JogBlog running blog

My plans for an outdoor three miles this morning were scuppered by the stupid bloody poxy snow that made a reappearance yesterday, continuing through the night and leaving me with this view

outside the front door this morning.  Pretty, it may be, but it was snowing pretty heavily and I didn’t fancy my chances of staying upright in it, so I took myself off to the gym instead.

The gym was empty but there was a man walking on the outside treadmill and I didn’t want to go on the other outside one as it’s in kilometres, not miles (although the one he was on was in kilometres the other day too, which it never used to be, so I hope they’re not going to also change the one remaining treadmill that counts in proper money) so I went on the one next to him and told it I wanted to do three miles and off I went, quite slowly as I was tired today, and then a pikey woman started walking on the treadmill next to me and her fat pikey child was on the elliptical trainer next to her and I thought what’s a child doing in here, it’s not a playground and then I wondered if maybe the school was shut due to the stupid bloody poxy snow and it was probably better that she brought her little porker with her to the gym instead of taking it to Starbucks across the road and fed it pastries although that was probably where they were going next and I’m running and running on the treadmill and the pikey woman is walking and walking and I eventually do my three miles and I go on the rowing machine and then I do some weights and the only other person in the gym by then is a man doing weights and he’s left his towel, diary and water bottle on the seat of one of the leg weights machines and I wonder if he thinks it’s a table and I don’t want to ask him to move them and so I only do upper body stuff and then I go home and have broccoli and stilton soup which was voted for over potato and leek by some Twitter friends.

Stats:
Distance: 3 miles
Time: 32:42
Pace: 10:54
Calories: 311
Men walking on treadmills: 1
Women walking on treadmills: 1
Kids confusing gyms with playgrounds: 1
Men confusing weight machines with tables: 1
Music:
Detholz
Cardiacs
Blur
Julian Casablancas
White Rabbits

I went to the gym today to do my two miles and I thought it’ll be busy in there as it’s Monday and everyone will be panicking about the half a glass of wine and packet of crisps that they consumed over the weekend and will be cycling furiously trying to burn it off but when I get there, there’s only two people in there and I wonder where all the Monday people are and I also wonder if all the New Year newbies have fucked off now and I think yay, I get the place to myself then, result and I go to the changing room that only I seem to use and I put my stuff in the locker that only I seem to use and go back into the gym and there’s a man walking on a treadmill and so I do the British thing and get on a treadmill further away, leaving a respectable gap between us but the screen’s in kilometres and I don’t want kilometres, I want miles and so I get on the treadmill next to the man and this one’s in miles and I think hurrah and I do my two miles and then I decide to go on the rowing machine and the pacing man is doing his pacing round between weights thing that’s really annoying and I wish he’d just sit down and count to thirty or whatever in between sets instead of walking around the gym and two women come in and they start walking on the treadmill but after about ten minutes lo! they actually start to run on it and I’ve only ever seen one person run on the treadmill in the gym before and the old man who showed me how to use one of the weights machines comes in and sits on his favourite machine, the back machine or whatever it is and I wonder where the old lady who I used to talk to in the New Year is as I haven’t seen her for ages and I used to see her every time I went to the gym and I wonder if she was just a New Year newbie and has lost interest and then I go on the bike even though the bike is very very boring and although I haven’t got my glasses on, I can just about make out that prick Gok Wan or whatever his name is on the telly and I finish on the bike and I go into the changing rooms and someone’s left their stuff on the bench and I wonder why they don’t use the lockers, they are free after all and then I go home and tomorrow I will go back to the gym and then on Thursday, I will run outside for three miles in my new running shoes.

Stats:
Distance: 2 miles
Time: 20:44
Pace: 10:22
Calories: 207
Men walking on treadmills: 1
Women running on treadmills: 3
Men pacing about between weights sets: 1
Old men on their favourite machines: 1
Old ladies who used to go to the gym every day: 0
Pricks called Gok Wan: 1
Pairs of new running shoes: 1
Music:
Detholz
Cardiacs
Silvery
Blur

As you know, I hated running in Headcorn.  I hated running in the stupid country lanes with their stupid no pavement thing and stupid holes in the roads thing and their stupid sharp bends and so I practically gave up running there.  Now we’ve moved to Ashford and although there are country lanes if I want them, there are also miles and miles of pavements and cycle lanes.  Miles and miles of pavements might sound a crap place to run, but it’s not London and there’s not a side street every three feet and there are a lot of fields around so it means I get the scenery and I get to have my ipod up as loud as I like without worrying about the traffic.

Result.

More specifically, the result is that I have been running on a regular basis.

As I’d practically given up running in Headcorn, my fitness was down a massive amount but when we moved, I found a gym just five minutes’ walk up the road where the membership is only £20 a month.  Yippee.  So with my fitness building up in the gym, I got myself a beginner’s schedule from the Runner’s World website and have been sticking to it for the last three weeks and I am now up to a comfortable(ish) four miles.  I’m even going to be doing the Isle of Oxney Hot Soup Dash in two weeks.  And I’m not only doing it for the free soup (even if I did email the organiser to ask if the soup would be vegetarian [the nice man said he’d make sure there was some vegetarian soup for me]).

So, I’m sorry for the slacking on the running front and the blogging front.  And if any of you nice PR people who keep sending me stuff to review are reading, I’ll review your products soon.

My next run is scheduled for tomorrow and I’m down to run two miles.  This will be done on the treadmill as my gym membership only allows me to go during the hours of 9am and 4pm and I stupidly went and got a part-time job which means I have to get my value for money on the days I’m not working but it’s only a temporary job so I can go back to being a full-time idle layabout in a few weeks.

Hurrah.

Hello.

Yes, I am still here.

No, I haven’t done any running.

I have been on the treadmill though at my new gym.

Treadmill counts, yes?

I might attempt to run when this poxy pain in the arse snow buggers off.

Or I might not.

I don’t really like running round here.

Not that I’ve tried it yet.

But I can’t see that it will be any better than at the old place.

Ho hum.

I am planning on sitting in front of the telly tonight drinking wine, and because that isn’t very conducive to getting up early and going for a run the next day, I thought I’d go for a run today instead.  When I got up, however, I didn’t feel like it but decided to force myself out the door for three miles.  On getting to the bottom of the hill, like the slacker I am, I decide that I’m only going to do two.  I get past the library and I see the van that belongs to the plumber across the road coming down the road and I think no it’s not, the plumber’s in London and I’m not in London and anyway, he moved away before I did and it’s just a London-based hallucination and I go round the corner and in the distance there’s a kid bouncing around in a hi-vis jacket and I think that’s weird, countryside people don’t usually walk with their kids, they usually drive them everywhere and then I realise it’s not a kid in a hi-vis jacket but a dog in a hi-vis jacket and the woman is pushing a pram or a buggy or whatever they’re called but it’s got it transparent plastic rain hood thing over it and so I can’t see whether there’s a baby in there or just lots of cans of Special Brew and I get to the tree and I’ve got a strange pain in the back of my head on the right hand side and it’s also making my right eyeball hurt but I’m a brave little soldier and I carry on and as I get up to the main road, the road’s covered with water and it’s like a little lake and I don’t want to get my feet wet but it’s not very deep and I only squelch a little bit and then I’m on the main road and I decide to walk the last half mile and then my next door neighbour walks past and I think no, that’s not my next door neighbour, she’s in London and I must stop having these London-based hallucinations.

Stats:
Distance: 2.14 miles
Time: 24:45
Pace: 11:32 m/m
Calories: 222 
Sitting in front of the tellies drinking wine planned: 1 
Three mile runs turned into two mile runs: 1
Dogs in hi-vis jackets: 1
Buggies possibly full of Special Brew: 1
London-based hallucinations: 2
Music:
Audiofuel
Babybird
Mansun
Cardiacs

Yesterday I had planned to go for a run but as it was dark until lunchtime, I went off the idea at around 11am and opted to stay in and drink hot chocolate and eat crumpets instead.

Today I was less of a slacker and although my pc weather widget thing said it was only 1C, at least there was daylight outside and so I decided to do three miles on the road to see if I can improve on my time of 12:30 minute miles that I do when I run on the fields.

My run starts off downhill as I, um, run down a hill and it’s not long before I run out of pavement and a car comes down the road fast and she must be a driving-back-from-the-school-run-mum and then the slowest car in the world comes along and I wonder if there’s a five year old pushing it from behind but no, it’s just a stupid countryside person looking down while trying to light a cigarette and I go past the egg house and I think I should have brought the egg box back and then I think no I shouldn’t as it’s the wrong egg house and their eggs are only £1 unlike the egg house we’ve bought eggs from the last two weeks who charge £1.40 and although the week before last I only had £1.50 on me, Shaun wouldn’t let me only give them £1.30 this week, even though they owe me 10p and then I go round the corner and I get a stone caught in the sole of my shoe and I need a hoof pick or something and then coincidentally I can smell horses and I think I must be imagining it because I thought of a hoof pick but then I see a HUGE pile of manure and think aah, I’m not hallucinating horsey smells then but I still can’t get this stone out of my shoe and I stop to look at the sole and I can’t even see a stone but it’s uncomfortable and I feel like Princess and the Pea or something and I scrape my foot along the ground but it’s still there and then I think it must be the seam of my sock or something and I go past a field with horses in and one of the horses is looking over the fence and I want to stop and stroke it but I don’t because I’m a finely tuned athlete aren’t I? and then I go past the place where the horrible little schoolboy shot me with a staple gun and then I’m back on the pavement and I go past a house and a stupid countryside dog starts barking and I jump and I can’t even see the stupid barking countryside dog and then I see it and it’s a stupid little thing, although quite stocky and I think I’m never getting a dog while I live in the countryside as it will be a stupid barking one and then I get to the bottom of the hill and I’ve done three miles so I stop my Garmin and walk up the hill.

Stats:
Distance: 3.15 miles
Time: 35:13
Pace: 11:10 m/m
Calories: 326
Degrees in Celsius: 1
Sunlights: 1
Downhill: 1
Fast cars: 1
Slow cars: 1
Egg houses: 1
Stones in shoes: 0
Princess and the Pea moments: 1
Stupid barking countryside dogs: 1
Uphills: 1
Music:
Audiofuel
Babybird
Mansun

I ran five miles.  Two and a half miles up the road, then two and a half miles back the same way.  It was very boring.  Therefore I have nothing to report.  Although, the dead hedgehog is still there, in case you’re interested.

Stats:
Distance: 5.00 miles
Time: 57:35
Pace: 11:31 m/m
Calories: 517
Dead hedgehogs: 1
Music:
Audiofuel
Babybird

Because I’d planned to do four miles today, I didn’t really want to do my usual field route and tag on another mile so I thought I’d go to the fields past the churchyard that me and Shaun have walked over many times, if I could find them on my own.

So I ran down the hill to the beats of Audiofuel and went through the churchyard, feeling glad that Shaun didn’t buy the house overlooking the dead people and I find the gate that leads through to the level crossing

and there’s no trains coming from the right

or from the left

and then I’m on the slippery stones

but I manage not to fall over and then I’m on the bridge

and there’s water and everything

and then I have to go over a stile

and I manage to get over it all by myself and not fall over into the mud and in the field is a horse

and a little horse

and then there’s another stile

and another field

and another bridge

and I run round the field and when I get halfway round the field I think this is the field that me and Shaun came in before where we saw all the birds on the phone wire but we came from a different direction and now I’m confused and I think if I carry on going round, it’s not going to be four miles but I carry on going and then I’m back to the bridge and I go over the bridge and there’s a nice blue sky

which makes a change from the grey skies and wind and rain we seem to have had for ever and I get back to the field where the horses live and they’re even nearer than they were before

and the big horse comes to say hello or have you got anything more interesting than grass I can eat please?

but I haven’t got anything more interesting for him to eat than grass and I stop to stroke the horse but I’m a bit scared as I haven’t been in the same field as a horse for years and they’re usually on the other side of a fence and I wonder if countryside horses are fierce and bark a lot and I decide that no, that’s only countryside dogs that do that and I carry on running and the horse doesn’t start barking at me and I go past a stile and wonder if that’s the stile I came over but I think it’s far too near and I go to the end of the field and I see the bridge

and I think what’s the bridge doing over there? and so I go back the way I came and go over the stile and over the bridge and then I’m back on the slippery bit

and then I’m approaching the churchyard and there’s an old lady and a man going in and they hold the gate open for me and I say thank you and there’s people looking at graves in the churchyard and I don’t want to run through the churchyard when there’s people in there and so I walk through the dead people and I look over to my right and I see the village and I think what’s it doing over there? and I’ve gone a different way back and I’m round the corner from the bottom of the hill and I think I’ll have to run up the hill as I’ve done hardly any running on this run but I don’t even get as far as the bit where I usually get off my bike and push it but then I start running again and I get back to the house at 3.07 miles and I wonder if I’ve got another mile in me and I decide yes and so I carry on past the house and after half a mile I stop and turn round and go back and I get to the house at 3.96 miles and I think bloody hell, I’ll have to carry on going and I switch my Garmin off at 4 miles and turn back and on the house next door is a sign saying Happy Birthday, 70 today and I think no it isn’t and no I’m not and then I decide the sign probably wasn’t meant for me.

Stats:
Distance: 4.03 miles
Time: 55:09
Pace: 13:41 m/m
Calories: 345
Level crossings: 1
Trains: 0
Bridges: 2
Horses: 2
Little horses: 1
Barking horses: 0
Times gone past house: 2
Signs for 70 years olds: 1
Music:
Audiofuel

Drinking on a Sunday evening is something I like doing but whereas in London, getting up to go to work and getting paid for falling asleep and watching the clock tick round to 5:30 wasn’t a problem, drinking too much the night before when you work at home isn’t very conducive to productivity, especially when you can mess around on Facebook without fearing the sudden appearance of your boss over your shoulder.

So, the last two Sundays, I’ve gone without my bottle(s) of wine and therefore, the following morning, I’ve woken up fresh as a daisy, albeit a slightly wilted one, and actually got things done.

After I managed to run four miles on Saturday without stopping, I decided that this week I would do three, four and five miles; the three miler on the road, hopefully quicker than in a field, so this morning I got up at just before 7am with the plan to do three miles on the road but it’s still dark and I think, that doesn’t matter, I’m not planning on going anywhere for an hour anyway, but at 8 o’clock, it’s still dark and it’s raining and I don’t want to go on the road in the dark and the rain and I don’t want to go on the road at this time of day either as it’ll be full of school run mums who don’t know how to drive and so I decide to go over the field again and I put on my hi vis top and my trail shoes and go out into the wind and the rain and the cold and it’s not very eventful, just a couple of people with dogs and quite a few cars but luckily none of the school run mums run me over and I think how far away do they live that they have to drive their kids to school? as I don’t remember seeing loads of cars full of kids in London, just people walking their kids to school and I decide that countryside people are just lazy and that’s probably why countryside people look at me in shock when I tell them I don’t drive.

I do the 3 miles in a combination of walking and running but mostly running and I get back and I’m about a minute per mile quicker than I was on Saturday.  Hurrah.

Stats:
Distance: 3.01 miles
Time: 34:50
Pace: 11:35 m/m
Calories: 311  
Sunday bottles of wine: 0
Early mornings: 1
Still dark at 8 o’clocks: 1
People with dogs: 2
School run mums: lots
Lazy countryside people: all of them
Minutes per mile quicker: 1 
Music: 
The Cure
Foo Fighters
Oasis

I did run on Thursday.  I was going to round up my 2.94 mile route to 3 miles but when I got to 3 miles, I thought I might as well round it up to 5k and so I did but then when I got home, I was checking the Open University website for the millionth time that day to see if my TMA had been returned as it was six days late and lo! it was there.  And not only was it there but it said I got 80%.  Woo hoo.  So then I was too excited to blog and spent the rest of the day gloating on Facebook and Twitter and forgetting to look up humility in the dictionary.

And after celebrating by drinking lots of wine that evening, yesterday I was too tired to go to London for the Cardiacs meet up and so I stayed in and this morning I went out for 4 miles and I had planned to go through the field, then up the steep bit, then along the road until I got to two miles but the steep bit had been gated off and I didn’t know if I was allowed to climb over the gate and what if there were big barking fierce countryside dogs in there? and so I went through the other field and up the road for two miles and then turned round and came back and I got home and I’d done the longest run I’ve done for months and so that means that this week I’ve run 10 miles which is the most I’ve done for months and months and months, although I have got really really slow.  And I mean proper slow.

Stats:
Distance: 4.06 miles
Time: 51:16
Pace: 12:37 m/m
Calories: 375 
80%s: 1
Cardiacs meet ups gone to: 0
Gates blocking steep bits: 1
Really really proper slow runners: 1
Music: 
The Cure
Nine Inch Nails
The The