Lesbian dopeheads on mopeds

Today my Janathon plans were thwarted. Not by any insomnia as I actually got to sleep last night pretty soon after closing my eyes, therefore a) allowing me to get some much needed sleep; and b) sparing you any more iambic pentameter.

No, my plans were thwarted by waiting in for a delivery of shed building stuff that never arrived and the need to go into town to run some errands and get the halfway-down-my-back-ratstails cut off.

I get my pretty pink bike with its wicker basket out of the garage and head off to my first stop which is the Post Office to send off a parcel which was wrapped up – in the absence of any brown paper – in two inside-out Debenhams carrier bags  and then carrying on into town to go to the bank to pay in a couple of cheques and then venturing tentatively into the cheapy cheapy no-appointment-necessary hairdressers that is Supercuts.

I walk in and there’s a line of chavs on chairs, obviously waiting to get their Croydon facelifts trimmed. I go up to the reception desk and wait for the chavvy looking girl to stop blethering on to the chav whose hair she’s cutting and she eventually comes over and I say I’d like a cut and blow dry please and she says it’ll be over an hour and I say shall I come back in an hour then? and she says well, if someone comes in before you, they’ll take priority and so I say ok then, I’ll come back in an hour and see how you’re doing and I leave Superchavs and decide to go and see if Toni & Guy can fit me in and I go to Toni & Guy and look at the prices on their window and it says £41 and I think £41, yikes but it also says offers available, please ask inside and so I go in and there aren’t any chavs in there and I think that’s a good sign and I ask the non-chav at the reception desk if I can be fitted in and she says yes, in an hour and I say great, I’ll be back then and oh, how much is it? and she says £41 and I say do you have any offers? the sign in your window says you have offers and she says oh yes, we’re doing a 25% discount, you can have that, so it’ll be £31 and I say great, but really in my head I’m thinking you only offered me the discount because I asked, cheek, but I really want to get my hair cut today because I only get my hair cut about once a year when I’m really really really really fed up with it and that time has come and I’M NOT GOING HOME UNTIL I’VE HAD MY HAIR CUT and so I go and get a cup of raspberry tea in Caffe Nero and spend my hour Tweeting and then I go back to Toni & Guy and get my hair cut and I no longer have half-way-down-my-back-ratstails, but a shorter shoulder-length cut

hair-004

and I think yay, no more hairdresser trips for another year and then I get on my bike and as I’m going down the road a young hoodie type shouts out OH MY GOD, THAT BIKE IS SO GAY and I think yes, my bike is very happy, that’s very observant of you young man but then I think hang on, maybe he’s not using the word gay in its original meaning but in its homosexual meaning and I think MY BIKE IS NOT A HOMOSEXUAL but even if it was, I would still love it as much as I love my other bikes and I think the young man needs to learn the difference between a gay person and a bicycle.

not_a_bicycle

Stats (cycling)
Distance: 4.91 miles
Time: 34:44
Speed: 8.5mph
Calories: 149
Deliveries turning up: 0
Post Offices: 1
Banks: 1
Haircuts in Superchavs: 0
Haircuts in Toni & Guys: 1
Gay bikes: 0

Mono

This morning early hours insomniac’s iambic pentameter was

I’m trying to remember what sleep is.

Yawn.

Still, up at 10, so not too bad considering I didn’t get to sleep ‘til after 3 and I had planned to go for an outside run but it’s raining and so I decide to go to the gym and hope no one thinks I’m a newbie and I get outside and I remember that I like running in the rain, so why I decided to wimp out, I don’t know and I walk down the road and put on my iPod and DISASTER! ONLY ONE EARPIECE IS WORKING and I try to think if I have any spare ones but I only have crappy Apple iPod ones that aren’t worth using and the only other ones I have are the wireless ones that make me look like a dork and if I wear those, people will laugh at me and anyway, Shaun’s been using them and they only have Audiofuel on and as much as I love Audiofuel, I want to listen to other stuff when I’m in the gym and anyway, I don’t want to have to turn around and go home and come out again and so I continue with my mono Shuffle and I get to the gym and it’s empty which means ALL THE NEWBIES HAVE FUCKED OFF ALREADY! Result.

I do twenty minutes on the rowing machine, trying not to let the fact that I’ve got good music (i.e. what I brought with me) in one ear and crap music (i.e. whatever’s playing on the gym stereo) in the other wind me up too much and then I go on the treadmill and run on it for 2 miles and then it goes into the cool down bit for 5 minutes and I think oh no, it’ll be walking speed soon and someone might come in and think I’m one of those newbies who walk on the treadmill and I think PLEASE DON’T JUDGE ME, I’m not a newbie, it’s just the obsessed part of me can’t get off until it’s done the cool down bit and after 30 seconds, it’s on walking speed and I walk on the treadmill for four minutes and thirty seconds and then I go on the cross-trainer for 20 minutes and then I go home and think stupid Guardian woman can fuck off, ‘coz I love my gym.

Stats (treadmill)
Distance: 2 miles
Time: 22:02
Pace: 11.01m/m
Calories: 210

Rowing machine:
Time: 20 minutes
Calories: 145

Cross-trainer:
Time: 20 minutes
Calories: 100

Drunks can bounce

Another sleepless night. I spent it trying to get Janathon out of my head by thinking up iambic pentameter but this didn’t really work, as the first one I came up with was

The Janathon is keeping me awake

but by 3.30am I hadn’t come up with anything better than

or maybe it was the biscuits I ate

and therefore bored myself to sleep and now I’m wondering if iambic pentameter is the new sheep.

After eventually getting to sleep and dreaming about bright white dogs with bright blue eyes and no noses, I get up about 10:30 and I had planned to Janathon at the gym today but on looking out the window and seeing sunshine and bright blue skies, decide to go for a run but then I decide to go for a bike ride instead.

A few months ago, I was offered the chance to ask Haile Gebrselassie a question* ahead of his New York Marathon on November 7th where he would be wearing an exclusive pair of Adidas Adizero Adios featuring the times for all of his 26 World Records.

In return for my question, I was going to receive exclusive footage of my Q&A along with a pair of Adidas Adizero Adios World Record Breaking shoes, which are only available to buy at the NY Marathon booth. Yay!

Apparently there were communication problems between here and Ethiopia, so I didn’t get the footage of my Q&A, but this morning the postman delivered my shoes

haile

and I wonder what to do with them as they’re too light for me to run in and I’d get laughed at them down at the gym and so I decide to wear them for my bike ride as at least then I’ll be visible; well, my feet will, anyway. I put them on and blimey, they’re comfortable. They’re as comfy as my most comfy Asics, but I suppose world record breakers need comfy shoes don’t they? After all, if Paula Radcliffe doesn’t stop for a poo, Haile’s not going to want to stop to put a Compeed on his little toe, is he?

After putting on my new comfy world record breaking shoes, I go to the garage to get my bike. I have three bikes: a pink one, a white one and a purple one and after deciding which colour bike to ride (purple), I get on my way. While I’m cycling along, I’m thinking about my purple bike which I have fallen off many times while cycling home drunk after a night out and it’s been subjected various times to the chain coming off, the brakes snapping, gears breaking, wheels bent and plenty of bumps and marks, while I’ve escaped with not a scratch but the one time I fall off while sober, my (pink) bike ends up without a scratch, while I end up with a badly grazed left knee, a badly bruised right knee and a thumb I can’t bend for a week, and I come to the conclusion that either drunks can bounce or I should stick to the purple bike.

Stats
Distance: 11.45 miles
Time: 1:15:57
Speed: 9mph
Calories: 332
Sleepless nights: 1
Lines of iambic pentameter: 2
Sheep: 0
Pairs of world breaking shoes: 1

*You want to know what my question is, don’t you? I’m ashamed to say I couldn’t think of one, so asked Twitter for  help. Gene at Accountability came up with ‘Do you have a mantra you chant to keep your cadence?’  (That’s not verbatim, as I can’t remember exactly what it was… sorry…), which I thought was a splendid question and much better than one I’d have asked, which would probably have been something like ‘what’s your favourite Square Crisps flavour?’ Thanks Gene!

Putting the jog back into jogblog

Yeah, I know it’s a cheesy title and I should be thoroughly ashamed of myself but after only about two hours of sleep (damn this stupid Christmas body clock), I am far too tired to think of a better one.

I wasn’t too tired to go for a small run though. I actually enjoyed it too, thanks to these songs that my Shuffle threw up for me. Thank you Shuffle.

Stats:
Distance: 1.93 miles
Time: 21:54
Pace: 11:21
Calories: 188
Music: as above

Excuses, excuses

I wonder how many blog posts will have that as their title before Janathon is over?

Anyway, in case anyone noticed my absence yesterday, I suppose I’d better confess that the Christmas excess caught up with me and I spent the day in bed and didn’t get up ‘til 6pm, then went back to bed at 1am, then didn’t get up ‘til lunchtime today. Which leaves a bit of a gap where the Janathon day 2 blog post should be.

Oops.

I wasn’t exactly feeling great when I got up today either, with my energy levels being a bit depleted due to my consumption over the last three days only consisting of a mince pie, two Cream Crackers with chilli jam and Stilton, some Chilli & Cheese Pringles, a couple of Belgian chocolate biscuits and a few pieces of pasta with tomato sauce. Not really enough for a finely tuned athlete, eh? but along with my energy, my appetite has also decreased so I thought maybe if I did some exercise my appetite would come back, so off out on my bike it was.

I haven’t been out on my bike much over the last few weeks as, just before Christmas, on the way back from doing some Christmas shopping, I came off my bike and did this

knee

to my knee, which left me feeling a bit sore and achy for a week or so, and put me off cycling, although there was so much snow and ice everywhere, that I couldn’t cycle anywhere anyway, had I wanted to.

But I thought I could probably manage three miles today and so off I went and started to enjoy being out and so when I got to the crossroads, I decided to carry on going straight, instead of turning left; a decision probably not appreciated by the woman who nearly drove into me from the left, causing me to nearly crash into the woman coming down the road in front. I did wonder if this was a sign that me and cycling aren’t really compatible and maybe I should just go home, but I decided to be brave and carry on and ended up doing 9.3 miles.

A proper Janathon effort at last then. Only two days late. In the meantime, you’ve all been putting me to shame, and I’m loving reading the blogs and the comments in support.

Now I’m off to trawl through the backlog of 138 Janathon emails and add the latest victims participants.

Stats (cycling)
Distance: 9.3 miles
Time: 57:16
Speed: 9.7mph
Calories: 291
Janathons missed due to Christmas excess: 1
Women nearly running me over from the left: 1
Women nearly running me over from ahead: 1
Backlog of emails: 138

All the ones

First day of the first Janathon on the first day of the year. Hungover on New Year’s Day? Me?

Oh yes.

I tried to get out of doing anything. I played the organiser card and used analogies such as ‘Does Simon Cowell get up and sing on X Factor?’, ‘Does Richard Branson sit in a call centre in India?’ but I was tortured by tales of … musing … having already done 20 miles (and being in Sydney, this meant he’d already done his Janathon when we were all out getting mashed) and other activities blogged and logged. Even Warriorwoman had been out at midnight for a run.

I had to do something. Anything.

So I walked round the garden. In my dressing gown. I took the long way round and went round the side of the conservatory, past the side gate, then up past the shed that Shaun’s building and past the dead brown Christmas tree and underneath the practically dead weeping willow and up to the top of the garden and then past the green not dead Christmas tree and the compost bin and past the gap, hoping no one decided to walk down the road at that point, and past the greenhouse and then back down the path to the back door and in total that was a grand total of:

Stats:
Distance: 0.08 miles
Time: 1 minute 39 seconds
Pace: 20:26 m/m
Calories: 5
Dressing gowns: 1
Sheds being built: 1
Dead brown Christmas trees: 1
Practically dead weeping willows: 1
Not dead Christmas trees: 1
Compost bins: 1
Gaps: 1
Greenhouses: 1

Janathon prize announced

Look what Audiofuel have kindly donated as the Janathon 2011 winner’s prize.

garmin_405

Yep, a Garmin 405 with heart monitor. How cool is that? Much cooler than the flipping massive Garmin 301 that takes up most of my forearm, that’s how cool. Unfortunately, I don’t think I’m allowed to win.

You can win it though by signing up at the Janathon website and then running and blogging a lot throughout January.

More prizes to be announced soon.

Cancel your NYE celebrations, your attendance is required at Janathon

Last week I ran 1.95 miles.

My legs ached the next day.

On Wednesday I spent an hour at the gym.

My legs have been aching since.

This can only mean one thing.

I AM A SLACKER.

What I haven’t been slacking at, however, is preparations for Janathon. No, that’s not a typo, Janathon is Juneathon’s new baby brother.

I didn’t want a Janathon. My loyalties lie with Juneathon but after going up to London to interview Sean at Audiofuel (no, I haven’t transcribed it yet. It’s taking me about 30 minutes to transcribe 5 minutes and there’s 50 minutes to get through), he suggested having a Janathon.

I said na (I did, really. If you’ve heard my accent, you’ll know this is true).

But then he mentioned it on Facebook and everyone said ‘yay, Janathon, what a cool idea’ and so I said ok then, we’ll have a Janathon. And because I’d meant to organise Juneathon properly next year and get a website running and make the guidelines clearer and get t-shirts printed and stuff (after okaying it with Joggerblogger that it was ok for me to take Juneathon and do my own thing with it), I thought I’d better get a website going for Janathon and so Sean came down to discuss all things Janathon and now I need to make a website and get prices for t-shirts and things.

Oh, and I ran another 1.95 miles today. I started walking at about 1.3 miles and then I was reminded of this video

and thought they’ve got an excuse for running like that, they’re just about to complete an Ironman.

At my current fitness, I couldn’t even complete a Tinfoilman.

Stats:
Distance: 1.95 miles
Time: 22:06
Pace: 11:19
Calories: 194
Janathons: 1
Tinfoilmans: 1
Music:
Delorean
Audiofuel
Cardiacs

1 11 12 13