought ooooooooooooooh, I must listen to this first and so I walked on the treadmill while Secret Machines were playing and then I did Thru the Gears and I must have been putting some effort into it, despite what my pace says, as I was sweating buckets and then I went shopping and bought the most unromantic anniversary present in the world ever.

Ho hum.

Stats
Cycling: 5 miles / 30 minutes
Spin: 45 minutes
Rowing machine: 20 minutes
Treadmill: 1.43 miles / 17 minutes
Cars appearing overnight covered in shit: 1
Unromantic anniversary presents: 1

That was Travelling Hopefully’s reaction when I said on Twitter that I’d beaten the stick man (not the rather diminutive chap that I live with but the virtual partner on my Garmin, who I call Cedric [Travelling Hopefully is also trying to think of a name for her’s and has a naming competition on her blog that you can enter and win some sweets]).

I had a bit of a dilemma this weekend. Last year I took part in the 35 mile Great Kent Bike Ride and had hoped to do it again this year. Doing it again this year had indeed been the plan for months and months, although there was a local 10k on the same day that I fancied doing. Then I saw that there was the Big Wheel of Kent on the day before, and so I thought ‘aha, I can do the the Big Wheel of Kent on the Saturday and the 10k on the Sunday. Sorted.

Then I looked at the route and map for the Big Wheel of Kent and the map didn’t actually say where I’d be going and the route looked all twisty and turny and confusing and so I emailed the organisers to ask if there would be arrows along the way. They said no. Bah. Another off-putting thing about the Big Wheel of Kent ride was that it was one way, so after cycling 19 miles from Ashford to Canterbury, I’d have to get the train back. The decision was made for me, however, when I checked the weather forecast for the weekend and it said that it would be raining all weekend. I don’t have a problem at all about running a race in the rain but I’m not cycling in the rain for hours and so I decided to ditch both bike rides and do the 10k on the Sunday and do a 20 mile bike ride on my own on the Saturday after I’d ran.

Because I was doing a 10k on the Sunday, I was going to stick to my schedule that said today I was to do 5 miles but I decided that would be overdoing it a bit and so this morning I thought I’d wake up Cedric and get him to pace me over two miles at 10 minute miles. Then I decided that was too quick and so I set him up for two miles at 10:30 minute miles and yay, I beat him!

Stats
Distance: 2 miles
Time: 21:02
Pace: 10:23 m/m
Calories: 213
Stick men beaten: 1

Update for cycling stats:
Distance: 20.56 miles
Time: 2:19:42
Speed: 8.8mph
Calories: 601
Hills: quite a few
Pubs went past: about 3

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

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 did a load of exercise last week. It even included a bit of running, but it mostly included cycling to the gym and going to spin classes and a body pump class.

This week I hadn’t done much exercise, except for a bit of running on Tuesday. But today I made up for that by cycling 2.5 miles to the gym, going on the rowing machine for 15 minutes, doing a 45 minute body pump class, doing 15 minutes on the treadmill, doing another 15 minutes on the rowing machine, then doing 10 minutes on the elliptical-trainer before going up to reception and asking if they had any spaces left on the spin class that was about to start.

The man said yes.

So after all that exercise, I went and did some more in the form of a 45 minute spin class.

I’ve been going to spin classes for about a month or so now and I had originally thought that they’d be like body pump, i.e. follow a format and specific exercises to the same music each week, until they bring out the latest version (or whatever you call it). But no, spin (or RPM as it’s called in my gym) seems to be whatever the instructors choose to make it.

I’d been going mostly on Wednesdays which has a great instructor who has played, amongst dancey stuff that I’ve never heard of, a weird Nirvana ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ cover and Prince. Cool.

One week I was hardcore and after my Wednesday class, I booked myself on another class the following morning. I don’t know what music this instructor played as she had us bouncing up and down on our saddles like we were doing aerobics and I was too busy being traumatised by flashbacks of Helen’s and mine Mateivator workout the other month to notice what music was being played.

Today’s instructor was brill. None of this up and down and bouncing around and trying to keep coordinated with the others nonsense, but a really good workout alternating between fast sprints and hill climbing. She really pushed us, telling us to up the resistance (the other instructors mostly leave us to get on with it; the Wednesday instructor one morning even got off her bike and came over to mine and turned the resistance down to zero; she obviously knew I was a lightweight) and the music was great. Today’s tunes included Massive Attack, Credit to the Nation and Rage Against the Machine (turning it off before the naughty words [unlike the XFM DJ who left it on while he went to the toilet about eight years ago when I was listening to the radio at work]).

After my mammoth three hour workout, all I wanted was a cup of tea. Proper tea. With moo juice and sugar. I gave up tea years ago and only drink fruit or herbal tea or hot chocolate (and wine and beer, of course) but as I was getting changed, a cup of tea was all I wanted. Actually, I wanted a fry up too, but didn’t think they did that in the gym cafe so I settled for a cup of tea.

The cafe was empty except for one young lad with mousey brown curly hair, wearing a blue denim jacket and camouflage combats. He soon left, leaving me alone with only the sounds of the air-conditioning and the squeak of the milkshake machine to keep me company.

I finished my tea and headed off for my 2.5 mile cycle home. Passing Rocky’s Cafe and the smell of fry ups didn’t make me want one any less, but because I am a finely tuned athlete, I went home and had a home made muesli bar and some home made spicy cauliflower and potato soup and now I think I need a bit of a lie down.

Stats
Cycling: 5 miles
Rowing machine: 30 minutes
Treadmill: 15 minutes
Elliptical trainer: 10 minutes
Body pump: 45 minutes
Spin: 45 minutes
Time: 3:02:57
Calories: 1,469
Cups of tea: 1
Fry ups: 0
Young lads with mousey brown curly hair: 1

You’re probably thinking that, since my last blog post of 22 February, all I’ve done is sit around listening to my new iPod Nano while reading free marathon magazines and drinking free glucose energy shots and only getting off my chair to count how many steps it takes me to go and make some hot chocolate.

Not true.

I have, on:

23 February: Cycled 2.2 miles to the gym, did a 45 minute spin class, then cycled 2.2 miles back

24 February: Cycled 2.2 miles to the station, walked round London, cycled 2.2 miles back (with added bonus bouncing when falling off drunk)

25 February: Went to the gym and did 20 minutes on the cross-trainer,  20 minutes on the rowing machine, 20 minutes on the stationary bike

26 February: Run 3.01 miles

28 February: Went to the gym and did 20 minutes on the rowing machine, 20 minutes on the treadmill, 20 minutes on the cross-trainer, 20 minutes on the stationary bike

1 March: Cycled 2.2 miles into town, went to London and cycled 2.2 miles back

2 March: Cycled 2.2 miles to the gym, did 45 minute spin class, cycled 2.2 miles back, then cycled another 1.8 round trip to the farm shop

3 March: Run 3.02 miles

So there.

Ner.

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 had planned to go swimming today, as with my gym membership, I can use the pool in the posh(er) gym in town for free. Gym and swim for £20 a month, bargain. But I haven’t used my bargainous membership at the swimming pool yet because I haven’t been swimming since I was about 14 and don’t know if I can still swim and even if I can, I don’t know how to use a swimming pool. I remember there’s a little pool of water you have to walk through first but I can’t remember changing rooms and lockers and things and I’ll have to ask where they are and how to use them and I don’t like asking things as my confident days are few and far between but I’d been having a good week and was feeling good and so I thought I’d be brave and go swimming, then get something to eat in town after but this morning I got up late and the weather was minging and so I decided not to go into town and I decided I wasn’t going to bother with Janathon at all today as I wasn’t in the mood but then I thought I suppose I’d better do something and so I decided to go on a little bike ride and I cycled down the road and my hands were cold as I’d forgotten to put on my gloves and I couldn’t see as I’d forgotten to put on my glasses and I did a puny 1.77 miles but it’s better than nothing and it all counts.

Stats (cycling)
Distance: 1.77 miles
Time: 11:48
Speed: 9mph
Calories: 50
Free swimming pools: 1
Free swimming pools went to today: 0
Puny bike rides that are better than nothing: 1

As I had my yearly hair cut the other day, now I need to give my hair it’s yearly dye but first I must Janathon and so I get dressed in a purple long sleeve top and a purple hoody and I get my purple bike out of the garage and do a measly three miles and see a very squished hedgehog and then I get back and dye my hair purple and when I realise it’s been a bit of a purple day, it reminds me of a conversation I had about 15 years ago with my friend Lorraine who said if I like purple that means I’ve got delusions of grandeur and I replied that they weren’t delusions.

Stats (cycling)
Distance: 3.27 miles
Time: 20:29
Speed: 100
Purple long sleeve tops: 1
Purple hoodies: 1
Purple bikes: 1
Squished hedgehogs: 1
Purple heads of hair: 1
Delusions of grandeur: 1